The Defining Moment In a national crisis

It's about 8:55 a.m. on Friday 03/27/2020

Good Morning Y'all,

These are just my observations from my twisted point of view where I am walking 45 degree to the sidewalk and You aren't.

My topic today is this. In just about every crisis there is defining moment or a defining act that makes a lot of people remember the moment. It's one of those "Where were you when this happened", kind of things. Obviously depending upon your generation, some of you weren't born when certain things happened, however the point remains. Once the date is burned in our consciousness , the collective memory remembers it forever.

• Where were you on 09/11/2001?
• Where were you on 11/22/1963?
• Where were you on December 7th, 1941
• Where were you on January 28, 1986 ?

For example, During the tragedy in New Orleans that was hurricane Katrina , a hero emerged from the chaos named Lt. General Russell Honore`. Almost everybody remembers him coming on the scene , telling the soldiers to put their guns down and help these people, this aint no war zone. The link below opens a youtube video about this incident.

Lt General Russell Honore`

In the civil rights movement there was Dr. King spoke about his dream.

I have a dream speech

during World War II Harry Truman said "The buck stops here."

The buck stops here

President Roosevelt said "All we have to fear is fear itself

All we have to fear is fear itself

So have we ever faced ANYTHING that is as big of a culture shock as this pandemic in our modern era? Have we faced anything that strained our consciousness to the limit the way this has? I've heard a lot of things this month that I've not heard in person ever before. I've seen a lot of reporting and heard the talking heads wondering out loud about subjects that you would just assume are handled in advance planning or are modeled and it's something we should have prepared for thousands of times.

It turns out that in this crisis we have fallen very short in a lot of ways. For example some very smart people in the medical field are learning how to share a ventilator between patients so that you can use one ventilateur to serve 2 critically ill patients at the same time. It has limitations such as both patients must be on the same settings and it is very hard to get the pressure to be the same but it seems to be something bad may help to solve a shortage. Who knew we would have a shortage a ventilators like the one that is predicted to happen within 30 days. Who knew I would know that N-95 is a model number of a type of mask that nurses and etc will need? Why do I need to know that?

It seems to me that we are coming up on what could be best described as a Mad Max scenario. The states are bidding against each other for personal protective equipment. One governor said he discovered that one of his biggest rivals for equipment (that he was bidding on) was the federal Emergency Management Agency.

Who would have predicted that FEMA would be bidding against a state for personal protective equipment for first responders, doctors, nurses and others. There is a now bed shortage predicted that is unrivaled in history. A lot of the experts are saying that our hospital capacity which is almost full now, will be overwhelmed within 30 days and we need to at minimum triple our current capacity of ICU beds. Triple. I don't think anybody saw that coming. Then they said its likely higher than that! Higher than Triple? Crap.

The National Guard and the military medical commands of all of the United States military services are conducting voluntary recalls of retired nurses and doctors worldwide. To be clear, right now it is voluntary. I can envision a scenario where people that retired from the military would be recalled to service, in a similar fashion that people that want to retire are prevented from doing so under stop loss orders. I reckon that's not the way we want it to be, however it may be one of the only ways we have to staff A shortage this severe, and the President has the authority to do so. If you've ever served you are subject to recall.

Personally I believe that recall orders from the president and from each service is forthcoming. I think that folks that have been out of the military for a long time could be recalled under direct orders from the president. They are building mash type hospital beds everywhere you look in the high volume infection states right now. I think it is only a matter of time before you start to see that where you live if you aren't seeing it now.

I saw an interview with the commanding general of the army corps of engineers who talked about keeping things at its most simple, with the  basis being to let out contracts working with independent contractors, with the the government of each state identifying and using things like dorm rooms, hotel rooms, convention centers, sports stadiums and the like in turning them into either hospital beds for patients.

The man's name was Lt. General Todd Schonite, and he is the commanding general of the army corps of engineers. During this interview he said that currently we do not have the ability nor the capacity to be complicated and that we cannot build from the ground up hospitals. The best we can do is to convert existing structures into negative pressure rooms that will serve the same purpose on a temporary basis. He talked about building metal pole structures on tennis courts or on places like on soccer fields. He talked about converting college dorm rooms into negative pressure ICU facilities. He said it in such a way that it was believable. Is this our moment? Does this define the crisis? Somehow I do not believe that president trump's quote that  "It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear”, and because of that I'm still waiting to hear from that leader who will step up and rise to the occasion and give us that defining moment. I don't think I've heard it yet, I don't think I've heard anyone say it yet and if you have I like to know what it was.

Thankx,

BigMike