Are you scared of coronavirus yet? Well, why the Hell not? Aw, forget it, if the death toll doesn’t give you concern by now, it never will. But- just to be clear- let me present highlights in the timeline from an American perspective:
May, 2018 – Trump disbands national pandemic team
December, 2019 – Chinese Government acknowledges COVID
January 23, 2020 – Wuhan, a Chinese city of 11 Million people is shut down completely
At this point, everybody in the world knows COVID is deadly, contagious, and spreads rapidly…and you know American intelligence discovered all of that weeks previous
January 27, 2020 – Joe Biden writes an editorial discussing the ways Trump is not up to the task of defeating coronavirus
February 2, 2020 – fully a week later, Trump issues a travel “ban” from China. Unfortunately, this ban was inspired by racism instead of science, and as a result, it was way late, inadequate (it didn’t ban everybody, just non-Americans – which makes zero sense), and completely missed the danger of COVID arriving in other parts of the country.
And that was pretty much the last major action Donald Trump took towards controlling the coronavirus. Meanwhile, Joe Biden turned out to be a soothsayer as Trump has acted exactly how Joe predicted. And 250,000 deaths later, the Trump people want to give him a medal for containing the thing. Did you see the study by Cornell University that found the “Single Largest Driver” of coronavirus misinformation to be Donald Trump?
76 Days is a documentary spanning the Wuhan lockdown. The scariest part is knowing this is a documentary. People died helpless and without the ability to see let alone say “goodbye” to loved ones. Near riots happened at hospitals. Trained health care professionals showed up for work in makeshift hazmat suits every single day.
And then there was Wuhan itself: stark, empty, boring. When these people say “Lockdown,” they mean it. “Get your ass back in your hole, old man. Don’t make me bring out the taser.” Police will bullhorns taking to the streets to announce “Stay in your homes” and “Don’t spread rumors.” It should be obvious how important that last directive is, but it’s wasted on Americans. I have no doubt that the documentarians intended to focus on the lockdown; unfortunately, lockdowns done properly turn out to be pretty boring, so instead we got a portrait of health care work during a pandemic…and it’s scary.
My first question is, “How can you tell who anybody is?” The only faces we really get to see are the ones belonging to people about to die. Every medical worker is a makeshift collection of duct tape and windbreakers. They all look like they’re about to test Mars atmosphere. 98% of the film is shot in hospital interiors. On occasion, the camera finds the outdoors, but has to cut away because there is literally nothing to be seen in exterior shots
The normalities of life include health workers emulating family for relatives who cannot see theirs, feeding the sick by turkey baster, and collecting the possessions of the
newly dead. Do you know the luggage scene in Schindler’s List? That was the only comparison that came to mind.
One of the things that floored me about this experience is the workers who flocked to it, not unlike out-of-jurisdiction firemen who rushed to Manhattan on September 11, 2001. Some called it a “once in a lifetime” opportunity – and it is if you have some hero in you. This is China’s 9/11 –would you go where the danger is or shy away?
I suppose there isn’t all that much to this documentary. Most of us who pay no attention to Trump’s “expertise” know all about coronavirus; it’s not like we got much new information here … although it was a fascinating look at how Wuhan care both evolved and failed to evolve as more was learned about the disease. I personally think this is required viewing for anybody who voted Trump to “own the libs,” which is pretty much all of them … but that’s exactly the head-in-the-sand crowd who is likelier to pay more credence to a pizza parlor where top Democrats are supposedly molesting children. You fuckers are so sad.
There once was a tangerine king
Who said COVID wasn’t a thing
Ignorance he stressed
And just like he guessed
It all went away in the spring
Not Rated, 93 Minutes
Director: Weixi Chen, Hao Wu
Writer: Hao Wu
Genre: Fun at Ground Zero
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Medical professionals
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: “COVID is a hoax”
