In February, I was hit by a staph infection that had spread to the blood. This was the first serious illness of my adult life. Before this infection, I had been free of any illness more serious than the occasional cold or seasonal flu. I was really knocked off my feet and had to be hospitalized.
This was no fun. But no evil is without positive features. I got to see the medical system for the first time in my adult life from the inside. At least here on the West Coast, the medical system is staffed by a mix of many nationalities with a bias toward the Far East — the very group that President Trump with his racist attacks on the “Chinese virus” has made a target of his demagoguery. I was served by medical workers from France, the People’s Republic of China, Vietnam, the Philippines, and other nations.
Then as fate would have it in one those bizarre coincidences that life occasionally brings, the whole world was swept by the ghastly COVID-19 pandemic. Financial markets crashed and then much of the global economy was shut down including industrial production and world trade. Most importantly, employment entered a downward spiral. More than 10 million people in the U.S. have been forced to apply for unemployment insurance within two weeks, implying double-digit Depression levels of unemployment.
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