Go Lean…Caribbean

Go Lean Commentary

There is a serious threat in the world … one that is imperiling life and systems of commerce: Coronavirus; see this news story-highlights, and related VIDEO here:

Title: Coronavirus is deadlier than flu, study finds
The fatality rate of the new coronavirus is far higher than that of the seasonal flu, according to a new analysis from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study found a fatality rate of 2.3 percent in China as of last week, though later figures suggest the rate has increased. In the U.S., flu fatality rates hover around 0.1 percent. Here are the latest updates and maps of where the virus has spread.

Yesterday: Americans flown home from a contaminated cruise ship in Japan said they were unaware until late that some evacuees were infected. “I didn’t know until we were in the air,” said Carol Montgomery. “I saw an area of plastic sheeting and tape.”

Closer look: Cambodia’s decision to let hundreds of passengers leave another cruise ship on which a person was infected could dramatically complicate the effort to contain the virus.

Another angle: HSBC, one of Hong Kong’s most important banks, said today that it would cut 35,000 jobs over the next three years, in part because of disruptions caused by the outbreak. On Monday, Apple cut its quarterly sales expectations and warned that the virus threatened global supply chains.

Related: The Tokyo Marathon, which planned to accept about 38,000 runners, will be restricted to about 200 elite participants. The race is scheduled for March 1.

Source: New York Times – Retrieved February 18, 2020 from: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/briefing/coronavirus-michael-bloomberg-boy-scouts.html

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VIDEO – China Coronavirus Death Toll Rises to 2,118 –  https://youtu.be/a_WeUpwJNVA

Bloomberg Markets and Finance
Feb.19 — China is saying the death toll from the coronavirus has climbed to 2,118, with the total amount of cases reaching 74,576. Bloomberg’s Tom Mackenzie and Yvonne Man report on “Bloomberg Markets: Asia.”

• Category: News & Politics

As with many threats in society, there abounds a lot of misinformation, half-truths and outright lies. Consider:

• This new Coronavirus started in Wuhan Province, China. But not all Chinese are affected. In fact with a population of 1.4 billion, the near 75,000 afflicted people worldwide is less than 1/10 of 1 percent.
• There have been previous Coronavirus strains. (Older cans of Lysol spray declare that they kill “coronavirus”; see photo below).
• The disease is not automatically fatal – only 2,118 people have died so far – mostly those advanced in age and/or with depressed immune systems. Many more die every year with the “normal” seasonal flu.
• Not all Chinese people are from China – Sinophone people amount to 1.5 Billion. Few Chinese Diaspora have had any exposure to the ailment.
• The disease does not live away from mammals. Chinese made products pose no threats.
• Communist China does not allow people to freely leave China, even under normal circumstances, unless there is some special reason to do so. Hong Kong is a Special Administrative region, governed like a separate country. The freedoms of movement there are not equated on the mainland.
• Flu Season has a limited shelf-life; it is expected to naturally end in the northern hemisphere by late Spring 2020.
• No Caribbean area cruise ships or passengers have been affected – the potential risk is not abated.

This disease poses a danger; there is the need for remediation and mitigation. There is the need for a hero … we need a hero. This sounds so much like a song from my formative years.

I’m holding out for a hero ’til the end of the night
He’s gotta be strong
And he’s gotta be fast
And he’s gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero
I’m holding out for a hero ’til the morning light
He’s gotta be sure
And it’s gotta be soon
And he’s gotta be larger than life
(Song by Bonnie Tyler 1984; see VIDEO & Lyrics at https://youtu.be/OBwS66EBUcY; see Appendix)

Alas, there is no hero … for this peril. There is no Superman, no Wonder Woman, no Avengers nor Captain Marvel. The remediation and mitigation that we need will not be miraculous; it must simply come from … us. Yes, we can … do the heavy-lifting ourselves to protect our society.

This was the quest as related in the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. The book surveyed the world scene and saw the need for the 30 member-states of the Caribbean region to confederate, collaborate, consolidate its efforts to be able to deal with an actuality like this Coronavirus Epidemic.

We need that vision now!

The book related that a roadmap must be put in place to introduce and implement a deputized agency, a federal technocracy to act on behalf of all these countries and to do the heavy-lifting of Homeland Security, to remediate and mitigate all threats, foreign and domestic; this would naturally include Disease Control and Management. That roadmap called for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), with a Cabinet-level Department of Health. The functionalities of this “Security Apparatus” is described as follows:

• Strategies – Comparing Strategies – Healthcare –vs- Bush Medicine (Page 50)
  The CU plans calls for some health care reform, under the guise of homeland and economic security, emergency management and cross border initiatives (disease management and organ transplantation).
• Tactical – Separation of Powers –  I2: Department of Health – Disease Control & Management (Page 86)
  Due to the systemic threat, epidemic response and disease control will be coordinated at the CU level. This agency will manage the detailed inventory needs of pharmaceuticals (vaccinations, etc.) so that the Group Purchasing Organization can negotiate for volume-wholesale pricing/discounts and delivery schedules on the regional level.
  The data associated with Flu Shots, Vaccinations, STDs should be mined and published by the CU.
  This agency will also sponsor Disease Management schemes to identify, educate, treat patients with chronic diseases like diabetes, asthma, heart, COPD, and other ailments that tend to have no cure, but the affected could prosper with proper management.
• Advocacy – 10 Ways to Improve Healthcare – Public Health Extension (Page 156)
  Due to the systemic threat, epidemic response and disease control will be coordinated at the federal level. Also, the acquisition of public-bound pharmaceuticals (vaccinations, etc.) can be negotiated at the regional level, using the Group Purchasing Organizations (GPO) envisioned in this roadmap. This will lead to a better supply and pricing dynamics. …
• Advocacy – 10 Ways to Impact Cancer – Public Health Administration (Page 157)
  Not all [disease] cancer is hereditary or tied to lifestyle (smoking, obesity, diet), sometimes there are environmental agents. The CU treaty grants jurisdiction for systemic threats, epidemic response and/or disease control. Despite the pro-business ethos, the CU will assuage any threat of new/existing industrial endeavors with thorough environmental impact studies.

We have been here before …

This is turning out to be a very dangerous disease outbreak – an epidemic. However, this is not the first one … for the world or even to originate from China. In fact, Coronavirus is being compared sharply to the 2003 crisis with the SARS epidemic that imperiled Hong Kong. See  this excerpt from a previous blog-commentary on SARS:

A Lesson in History – SARS in Hong Kong
Sadly, we report – though it is only a reminder – that there is no cure for the common cold; nor its more debilitating “Big Brother”, influenza or “the flu”.

Sometimes the flu is just the flu. Symptoms may include cough, sore throat, fever, myalgia (muscle pain), and lethargy (fatigue or drowsiness, or prolonged sleep patterns). Unfortunately this normal start for influenza may morph into more serious concerns. For example, consider the SARS epidemic of 2003; see Appendix A.  The same symptoms, above, were the applicable descriptors at the start of the SARS outbreak.

Why would anyone think of anything more than the common/annual flu? How can a community – the Caribbean region in this case – manage such an epidemiological crisis?

For this, we have a well-documented lesson from Hong Kong in 2003. There is much for us to learn from this lesson in history.

The people, institutions and governance of the Caribbean need to pay more than the usual attention to the lessons of SARS in Hong Kong, not just from the medical perspective (see Appendix B), but also from an economic viewpoint.

During the “heyday” of the SARS crisis, travel and transport to Hong Kong virtually came to a grinding halt! Hong Kong had previously enjoyed up to 14 million visitors annually; they were a gateway to the world. The SARS epidemic became a pandemic because of this status. Within weeks of the outbreak, SARS had spread from Hong Kong to infect individuals in 37 countries in early 2003.
…
Prior to this SARS outbreak, the WHO [(World Health Organization)] had developed a Pandemic War Plan, reserved for the worst situations; see this link here, [which was presented then as Appendix C].  This features strategies and tasks to identify, isolate and eradicate a major virus outbreak … at the start. But the War Plan presents a cautionary warning: should the disease ever escape the isolation attempts, the result could be socio-economic disaster, with millions dead.

The possibility of this warning is the motivation of this commentary and the Go Lean movement.

In general, the CU will employ its own “War Plan”; its strategies, tactics and implementations to impact its prime directives. …

The issue in this commentary relates to economics, security and economic security; in effect this is a governance issue. This is an issue of business continuity for the region. …

The Go Lean movement posits that wisdom, prudence and best practices can be adopted by careful study of complex matters. This is defined … as a hallmark of a technocracy.

The Coronavirus is a serious threat; this is not the first and may not be the last! This is why the Go Lean movement urges the Caribbean to prepare now, with the implementation of the technocratic CU Trade Federation and its related agencies. How? Well, the book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – provides 370 pages of step-by step directions.

The points of effective, technocratic medical stewardship, gleaned from facts in medical and economic history, were further elaborated upon in these previous blog/commentaries:

Let’s hope this new Coronavirus threat subsides … soon.

The Go Lean movement (book and subsequent blog-commentaries) stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit; no one member-states has the prowess to tackle these potential pandemics – like Coronavirus – alone. Therefore, we must heed the warnings in advance and prepare our economic, security and governing eco-system.

Tongue-in-cheek reference to Caribbean Cruises amidst the Coronavirus Outbreak

We must learn from China.

“There but for the Grace of God go I” – Old Expression

The Caribbean is very dependent on tourism. Our way of life would not endure so well if we were at the epicenter of Coronavirus, or some similar pandemic; so we empathize and sympathize with China.

Heavy-lifting indeed …

This is why the Go Lean book (Page 10) advocates for the people and governing entities of the Caribbean member-states …

… “to provide new guards for their future security” …

… by deputizing the authority and responsibility to the CU Trade Federation to do the heavy-lifting of protecting the member-states during pandemics. As related in a previous blog-commentary:

If there is a load you have to bear
That you can’t carry
I’m right up the road
I’ll share your load
If you just call me

This is how we make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

About the Book
The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

• Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
• Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
• Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society.

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 11 – 13):

ix. Whereas the realities of healthcare and an aging population cannot be ignored and cannot be afforded without some advanced mitigation, the Federation must arrange for health plans to consolidate premiums of both healthy and sickly people across the wider base of the entire Caribbean population. The mitigation should extend further to disease management, wellness, mental health, obesity and smoking cessation programs. …

x. Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. The Federation must employ the latest advances and best practices of criminology and penology to assuage continuous threats against public safety. …

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

xxiv.  Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.