[vienna]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

Is there a California, Chinese connection? Has anyone noticed how well California is doing? What did Gavin know and when did he know it!?

Originally Posted by Mr Quatro

It is a little bit different, uh?

San Fran is the closest to NY City

LA is all sprawled out

The very fact that New York state was so hard hit is one of the reasons I posted a while back about something being wonky about the distribution figures on Covid-19 cases. Considering the West Coast of the US is the main entry point from Asia in general and China in particular, it would be expected Washington, Oregon, and California would be hit the earliest and the hardest; Washington did get hit early and hard, Oregon seemed to be not badly affected, and California did get hit hard, but not as soon as Washington; when you take into account the massive tourism into California and Washington from China and S. Korea, the very heavy business travel from those same places, and add in the huge Chinese and Korean populations residing on the West Coast, particularly in CA, it would seem logical that the West Coast would be the first and hardest hit; instead, the East Coast got hit first,a bit of a puzzler, in much the same way as Italy being the hardest hit in the early days of the pandemic. A logical reasoning for New York State's very high infection rate could be attributed to its proximity geographically to Italy (NY State has a very large Italian population) but, then , a question arises as to why Italy got hit so hard and quickly out of all the other Euro countries? There's an odd skew in the progression and migration of the Covid-19 virus; it may be significant of something or nothing at all, but it is odd...

As for Newsom, he is a self made millionaire who created a number of very successful businesses and has shown an ability to analyze situations and assess trends; he came up in a single parent family (it is said his mom worked three jobs to support herself and her two children) and he had to deal with dyslexia while attending school; no silver spoon for him. I really didn't know much about him, since he was a mainly Northern California figure; I didn't expect much from him when the whole pandemic started to hit, but he has been a surprise; he is remarkably proactive in his approach, looking not only for solutions to the problem, but, also, seeking out possible future flaws or hindrances and planning to address them before they might come up; I kind of expected the usual reactive approach of most politicians where they wait to see which way the winds blow, measure the political costs, and then react, leaving them most often behind the curve of a problem instead of on it or ahead of it; he seems to be not only looking for solutions in the near term, he is also considering options if a selected solution doesn't pan out as desired and he seems to be also planing for future contingencies; he also has exhibited the ability to pivot and adapt as needs be; while other Governors and politicians fretted over political concerns, Newsom did what he was elected to do: find solutions to address the needs of all of the citizens of his state regardless of what one or another party or faction may say...

Newsom is also bolstered by a state where there have been so many natural disasters and man-made problems over the decades that preparedness is perhaps more ingrained than in other places; there is a well-developed infrastructure of emergency response in CA making it a bit easier to deal with most exigencies as they happen; where other states might have to build from scratch, CA can usually adapt existing resources to fix a situation...

I don't know anything about the current leadership of Washington State, but their swift actions in trying to contain the spread of the virus in its early stages indicates they also have some sort of mechanism for dealing with crises...

Anyone who has ever had an old school sports coach, shop teacher, or has been in the military knows the Five P's: Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance (the military often adds in a couple of more colorful P's to the adage) and we are seeing the practical demonstration of the effectiveness of the Five P's in places where the virus is being mitigated; we are also seeing the often tragic results of "leadership" not prepared or capable of addressing and/or solving even the most basic problems as they come up...

Newsom may not even be that good a Governor; he's basically only doing what would be expected of a competent Governor, so maybe he's what should be considered or hoped for as "average"...

...or maybe he looks so good because, when comparison is made with other "leaders", they are just so damn awful...


As a side note regarding the temporary burial of corpses on Hart Island, the reason they aren't just cremated may be due to legal strictures in the City, County, or State; I recall, aways back, there was a backlog of corpses in the LA County Morgue and the same question came up about cremation; IIRC, the main argument against cremation was the laws mandated a body could only be disposed of by the discretion of the County only after an exhaustive attempt to find next of kin to claim a body; only after it is thoroughly and reasonably certified there is no family to lay claim, then, and only then, is the County allowed to cremate and bury the ashes; part of the reasoning was economic: if a family member can be found, the County doesn't have to foot the bill for the burial and may, in fact, be able to bill the family for morgue services; another reason has to do with religion and customs: if a corpse is cremated and a family member steps forward, there have been cases where, due to religious strictures or other customs, families have sued based on claims the County didn't exercise due diligence in their search for family and the cremation violated the families religious rights; so there are financial and political reasons why a County would want to keep a corpse intact as long as possible...





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