The Boobla’s pandemic prevention plan:
My twin recently told me I should run for office this year after the state of Washington cancelled the need for candidates to collect signatures to get on the ballot. It’s too late in the process to get any name recognition starting as an average nobody and under a shelter in place order where I’d be stuck waging an online campaign from scratch. Anyways, 2022 would be better, if I survive this of course. Buys some time for a vaccine for Covid19, plus the political ramifications of this pandemic and economic depression won’t truly be felt until 2022 going forward. Being that both the GOP and Dems have fucked up their pandemic response, whether intentionally because both parties are capitalist or due to incompetence, there will be a lot of outrage in 2022 and any candidate who actually puts out a policy platform for pandemics will likely be taken seriously in the near future, and have lots of popularity. Also, this won’t be the last pandemic from a zootonic virus. Throw in melting permafrost unleashing viruses that have been frozen for millions of years, it’ll be super critical for political candidates to not only lay out healthcare plans like M4A, but also plans specifically for preventing and responding to pandemics. If I am to survive this current pandemic and I decide to run for office in 2022, here is a general outline of what my pandemic policy platform would be.
Pandemic prevention:
– Halt and reverse deforestation. Many zootonic (animal viruses) are a result of deforestation. Halting and even reversing deforestation can prevent animal viruses from jumping to humans by keeping them deep in the forests where there is much less interaction between the host species and humans.
– End industrial animal agriculture. Factory farming and animal agriculture provide animal viruses much more interaction with humans, thus enabling them more opportunities to mutate again and again until they get the right formula for making the jump to humans and human to human transmission. As bad as Covid19 is, we are immensely lucky that the Bird Flu, with its 50% mortality rate, has not mutated yet into a form where it can spread human to human.
– Abolish the suburbs and end/reverse urban sprawl. Urban sprawl and suburbs leads to further destruction of ecosystems, pushing species that used to live in the urban areas to ecosystems they aren’t familiar with. Species that humans have frequent contact with in urban areas thus interact with species they don’t normally interact with, leading to viruses jumping to them and then to humans. That’s not to mention more humans interacting with species they don’t normally interact with, thus enabling jumping of viruses.
– Develop sustainable food systems. Urban neighborhood permaculture, urban food forests, agroforestry, aquaponics etc. Sustainable food systems would allow cities to be able to feed themselves within city boundaries, therefore reducing the amount of ecosystems destroyed to make way for industrial animal agriculture. It also makes cities more resilient, to where in the event there is a virus outbreak somewhere, all cities can shut down quickly while being able to feed themselves, thus keeping the virus out and minimizing its spread, not only saving lives but helping to buy more time for a vaccine.
– Centralized airline hubs. Today’s P2P (Point to point) model means there are flights from everywhere to everywhere. The travel industry, as good as its social benefits are (in my opinion, traveling is awesome) will always be what spreads a virus. You can’t really stop that, but by bringing back the hub model, where there’s a few major large airports that act as central hubs, one can reduce how fast a virus spreads. So for Covid19, instead of every city in China having direct flights to every city in the U.S, China would have one major hub airport that connects to all the U.S cities. All Chinese cities would fly to that central hub, then catch a connecting flight to the U.S. Same for the U.S, instead of all cities having flights to all Chinese cities, you could have one airport (say you take mine, Sea-Tac) that all U.S passengers fly into, then catch a connecting flight to all the Chinese cities. That way, if a virus breaks out, it’s easier to contain because you know where it is and where it’ll spread from.
– More legroom & seat width, bar glass shields on planes. Most major airlines in the world today have a seat pitch (legroom) of 30 inches, and seat width of 17-18 inches (depends on whether it’s a Boeing or Airbus plane). While not perfect, nothing is, legroom on planes should be added by four inches to 34 inches in economy class. 34 inches is the rare but gold standard of economy class, on JetBlue and the Emirates A380’s. The Boeing 787 was built to be a 2-4-2 setup in economy with comfortable 19 inch wide seats, but all airlines that fly it turned it into a 3-3-3 setup with the minimum 17 inch wide seats. The new Boeing 777X planes are going to be 3-4-3 at 17.5 inch wide seats, even though the original 777 was built to be 3-3-3 at 18.5 inch wide seats. Seat width should be mandated to be 18 inches on single aisle jets and 18.5 inches on twin aisle jets. On the back of every seat should be a bar glass shield, as has been proposed by I believe Lufthansa. These glass shields should also extend out between seats over the armrests. These three things would space out the rows and seats, while also blocking as much as possible breath from going person to person. As much flying as there is today, it’s still actually a small minority of people in the world who have flown. About 10% of the population has flown, most of whom are middle to upper class people. These policies would reduce passenger capacity in economy class, so prices would be raised a little bit, but those who fly frequently are those with money anyways. Even myself, who loves flying and traveling, am lucky to fly just once a year due to being poor. Higher prices wouldn’t hurt me since I have to save up lots anyways to afford my now seemingly annual big sporting event trip (Men’s Final Four 2017, WrestleMania 2019, Rose Bowl 2020).
– Early, immediate and preventive travel shutdowns. When a country shuts itself down, as China did with Covid19, close down effective immediately any and all travel to/from that country and any country that shares a land or sea border with it. Even when Trump had “banned” travel from China, there were people from non-Wuhan parts of China that were catching connecting flights in Japan to the U.S, then testing positive shortly after arriving. When a virus breaks out in a country, it is most likely to first spread to the neighboring countries, as neighbor countries will most often be frequent travel destinations of the other. Thus to keep novel viruses contained, it’s vital to limit travel to/from infected regions as much as possible. As a USian, I can tell you that there will be times where it is the U.S that must be quarantined from the world, not just China, as the infamous Spanish Flu and the 2009 Swine Flu both originated here. There are 1.7 million animal viruses that can be harmful to humans if they made the jump, and almost certainly there are animal viruses here in the U.S that don’t exist elsewhere, as every continent and ecosystem and bioregion etc have different species thus different viruses.
– Within 72 hours of closure of travel to/from virus outbreak area, close down all international travel to countries who haven’t stopped all travel from virus area. As we saw with New York and generally the U.S, most of the cases didn’t come from China but rather Europe. Europe isn’t really antagonistic towards China like the U.S, and hard hit Italy is a major partner in China’s Belt and Road initiative, thus there was no travel “ban” against China by Europe. It spread to China’s BRI partner Italy, who then spread it to Europe and the U.S, and by the time they realized they had a major problem, it was too late for any travel restrictions to work. Cat was out of the bag, so to speak, and the global pandemic was on. When a novel virus breaks out, and it is bad enough that the country with the outbreak shuts itself down, any country that doesn’t stop any and all travel from said country within the first 72 hours following the shutdown, will have travel from itself stopped. With airplane travel and high speed rail and cruise ships and freeways etc enabling mass rapid movement of people across the planet, travel bans don’t really stop a virus, but they can play a role in slowing it down, lessening the amount of people hurt by it and buying time for virology people to study it and for treatments and vaccines to be developed.
– Quarantine hotels. When there’s a new virus outbreak in another country, the very last thing you should be doing is sending special flights to get your citizens out of there quickly, because you risk bringing it home. Have international solidarity, send medical help if requested, and trust the local govt to take care of your citizens, while reassuring them you’ll take care of their citizens that are stranded in the U.S. Setup quarantine hotels in the infected country for your citizens that wish to come home. Passengers are tested and screened when they arrive at the hotel, they stay quarantined for the recommended time, then get tested and screened again the day before their rescue flight home. Setup quarantine hotels here as well. When your passengers from the infected country land back in the U.S, they quarantine again for the recommended time. They must test and screen negative for seven consecutive days before they are allowed to rejoin the public at large. This is to prevent rescue flights from bringing a novel virus here, as happened with Trump when infected citizens were flown on flights with healthy people out of Wuhan after the city had already shut down. China never shut down all travel across all of China, but whenever a full lockdown happens, as China did in Wuhan, then there is to be no rescue flights whatsoever, even with quarantine hotels, out of such city.
– Increase CDC budget from $100 billion to $1 trillion. The U.S currently spends over $3 trillion a year on healthcare. Under a perfectly implemented @Yungneocon (twitter’s best male degrowther/anarchist) healthcare plan (which I’ll explain in a different healthcare system blog post), healthcare spending would be reduced by at least 66%, meaning we’d save over $2 trillion most likely on healthcare. Use that freed up money to expand the CDC (Center for Disease and Control). Have the CDC setup virus research and vaccine research centers in every state and at every university. Have the CDC setup or help fund virus research and vaccine research centers in every country. This would allow more research on more zootonic viruses, earlier detection of possible emerging threats, and more vaccines developed before an outbreak happens, thus quicker vaccination of the population when a virus breaks out, leading to less sick and less death.
– Ban the development and research into biological weapons. That kind of explains itself, so yea.
– Degrowth. Implement degrowth policies to the fullest extent, as doing so would cut global emissions by over 90% in short order. Give everyone azolla to grow in fresh water, aka azolla for all. Azolla is a mean machine at drawing down carbon from the atmosphere, and when it matures it can be turned into soil, thus reversing soil degradation and replenishing and growing more top soil. However, when the azolla matures, you have to turn it into soil quickly within days because azolla is always doubling. If everyone grows azolla and it matures, there’s a point at which we can’t let it double again otherwise it’ll suck down so much carbon we end up with a possible ice age. @BuildSoil on twitter is the expert on azolla. Rewilding and restoration of lands via land reparations to the indigenous. Degrowth combined with azolla for all combined with land reparations to the indigenous will stabilize and stop climate change, thus keeping the unknown viruses in the permafrost frozen. We absolutely do not under any circumstance want those viruses getting out.
So yea, that’s my general outline for a pandemic prevention plan platform, were I to run for office in the coming years. Anyways feel free to recommend something and yea. My next post will be my pandemic response plan, in the inevitable event of future global pandemics, because for those who get through this, it won’t be our last rodeo with zootonic (there’s I think 12 different bat coronaviruses, we’re on the third, first was Sars 1, then MERS, now Sars2-Covid19 oh and the dreaded monster, a mutated Bird Flu that spreads human to human) or even worse, permafrost viruses due to climate change. Stay safe, stay healthy, wear a mask (especially all you white people!!!)
Boobla’s pandemic response plan:
Phase one for 90 days:
– In house lockdown Wuhan style
– Door to door mass testing to find the asymptomatic and mild cases
– Temporary field hospitals to treat the mild so they don’t become severe cases at home/have eyes on the mild 24/7 to ensure they don’t get worse. Special quarantine hotels to isolate the asymptomatic
– Nationalize the ride share drivers, double their pay, use them for at home delivery of food and care packages
– Curbside pickup of groceries 24/7. 24/7 allows for less traffic at any given time, and limits the number of workers needed in store at any given time, thus hopefully lessening the spread of the virus
– Mask wearing for all employees
– Nationalize factories, mass produce N95 masks and PPE
– Contact tracing system setup
– $2k a month UBI funded by a ground rent tax (UBI is permanent), cancellation of rent, M4A (I would say house the homeless in hotels etc but this plan obviously assumes I’ve been elected and am in power, thus homelessness would be abolished/the homeless have already been housed prior to the pandemic)
– Get R0 to 0.1 if possible, if not, get it below 0.5 within the first 30 days and keep it there for the duration of phase one, thus crushing the number of new cases
Phase two for 30 days:
– Stay at home shelter in place (current blue state policy)
– Leave your home only for grocery store shopping and outdoor exercise
– Close every other street for pedestrian use to encourage physical distancing
– Turn all golf courses into parks
– Care packages for every household that includes one N95 mask per person per day for universal mask wearing when out of the house
– Keep R0 below 0.5
Phase three for 30 days:
– Lifting of stay at home shelter in place
– Small gatherings up to 25 people
– Outdoor restaurants, outdoor jobs, outdoor school classes and facilities
– Universal mask wearing out of the house
– Keep R0 below 0.8
Phase four for 30 days:
– Universal mask wearing out of the house
– Resumption of recreational sports that one can reasonably perform with a mask on
– Most jobs reopen but wearing masks
– Normal schools reopen with masks, screenings, temp checks etc
– Gatherings up to 1,000 people with masks and gloves
– Keep R0 below or at 1.0
Phase five until virus gone or vaccine eradicates it:
– Full normal reopening but with universal mask wearing out of the house
– Major sports and large events with crowds but with masks and gloves
– Keep R0 below 1.5, keep any case from doubling
So yea, that’s my outline for a pandemic response plan. If applied during the current times with Covid19, Seattle and Washington state would’ve began phase one for 90 days when our first case was discovered in late January. Cases would’ve gone up for the first few weeks of February (with adequate testing unlike what we’ve had) then halved 2-4 times in March and halved another 2-4 times on top of that in April. As well as Inslee has done compared to other governors, under this plan our cases and deaths would be far lower, and the UBI would’ve allowed everyone to stay home. We’d be in phase two now here in May with a much lower rate of transmission. U.S total deaths would be under 10k probably even lower because if I was in charge, I would’ve just shut everything down the moment China shut Wuhan and Hubei province down, because if I know one thing, China wants to replace the U.S as the world’s #1 global superpower and they aren’t going to shut down and destroy their own economy and delay their reclaiming of world’s top power unless they have literally no other option. If China on their own terms willingly brings its own economy to a screeching halt, it’s a damn good idea for the rest of the world to quickly follow suit. Anyways so yea, too bad we have Trump and Pelosi and Cuomo and heck even the European countries are reopening too quickly. Welp. Us white people of European descent are so incompetent even though we don’t have to be. That’s why the East Asian tigers of China, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Vietnam, Taiwan etc are going to dominate the rest of the 21st century, barring the old European and Five Eyes powers starting World War 3 to not so much keep their spot atop the global power structure, but to say if we can’t be at the top, nobody can, and thus yeah I’ll stop here you know where I’m going with this. Bleh. Some world.
Stay safe, stay healthy, and wear masks (especially all you white people!!!)
Boobla’s CDC:
– Every university has a virus research lab
– Every university has a vaccine lab
– Every state has a N95 mask and PPE making factory
– Work with other countries to fund and set up virus and vaccine research labs
– Every country studies their respective animal viruses and create needed vaccines
– Global collaboration to share research
– If virus breaks out, every state and country mass produces the vaccine if one is available to ensure quickest possible rollout of vaccination program
– If virus breaks out before a vaccine has been found, every vaccine lab in the world drops what they’re doing and immediately begins process of trying to find a potential vaccine
adamkendall2 