A Numbers Game in the Era of the SARS Pandemic
Claudewell S. Thomas, MD, MPH, DLFAPA, is an established psychiatrist who is currently retired ,, He received his medical degree in 1956 at SUNY Downstate College of Medicine and specializes in social psychiatry, public health psychiatry, and forensic psychiatry. Dr. Thomas was board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry... more
Over 200 million shots have been administered to Americans by the 92nd day of the Biden/Harris administration's presence in office. Unfortunately, there are nearly 6,700 new cases occurring every 1/2 hr to 1 hr. The politicization of needed public health measures such as distancing and masking assures the persistence of the pandemic even if there is a lockdown on entry of foreign visitors and Americans traveling abroad.
261557: This is the Minnesota Dept of Justice Prison subdivision identification number for Derek Chauvin, a former policeman and training officer of the Minneapolis Police Force, who is now confined in relative isolation for his own safety until sentencing in June. There is an opportunity for appeal but not much likelihood of success. There are three officers, his trainees, who are under indictment and coming to trial. The failure of Chauvin to display a human face (pleading the Fifth) probably eliminated his one chance of creating a single doubt which would have resulted in a hung jury and acquittal.
The matter of systemic racism in policing and indeed the whole structure of administrative justice is a critical inflection point for America. The fear of a majority nonwhite America, the stereotypical characterization of minorities, the fear of the poor (working and otherwise), and the role of locally administered policing in holding the thin blue line is behind much of training. Thus the education which SARS-CoV-2 should induce about the brotherhood of man is not occurring. There is a reason why so much brutality is displayed in the context of training (Rodney King through George Floyd and Daunte Wright).
