Community Chat

[SeaMaiden]

Garrett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, was prescient not only about the impact of H.I.V. but also about the emergence and global spread of more contagious pathogens.

Laurie Garrett, the prophet of this pandemic, expects years of death and “collective rage.”

This is an excerpt from a New York Times article May 2, 2020.

She saw it coming.  Steady yourself. Her crystal ball is dark.

 “We need either a cure or a vaccine.”

But she can’t envision that vaccine anytime in the next year, while Covid-19 will remain a crisis much longer than that.

“I’ve been telling everybody that my event horizon is about 36 months, and that’s my best-case scenario,” she said.

“I’m quite certain that this is going to go in waves,” she added. “It won’t be a tsunami that comes across America all at once and then retreats all at once. It will be micro-waves that shoot up in Des Moines and then in New Orleans and then in Houston and so on, and it’s going to affect how people think about all kinds of things.”

They’ll re-evaluate the importance of travel. They’ll reassess their use of mass transit. They’ll revisit the need for face-to-face business meetings. They’ll reappraise having their kids go to college out of state

So, I asked, is “back to normal,” a phrase that so many people cling to, a fantasy?

“This is history right in front of us,” Garrett said. “Did we go ‘back to normal’ after 9/11? No. We created a whole new normal. We securitized the United States. We turned into an antiterror state. And it affected everything. We couldn’t go into a building without showing ID and walking through a metal detector, and couldn’t get on airplanes the same way ever again. That’s what’s going to happen with this.”

Not the metal detectors, but a seismic shift in what we expect, in what we endure, in how we adapt.Maybe in political engagement, too, Garrett said.

If America enters the next wave of coronavirus infections “with the wealthy having gotten somehow wealthier off this pandemic by hedging, by shorting, by doing all the nasty things that they do, and we come out of our rabbit holes and realize, ‘Oh, my God, it’s not just that everyone I love is unemployed or underemployed and can’t make their maintenance or their mortgage payments or their rent payments, but now all of a sudden those jerks that were flying around in private helicopters are now flying on private personal jets and they own an island that they go to and they don’t care whether or not our streets are safe,’ then I think we could have massive political disruption.”

“Just as we come out of our holes and see what 25 percent unemployment looks like,” she said, “we may also see what collective rage looks

[rms1954]

Shouldn't be spreading "prophet" stuff.  

[Boomernichols]

@SeaMaiden Laurie speaks the truth, regardless of how dark and sinister it my appear.  I also heard that Suze Orman says we all need to rethink our spending and have an eight month cushion?????????

[Kachina624]

I don't know when this woman made her prediction but a global pandemic has been predicted for years and years.  It's unlikely she was the first.

[SeaMaiden]

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@rms1954 wrote:

Shouldn't be spreading "prophet" stuff.  

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@rms1954  She is speaking TRUTH....hard to find when other officials speak of  only miracles 

[mom2four0418]

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@Kachina624 wrote:

I don't know when this woman made her prediction but a global pandemic has been predicted for years and years.  It's unlikely she was the first.

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1994

[SeaMaiden]

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@Boomernichols wrote:

@SeaMaiden Laurie speaks the truth, regardless of how dark and sinister it my appear.  I also heard that Suze Orman says we all need to rethink our spending and have an eight month cushion?????????

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 Yes, Lauri says what we do not want to hear....what our officials do not tell us....THE TRUTH.

Everyone should have at least 6 months worth of salary put aside for an emergency. Most people do not...that is reality. That is the truth. 

[Porcelain]

I think one thing that is really going to get folks here mad is that we are making ourselves an international pariah. Other countries are well on their way back to normality because they've taken the situation seriously at the national level. They are going to be fine because of that. We haven't. In fact some Americans seem to be intentionally spreading the virus to others by going out and not respecting guidelines.

While their countries get back to normal, they are going to ban Americans from visiting. They are going to stop coming here on vacation. They are going to want nothing to do with us. And they are going to get on with their lives and with rebuilding their own economies while ours just gets worse.

But I don't think a fix has to wait three years. We can take many steps to get back on track far sooner than that. And I believe a majority of us will.

[Mom2Dogs]

@SeaMaiden   With out hope we have nothing.

[SuhseK]

She speaks her truth!

Is there good on focusing, on the darkest of possible scenarios?

Hole up In our corners and dwell on worst case scenarios?

I don't see it!