A CNN headline recently read:  Former head of CDC believes that the Coronavirus came from a lab in Wuhan.  Below the headline it said that he gave no clear evidence.  But the disclaimer will not be important to most people who read the headline.  Many will believe that the virus came from a Chinese lab, so more reason to hate China.  They think that the head of the CDC must be telling the truth.  But lets look at the facts here.

Robert Redfield was the CDC director under Trump.  He is supposedly a very smart virologist.  But it is also crystal clear what he said is just his opinion and not something most scientists who looked into this agree with.  Redfield has a history of giving wrong opinions and facts.  He has been known to give fake graphs in scientific presentations and as a researcher of AIDS had touted a potential vaccine as effective.  This was not opinion shared by other scientists and it turns out we have no effective vaccine for HIV even today.

I think as the case of many people in the U.S. government, Redfield is attacking China to deflect blame for his own incompetence.  This is not as bad as calling the China virus or kung flu to deflect blame.  But this is not something he would have said if he had done is job well at the CDC.  Regardless of whether you believe China was transparent in the beginning, the truth is that the U.S. got its first case at the same date as South Korea.  Yet there is no pandemic in South Korea.  Or for that matter most places in Asia.  While South Korea went into action, our CDC under Redfield came up with inaccurate test kits.  When Germany offered to sell us test kits, our CDC refused the offer.  So that delay caused many lives.

As head of CDC, Redfield should have given accurate, consistent messages and directions to the public.  Yet in the beginning the CDC said wearing masks only prevent those with the virus from spreading to others, not preventing uninfected people from catching the virus.  There were also many times last year where Trump was giving false statements and Redfield did not fire back.  So Redfield has been incompetent and is not someone we should be listening to.

One thing that strike me the most was when Redfield talked about speaking to his Chinese counterpart early during the pandemic.  He said the Chinese scientist was crying because the death rate at that time in China was 5% of those infected, a very high death percentage.  I don't remember Redfield mention that he or any American official cried when over 500,000 Americans died from the virus.  If there is no empathy for the death of so many, why would there be concern for rhetoric that would open up more hate for Asian Americans?

 Received my second dose of vaccine 2 days ago.  Felt a little more sore than after the first dose and also more fatigue.  Slept a lot yesterday.  Feeling much better today so if no further side effects, then this has not been a bad experience.  The place where I got my shots have been even more efficient the second time.  I understand that we are getting near 3 million shots done a day in the U.S. and increasing.  So things are looking up.

But I still don't think we are out of the woods.  In a related story to the Asian discrimination situation, someone on our "neighborhood watch" site wrote that he/she did not trust that the vaccine will take care of this CCP man made virus!   At least one person responded by saying "CCP?  Crazy California People?" There are over 10 states with increasing cases, many of which are new variants.  Then there is the scene in Miami Beach where the police fired pepper spray to disperse maskless people breaking the curfew.  Florida cases are going up already but the numbers in Florida won't tell the whole story as the spring break people will increase the cases in their home states when they leave Florida.

Astra-Zeneca vaccine has been suspended in some countries in Europe due to scare about blood clots.  Scientists don't believe the rate of cases  among those vaccinated are more than those not vaccinated.  Without knowing all the numbers, I believe the scientists are probably right and that the vaccine is still safe.  But while the vaccine originally was approved for emergency use in Europe, I wonder why it has not ask for emergency use in the U.S.  And if it has not been approved in the U.S., why is it being sent to Canada and Mexico?

 If Asians don't think that we have a target on our backs, the shootings in Georgia should change that thought.  For weeks now prominent Asians and activists have gone on media highlighting the increased attacks on Asians in the past year.  There have been various statistics regarding increased in verbal and physical attacks against Asians.  But whatever the percentage increases are noted, I think they are lower than the actual numbers.  In particular verbal assaults are probably not reported by most Asians.  It is only because the physical assaults are increasing that more attentions are given to discrimination against Asians.

It seems that most perpetrators against Asians are cowards.  They tend to attack elderly people and women.  The shooter in Georgia is a coward and a liar.  He goes on a shooting spree against unarmed Asian women and then claimed that it was not a racial thing.  He claimed he did this because he is a sex addict and that these massage parlors seduced him.  You mean a sex addict is only tempted by women of  one race?   Even if that is the case, it is still a hate crime since he is blaming Asian women for his addiction to such an extent that he was only targeting them.

There is a long history of discrimination against Asian women based on sexual fetish or stereotype.  They are also thought of as low in morality.  This idea goes back to 1800s when mostly Chinese men came to the U.S.  As a result human traffickers brought women from China to work on brothels to serve the lonely Chinese workers.  But white men also went to these establishments.  So Americans claimed that Chinese women were of low morality and hurt the Christian value of the county!  The Page Act of 1875 banned Chinese women from coming to this country.  This was 7 years before the Chinese Exclusion Act which banned all Chinese.

Today there are still Asian women smuggled into the U.S. for sexual labor.  My own town had a case of Chinese women trafficking a few years ago.  Lisa Ling of CNN did a documentary on massage parlors in New York Chinatown last year.  None of the customers she saw going in these establishments were Asians.  So almost 150 years later,  Chinese women are still victims of these enterprises.  Now they are even victims of a fatal hate crime.  

There are so many wrongs related to this story.  How often are the customers of these businesses get jail time?  Robert Kraft got away with it.  This is not nation of moral superiority, as many Americans claim.  They voted in a president who is a serial adulterer, who paid for sex and bragged about attacking women.  The same ex-president is still calling the China virus last night so that more hate crimes against Asians will occur.  The perpetrator of this crime should be institutionalized but yet was able to buy a gun legally.  

I am rambling because so many things anger me at this time.  I hope more people will understand that being good loyal Americans will not take the target off our back.  We must continue to call attention that many people want harm to come to us, including those who have the platform to spew hate.  But realistically there are just too many crazy, racist people out there with guns.  We will just have to be vigilant all the time and try to protect our elderly and women as much as possible.

 One year ago yesterday was the first day that I started keeping track of COVID cases and deaths in the U.S.  At that time I thought I would be finished in a few months when the situation would be under control.  But a year later, I am still tracking the numbers and looking at the rise and fall of cases and deaths.   On March 13, 2020, there were 2,000 cases and 49 deaths in the U.S. related to COVID.  A national emergency was declared and all sports were shut down.  A year later the U.S. has over 30 million cases and over 540,000 deaths.  There is now optimism that the end maybe coming but I hope we don't let our guards down.

Yes, cases and deaths are declining.  Yes, vaccinations have been increasing and we may well have herd immunity by the summer.  Grandparents who has been vaccinated may hug their grandchildren again.  Biden thinks that we may have July 4th gatherings for bar-b-que this year.  But I am afraid these good news will cause people to be less careful.  I am afraid that people will carelessly gather on Memorial Day, even before July 4.  People may go on summer vacation in large numbers since they have been cooped up for a year.  What exactly will the impact of the new variants have on our immunity?

Some states have already opened up completely.  Texas have got rid of masks mandates.  The Texas Rangers will be allowed to have full capacity at their games.  Even here in California, with Governor Newsome under the pressure of a recall, is opening things up quickly.  High school sports have resumed.  Fall sports like football is joining winter sports now.  Even though with teachers getting vaccinated and protocol put in, I think the opening of schools will not be as safe as politicians acknowledge.  Italy is in lockdown again.  Despite the progress we have made, I have to cross my finger that we don't end up like Italy.  I think I said that last spring when Italy was the worst hit country.  Shortly after that, we overtook them!

 This blog is related to the previous one.  I said that I was not for a national minimum wage of $15 since the standard of living varies greatly from one area of the country to another.  Then a couple of GOP politicians made speeches against the wage increase which serves to make me more for the increase.

Both politicians said that they worked for minimum wages while in school and it was good enough to get them to where they are today.  I understand the allure of the self-made man.  But is the situation the same today?  I am probably a little older than these guys.  But let's assume that we worked for around the same wages back when we were young and they paid for their schooling like I did with medical school.  Back then, the average minimum wage was around $2.80 and my medical school tuition was a little over $3,000 a year.  Today the tuition at my alma mater is over $35,000, more than 11 times when I went there.  So to be able work at minimum wage and save for medical school, the comparable wage would have to be over $30 per hour.  I know that inflation is not as bad in most things as in education, but you get the idea.  So those two guys are actually making a case for increasing the minimum wage.

I can understand moderate Democrats who are in red states like Joe Manchin need to look like they are  preventing the progressives from jamming the minimum wage increase down the throat of the Republicans.  But I wonder how the people in poor states like Manchin's West Virginia feel about not getting an increase?

Then there is the unemployment benefits in the stimulus package.  Manchin was holding out for $300 instead of $4oo.  He finally gave in when the Democrats agree to $300 with the first $10,000 benefits not taxed.  I didn't know that unemployment was taxable.  If you are giving money to help people out, why are you taxing that money at all?

Contrast this with the lower tax rate of dividends and capital gains vs earned income.  Since I am retired, most of my income is from dividends and capital gains.  So I am glad that these profits are taxed at a lower rate than the money I made working before.  I am sure people richer than me pushed to pass these tax laws for their benefit.  But who is looking out for the people who needed the help of unemployment benefits?

 It looks like the Democrats are going to try to pass the 1.9 trillion stimulus bill regardless whether they get any Republican support.  The few GOP senators who want to participate want a bill of 6 billion.  This is way less than economists think would do any good.  There are some who think that 1.9 trillion is still not enough.  I am no economist so I don't know how much is the right amount.  But given the dire situation of many Americans, I think you have to go big, even if it is not bipartisan like Biden wants.

When Obama took over the recession in 2009, he tried to rally Republican support.  So his bail out and stimulus plans were not as big as he wanted.  It turned out, he got no GOP support anyway.  So it is foolish to think in this post Trump era, we are going to get more bipartisan.  It turned out that the stimulus Obama put in was less than optimal in retrospect.  Despite the outcry of Republicans against the bailouts, they claimed later that the recovery was too slow because not enough was done.   So there will be no satisfying the GOP no matter what.  Even Obamacare, which is very similar to Romneycare in Mass. has been attacked ad nauseum by the Republicans.  So I think Biden and the Democrats should seize the moment and pass what they want instead of waiting for a few Republicans to join them.

I do agree that the minimum wage bill is not included in the stimulus bill.  That bill will not help the dire situation right now and we should pass what is passable right away.  I don't know if $15 is a reasonable goal and whether that is good or bad for most people.  But I don't think it should be a national law to almost double the wage over a few years.  Here in California, the minimum wage is $14 starting this year.  Given the standard of living in California, it is justified.  But that should not be the same in states where the cost of living is much lower.  In fact, I think a study should be done in a few years to compare states with minimum wages higher than $15 vs those who are less and see how it affects the workers, the small business owners and the economy in general.  Then we can see whether higher minimum wages is better or not.

 I received my first dose of the Moderna vaccine yesterday.  So far I just have a sore arm and slight fatigue.  Interestingly, I have soreness on the same spot on the both arms even though I only got the shot on one arm.  The arm that got the shot was more sore but the other one had the same type of pain.

If the Johnson and Johnson vaccine was available and I can choose, I would have chosen Johnson.  The Johnson vaccine uses old technology for which side effects from that type of shots are well known and mild.  There has not been long term side effect from that technology.  The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines use new technology so we don't know for sure if there are long term side effects.  Plus, Johnson is a one shot deal and the others are two shots.  From what I heard, the second shot has worse side effects.  But I would recommend that everyone get a vaccine whenever it is possible and not wait.  The quicker we get enough people vaccinated, the quicker we can end the pandemic.  The chances of any bad side effects are small from any of these vaccines.  

The storm across Texas and other parts of the country has affected the vaccine distribution.  In LA my in laws were not able to get their scheduled second shot at Dodger stadium when the shots did not arrive.  I was lucky my appointment in my county was not postponed.  But I am sure the delay in LA was not an isolated incident in the country.

 Ted Cruz is at it again.  He and other GOP leaders in Texas are whining about failure of wind turbines in the cold weather proves that this methods of green energy cannot be trusted in an emergency.  The emergency is that almost a quarter of Texas has lost power since the weekend due to the cold weather.  But wind turbines are only responsible for less than 10% of the energy in Texas.  The fossil fuel sources of energy, particularly those from natural gas, have been failing also due to freezing pipelines.  So it is rather hypocritical to call out wind turbines when the old fossil systems also have failed.

Besides nature, the political system of Texas also should be blamed for leaving millions of Texans without power for several days.  Texas has its own electrical grid so that it would not be under federal regulation.  There are three main grids in the U.S., the Eastern grid, the Western grid and Texas grid.  So even if other states want to, they can't help Texas.  Cruz laughed at California last year when there were power outages here.  He said the government in California could not provide for basic civilization.  For a guy who advocates Hong Kong to secede from China, who advocated for insurrection in the Capitol, it is not surprising that he made such a stupid comment and has to eat his words today.

But regardless the fact that parts of Texas want to secede from the Union or that people like Cruz and Governor Abbott are saying stupid things about energy, we need to help Texas in this dire situation.  Every part of the country can have catastrophes.  From hurricanes in Florida and other southern states, to tornados across the Plains and the Midwest, to heavy snow storms in the North, to earthquakes and wild fires in the West, we face natural disasters frequently.  We have to help each other whenever these disasters hit.  We are always in it together.

 Well, I guess Tom Brady is Superman!  I can point out that K.C. played poorly, not like the team with the best regular season record.  I can point out that K.C. committed stupid penalties on defense.  I can point out that they somehow gave up a touchdown at the half after seeing how Brady did that to GB two weeks ago.  I can point out that TB coaching staff out coached the K.C. staff.  But hey, there must be some reason that Brady has played in 10 Super Bowls and won seven.  This time at age of 43, playing on a different team and system.  There must be some reason that New England did not make the playoff this season and TB wins the championship after not making the playoffs for who knows how many years.

I guess Bill Belichick is a lot smarter when he has Brady, and not the other way around.  But at least Belichick is smart enough not to accept the Medal of Freedom from Trump.  Bruce Arians is a lot smarter this season at 68, the oldest coach to win the Super Bowl.  Given that, maybe Brady can work with others.  Maybe he can help Fauci in the battle against COVID.  After all, Brady is not just the GOAT, but he is really Superman!

 The craziness of the GameStop buying frenzy is rocking Wall Street. I find this sticking to the big hedge funds amusing.  I am also happy that this is making some small investors rich.  But I am concern that some unsophisticated beginning investors are going to get hurt badly.  Reddit is pushing investors to go into silver now.  I think this means that stocks like GameStop are going to drop soon.  Small investors who had buy in recently will have bought high and will end up selling low and lose money.  While hedge funds may lose billions, most of them can survive the losses.  A small investors who loses a few thousands may be in much more trouble.

I think most of the hedge funds have gotten out of the positions by now.  So there won't be much more loss for the MAN.  More buying of these stocks that are way overvalued will make this a pyramid scheme now.  Those who bought early and are encouraging others to jump in now are like those at the top of the pyramid.  They will benefit but those who jump in now will be at the bottom and lose.  So my advice for anyone who is not in, don't get in.  Those who have bought in, take your profit and run now!  

I am not sure if Robinhood is being bought off by hedge fund companies or other rich people on Wall Street to limit the buying of GameStop.  But it is really doing the small guy a favor at this time.  Don't buy unless you have money to burn to make a political statement.