is that it doesn't work, by definition. That's why they call it magical. Now that Brazilian mini-Trump Jair Bolsonaro is sick with Covid-19 -- though still throwing in some magical thinking about hydroxychloroquine -- his months long dismissal of the virus as "just a little flu" and his continual urging that Brazilians simply ignore it looks, well, completely idiotic.
The officially reported death toll from the virus in Brazil is over 66,000 but we know that is a gross understatement. Aerial photographs show mass graves, and we know that poor Brazilians have little access to health care and most certainly do not receive critical hospital care in the present circumstances. People are undoubtedly dying by the thousands in the favelas uncared for and unreported.
What is happening now in Texas and Arizona threatens very soon to overwhelm the hospitals there, even in our wealthiest of nations. Then, even here, people will die without recourse to medical care and, in many cases no doubt, unreported. We know that happened in New York and New Jersey, where ambulance crews found people dead in their apartments and in New Jersey, where authorities reported over 2,100 deaths on June 25 that were deemed "probable" but had not been attributed to the virus. Again, deaths are not the sole, or even necessarily the most important measure of the magnitude of harm caused by the virus.
Getting sick and almost dying was what it took to get Boris Johnson to take this seriously. We'll see what affect it has on Bolsonaro. Draw your own conclusions about the United States. And no, that observation does not mean I am wishing it on anybody. But having a conscience distinguishes me from at least one other person I can think of.
Also, Mark Sumner "does" Bolsonaro so I don't have to.
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One of my closest friends, in Arkansas, just came down with a 103.8 fever and got tested. Positive. She was at the house of a "friend" a week ago, and the "friend" failed to tell her she'd tested positive. That's not a friend, is it?
My friend supports Shitler; she vaguely says she thinks he'll "do good things for the country," though she doesn't specify what. So far, what he's done is to deny COVID-19 as a problem so that her Republican governor, Asa Hutchinson, probably did not take it seriously either. I don't see that as a good thing. I hope she'll be okay. I told her about the breathing exercises recommended by JK Rowling that seem to help.
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