ASIAN FLU PANDEMIC OF 1957

From Worldometer,  COVID-19 new deaths:

           DAY USA   WORLD   Brazil   India   South Africa

June      1      638     3189          480      223         40

              2      730     3053          732      200         22
              3    1134    4669         1232      221         50
             4     1083    4928         1269      259         37
             5     1031    5511         1492      275         56
             6       975    4906         1008      286         60
             7       706    4253           910      297         44
             8       586    3157           813      266         82
             9     1093    4732         1185      246         82
           10       982    5163         1300      388         48
           11       904    4951         1261      394         74
           12       791    4603           843      389         70
           13       702    4229           890      309         69
           14       331    3263           598      321         57
           15       425    3415           729      395         88
           16       849    6592         1338    2006?       57
           17       809    5264         1209      341         49
           18       747    5123         1204      342         63
           19       719    5066         1221      366         94
           20       573    4428           968      307         46
           21       267    3338           601      426         53
           22       363    3880           748      312         61

Summary: Just another coronavirus day for the World.

Yesterday I said:

Donald Trump keeps saying that we are showing so many COVID-19 cases because we test more.  Here is a telling statistic:

• World total cases  = 9,039,459.....  USA total cases   = 2,256,657.... % cases  USA = 25%
• World total deaths = 469,604.......USA total deaths  =    122,247..... % deaths USA = 26%

I neglected to say that the U.S. has only 4% the world population.

Can you imagine this coming out of the mouth of the leader of the country?

"When you test -- when you do testing to that extent, you're going to find more people. You're going to find more cases. So I said to my people, slow the testing down, please."

That in itself was idiotic, but what about the immediate response from the White House, like, say, from his press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who said:  It was a comment that he made in jest.  Or from trade advisor Peter Navarro to CNN's Jake Tapper:  Come on now, Jake. You know it was tongue in cheek. Come on now. That was tongue in cheek. 

Got five minutes?  Hear them say the above.

Just shows how organized this White House is, for Trump in this interview chose not to say he was kidding, but later today said he was NOT kidding, he indeed wants his administration to slow testing.  Then today at a House hearing with Anthony Fauci, Robert Redfield, Brett Giroir and Stephen Hahn, they all said Trump DID NOT ever ask them to slow down testing, and, more so, they all remarked that we need MORE testing.  These are the people led by Trump directing our national effort to fight off COVID-19.  Where is the coordination?  Where is the unified leadership?  These doctors provide good science, but Donald Trump contumaciously rants and fumes with no other purpose than to get re-elected.

I started my historic/nostalgic series with 1958, more than two months ago.  Next, beginning a new path in reverse chronological order, 1957:

• Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch.  You previously had to physically do this.
• First frisbee.
• Dwight D. Eisenhower sworn in for his second term as U.S. President.

• Asian Flu Pandemic (H2N2 virus), first identified in Guizhou Province in China, kills 1 million people worldwide.  Current COVID-19 Pandemic up to 0.48 million deaths today (0.116 for USA, about the same today--right, with two waves).  World population in 1957:  2.8 billion.  Today, 7.6 billion, so the equivalent deaths today would be 2.7 million.  The stock market dropped 15%, but there was nothing close to an economic shutdown in the 1957/8 period.  I graduated from high school in 1958 and don't remember any kind of economic problem, and nothing registers in my mind about a pandemic then either.  The mortality rate of this H2N2 virus was 0.67%.  Our current coronavirus mortality rate will probably be lower than that, and maybe as low as 0.26%.  The seasonal flu is at 0.1%.  SO WHY THE GLOBAL CRISIS TODAY???  

• Second year of Eurovision Song Contest.
• S&P 500 Index first appearance.
• Elvis buys Graceland.

• Around the World in 80 Days wins Oscar.  Only got 72%/57% ratings from Rotten Tomatoes.
• UK announces that Singapore will gain self-rule after end of year.
• Brooklyn Dodgers will move to Los Angeles.

• A 42,000 Hydrogen Bomb accidentally falls from a U.S. bomber near Albuquerque.  Does not explode.
• The United Church of Christ is formed.
• The International Geophysical Year begins.
• Citroen production ends.

• John Lennon meets Paul McCartney.
• John Glenn flies from California to New York in 3 hours and 23 minutes, setting a new transcontinental speed record.
• Leave it to Beaver premieres.
• Sputnik I launched into orbit.  This is why I became an engineer.
• U.S. military sustains first combat fatality in Vietnam.
• Toyota begins exporting vehicles to the U.S.

• Sputnik 2 with dog Laika, but there is no way for a return.
• The laser is invented.  Nearly a decade later, my PhD thesis built a tunable laser before one could be purchased.
• American Bandstand goes national, and lived on for 3000 episodes.  Freddy Cannon held the the record for most appearances:  110.
• Senator Strom Thurmond sets record for longest filibuster, 24 hours and 18 minutes, against civil right bill, but the Civil Rights Act of 1957 is enacted.

• The Federation of Malaya gains independence from the UK.
• Ford introduces the Edsel.
• The NBC peacock is introduced.
• Indonesian President Sukarno survives a grenade attack and nationalizes 246 Dutch businesses.  326,000 Dutch nationals expelled.
• U.S. Vanguard rocket blows up on the launch pad.  This is why I became an engineer.

• First Boeing 707.
• Mao Zedong admits 800,000 class enemies liquidated between 1949 and 1954.  The current book I'm reading is Heaven Cracks, Earth Shakes, about this period.

Top songs of 1957 in ten minutes.  Elvis' All Shook Up was #1.

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