The latest developments around the region related to the novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, as of Saturday afternoon include: -more-

Berkeley Health Officer Dr. Lisa Hernandez announced Thursday that a resident in their 40s has died of the new coronavirus, the first such death the city has seen so far in the pandemic. -more-

We can learn a great deal about ourselves and the present by remembering the past. Here’s the fourth installment of my chronological account of what happened in Berkeley during the 1918-19 “Spanish Flu” epidemic. The stories are largely drawn from the pages of the Berkeley Daily Gazette, Berkeley’s hometown paper at the time. Each installment covers about one week, or six issues (Monday through Saturday), of the Gazette.

I started with October, 1918, because the first cases of the influenza apparently appear ed in the Bay Area in September of that year, and it took some weeks for the local crisis to visibly emerge.


This installment took a long time to assemble and is the longest of the four to date. Not only were there many articles to transcribe, but new issues and subtopics in the health crisis came up as the month of October, 1918, wore on. In it the events of 1918 also begin to track more closely with the events of 2020, with disputes and confusion over several issues related to the influenza and its impacts.

Note: because of its considerable length, this installment covering one week is broken into three sections—A,B and C—for posting. The first and second sections report on events related to the influenza in the fourth week of October, 1918. The third section includes the obituaries of those who died of the epidemic in Berkeley that week, and contemporary news and information on other topics.

Introduction

We have now reached the fourth week of October, 1918, in Berkeley. The Spanish Influenza appears to have become “epidemic” in Berkeley, and precautions and reactions are occurring all over the city. -more-

Despite the growing toll of sick and dead and the heightened restrictions during the fourth week of October, 1918 as the “Spanish Influenza” epidemic spread in Berkeley, on October 23, 1918, the Berkeley Daily Gazette reported that the city was allowing public playgrounds to stay open. The reason given was the same reason used in the previous push to keep local public schools open; children could be better monitored for illness when they were together in supervised groups. -more-

This third and last section for the fourth week in October, 1918, reports on non-flu related news from that week including the approaching denouement of the “Great War” and wartime “Homefront” activities. It begins with the obituaries of those who died from the influenza in Berkeley that week.

Flu Deaths in Berkeley

I continue here the practice of transcribing, in their entirety, obituaries and news stories about the death of Berkeleyans from the 1918 flu or pneumonia. This includes both people who died in Berkeley and people from Berkeley who died elsewhere of influenza. For the first week in October I found one such obituary in the paper. The second week had six, the third week had ten. This week there are twenty-two, twenty of them for people who died in Berkeley. The date after the obituary is the date in which the item appeared in the Gazette. -more-

As you probably realize, the American economy is rapidly going downhill. But it would be a serious mistake to blame this new and ominous development on the coronavirus. Undoubtedly the attempt to cope with the disease that the virus has precipitated has resulted in a loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs. This is certainly a substantial loss. -more-

We are asking the University of California to withdraw the Notice of Preparation (NOP) for UC Berkeley’s next Long-Range Development Plan (LRDP), which was filed with the Office of Planning and Research by the Berkeley Campus on April 7, 2020. The state of California is currently operating under a State of Emergency, and the Bay Area counties are under mandatory orders that permit only Essential Activities or Minimum Basic Operations.

The NOP will require numerous public agencies, local governments and community organizations to devote thousands of hours of time to respond---time diverted from essential life-saving activities---during the State of Emergency. The LRDP is a large, complex undertaking that requires many hours of work by many people and would require our public safety officials to spend hundreds of hours to review and comment. We would all better served if the NOP were withdrawn until we are past the State of Emergency. -more-

It can be taken as a truism that UC Berkeley will always choose the most inappropriate and inconvenient time to release a Notice of Preparation involving a controversial development project. The current case is no exception. Who else would take advantage of community vulnerability to push its development agenda while a pandemic is raging on? -more-

Many of us are falling for the following false picture of our current coronavirus predicament. The half-true, half-wildly-false story goes something like this, in two parts:

1. We will all hunker down to slow the spread and save lives. After a time, new cases and deaths will drop to near 0. The disease won't be gone, but with lots of testing and care we can keep it from being an epidemic. At some point some mix of treatments and vaccines will come along and the COVID-19 will not be such a threat anymore.

So far so good. All of that is plausible, although there is no strong assurance at all a successful vaccine will ever arise. Otherwise, it is well grounded in medical and epidemiological science given the data currently available. It's a slightly optimistic but reasonable guess.

But the second part of the story, a bit more problematic, goes like this:

2. When the all-clear is given for some or all idled workers, governments will rush in with stimulus spending to kick start the economy, demand will return to the market, and the economy will come roaring back.

The Republican and Democratic parties are reported to be quibbling, more or less over the details of future stimulus packages. This is the drama that occupies all of the popular media you are likely to read.

The problem is that policy makers and policy analysts at the highest levels are painting a very different, darker picture. In this note, I'll mention just two data points. Just two, but they pack a lot of punch.

1. A rough estimate of U.S. corona-related job loss in May, April, and June will top 30% of the entire U.S. workforce. This estimate is from the St. Louis Fed. Sound implausible? In just the past three weeks (21 whole days), 16,500,000 new unemployment claims were filed. That's already more than 10% of the entire workforce!
2. A rough estimate of global job lost starts at 6.7% of all jobs globally, and this is likely a major underestimate. This estimate is from the U.N. International Labor Organization.

It is important to note that the jobs lost are not being mothballed. They can't just wait three or four or six months and then, blow of the dust and voila, they're back again. -more-

By removing the Inspector General, who was selected to oversee that the disbursement of the $2 Trillion coronovirus bailout goes honestly without fraud, trump has set himself up to commit the largest theft in the history of civilization. He has removed several Inspectors General as a way of intimidating the rest not to do the job they are skilled and experienced to do. This undermines the system of independent oversight of the executive, established after Nixon's Watergate crimes. -more-

Today the Mayor mentioned that a City website advertises the locations of handwashing stations (and portable toilets?). I assume it's there somewhere but I could not find this map. -more-

There's a classic routine featured in the early silent comedy films. Action begins when a worker digs a big hole and walks away, leaving no warning sign. Next, an innocent walker falls into the hole.

The denouement takes one of three forms: In the first, the walker falls all the way through the earth and exits in China. In the second, the walker falls onto a trampoline and bounces out of the hole. The third outcome is when the walker falls for awhile and then lands on something such as coal car or an underground river or a (fat) policeman.

Here in California, as a result of the pandemic-inspired shelter-in-place order, we've fallen into a hole. Many of us are in free fall.

I'm not afraid of falling all the way to China. But I know people who are: restaurant workers who don't know when they'll get another job and can't pay their bills. Or gig workers...

On the other hand, I don't expect to quickly bounce back. We've been sheltering in place for three weeks and don't know when it will end. But I do know folks who are carrying on with their (more or less) normal jobs: government employees, healthcare workers, and folks in essential trades. -more-

Our economy, at a reasonable guess, is analogous to driving a car on the freeway with the gas gauge pointing to just below empty--we have massive unemployment, and we are being told to stay at home to slow the spread of a deadly communicable disease. How does this affect people on a psychological level? I could not begin to assess such a thing, and someone better than me could probably write volumes about it after we extricate ourselves from this predicament. However, in this week's column I will talk to you a bit about how it is affecting me.

As a mentally ill man, I am affected by this when I watch television news and when I interact with people and see a number of people wearing masks in public--when I go out for essential trips. It seems surreal. But, does it trigger my symptoms? Of course, it does.

I am halfway into a change of residence that is mandated by needs of my family unit. At the same time, there is an acquaintance who would like to make their problems into my problems. I have to deal with details on a number of fronts. And I am not prepared for a lot of what I'm up against.

Life was already difficult enough when I was not in the middle of moving, something which is a major life challenge, and when there was not a pandemic at the same time, which affects moving and adds additional strain. -more-

Reading the handwriting on the wall, you suspended your campaign, acknowledging that “the path toward victory is virtually impossible.” Yet, you will stay on the ballot to collect delegates for the convention, "where we will be able to exert significant influence over the party platform.” That sounds like one foot in and one foot out of the race. -more-

Recasting the Forecast -more-

Worth Noting:

All City meetings and events are either by videoconference or teleconference.

Video Updates from the Mayor on COVID-19 are on Mondays and Wednesdays and will be posted on the Mayor’s YouTube page, the April 10 Town Hall is also posted https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgXaP2idglejM_r7Iv7my6w



Monday – Agenda Committee meets at 2:30 pm to plan the April 28 City Council meeting and review the status of Boards, Commissions and Committees that have been suspended for 60 days due to COVID-19. The action items on this agenda look to be interesting with three proposed ballot initiatives 11. Change Mayor and Council member status to fulltime, 13. Create a Climate Action Fund, 14. Introduce Term limits for Mayor and Councilmembers

Tuesday – City Council Regular meeting is at 6 pm, item 39. Require Onsite Inclusionary Units in Qualified Opportunity Zones

Wednesday – Climate Emergency Task Force is at 5:30 by call in or zoom – 215 on email list for this Zoom meeting

Thursday – Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board meeting is listed as pending

All other previously scheduled meetings have been cancelled.



The agenda for the April 21 City Council meeting is available for comment and follows the daily list of meetings. The agenda includes 7. opting up residential and commercial customers to Brilliant 100 and Municipal accounts to Renewable 100. -more-