COVID-19: A New Project Apollo

My recent postings have been too technical, long and disjointed.  I hereby promise to better crystallize the essence, and let me begin by asking you to click on Worldometer to access the information I have been providing.  I'll also condense the summary of new deaths:

DAY     China   Italy   USA   Spain   Germany   S. Korea  WORLD

Apr  15         1    578   1558      324            97               3        6351

        16         ?    525   1796      318          139               4        6239
        17   1290    575   1338      298          151               1        6857

        18         ?    482   1090        41            74               2        4888
        19         ?    433   1117      410            10               2        4344
        20         ?    454   1202      399            64               2        4307
        21         ?    534   1481      430            86               1        5362
        22         ?    437     931      435          125               1        5008
        23         ?    464   1435      440            54               2        5033
        24         0?  420     718      367            78               0?      4200

Summary:

• Except for a slight uptick in Germany, new deaths declined in the World and all "worst-hit" countries.
• The new deaths figure for the USA was the lowest since April 3.
• Of the Nordic countries, Sweden had 131 new deaths, Denmark 9, Norway 5 and Finland 5.  On Monday I posted on how Sweden never took lock downs seriously and tried to keep its economy going, while the others went the quarantining route.
• China has apparently continued to be evasive.  The latest is a Hong Kong University study that the first wave of the outbreak by February 20 was not 55,000 cases, but 230,000.  Today???

I've long been thinking about how the world could work together to combat this novel coronavirus pandemic.  We haven't because of President Donald Trump.  But there is a simple solution.

Everyone must know something about the Manhattan Project (MP) of World War II to build atomic bombs and Project Apollo (PA) to land Man on the Moon.  I could have picked either one for vanquishing COVID-19.  However, MP eventually led to the potential for a nuclear winter, thus possibly wiping out Humanity.  PA was both a technological and political victory that ultimately ended the Cold War.  It cost the equivalent of $160 billion (2020 dollars) spread out over eleven years.  Appropriately enough, in Greek/Roman mythology, among many other roles he had, Apollo was god of diseases and healing.

The novel coronavirus is not even close to being as treacherous as Hitler conquering the world or the end of Humanity.  However, COVID-19 has awesomely crippled the world economy and will forever change human relations.  Just the U.S. has found $2.5 trillion to strike back, already 15 times more than the cost of Apollo.  While 3% of the world perished in WWII, this latest Pandemic has killed less than 0.027% of our world population, and, with the death curve already plateauing, at the very worst, perhaps 0.1% of us will die.

Suggesting a New Project Apollo (NPA) is dead on arrival, for there is no way that our present PUS (President of the United States) will even consider such a ridiculous proposition...to him.  We can't wait until November 3.  All this should have started months ago.

The best two hopes we had were covered in my postings of President Trump resigning for the good the people, followed by he himself becoming incapacitated with COVID-19.  I can't even fantasize that VP Pence will do anything imaginative.  However, if aliens from outer space (best I can do at this time) kidnap both Trump and Pence, of all the ironies, Nancy Pelosi becomes President of the United States.

How will President Pelosi proceed?  To begin, there is a sum of  $25 billion just appropriated by Congress for testing.  The next recovery package can cover whatever else is required.

What will the New Project Apollo do?

• The leader of the country takes full responsibility for:
• Testing:
• A billion 5-minute tests to cover the next year.
• A million contact tracers (maybe the U.S,. military) working with Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Google.
• A billion instant antibody tests, also for the next year.

• Vaccine development:
• Remember that we still don't have any vaccine for the SARS coronavirus, which was that pandemic of 2003, and COVID-19 is also a coronavirus.
• Also consider that we still don't have a vaccine for HIV
• or for the common cold.
• or for cancer.

• Integration of the national program into an international effort. The World needs to work in partnership to develop that vaccine, just what German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for yesterday.  Yes, the World Health Organization has been less than adequate in the past, but they are the key to insuring that the whole world is covered.  If anything provide additional funds.

That's it.  But as my books have noted, simple solutions are so difficult to realize.  Certainly, someone out there must have a better game plan than my aliens scheme.  It's in your hands.

With COVID-19 conquered, we can then work together for global warming and world peace.  By 2100 it could well be that that the value of this novel coronavirus was that it showed us a way to a safer and secure Planet Earth for Humanity.

It's Friday, and someone sent this to me.  She probably knew what I was most desperate for:

For this one, find the camel:

That should have been easy.  No gimmicks.  No tricks.

Ending the week with more nostalgic music.  Today, Top Songs of 1961.  What I remember most is a girlfriend arranging and paying for a night out in San Francisco for dinner and the opening of West Side Story.

I was one year from graduation.  Several of my close friends wanted to join President John Kennedy's Peace Corps, and the FBI came to me for character checks.  I had to do something similar, so I applied to help out the sugar industry in Hawaii.  They would be earning $99/month, while I would be getting $500/month.  They would be going to some marginal developing nation while I would be returning to Paradise.

I guess this is again getting extended, but here in 10 minutes are the top 30 songs to make you SMILE.  Frankly, I don't agree with this list, but that's because my mind is different from WatchMojo's.  My posting tomorrow will delve into why people think differently.  Oh well, here is a second ten minutes of songs to make you SMILE.

One reason to smile.  Captain Brett Crozier of the USS Theodore Roosevelt will return as commanding officer of this aircraft carrier.

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