*Respect and Consideration for others especially for our neighbors and elders are a key bedrock foundation of our culture here in Hawaii. Most of the working people have family, relatives, friends, associates that are elderly, at high risk of serious outcomes from this coronavirus. Please be considerate of other people and their family’s health and well being.
The following videos from local news have been conveying the vibe of discouraging people from visiting. The sort of theme here propagated in Honolulu of “Stay Home Aloha Later” using higher profile public figures and influencers to sway public opinion, where there are conditions to our aloha hospitality is Far from our way. It is a shame that the media abuse, fear frenzy has terrified and traumatized people so much over this virus to the extent that busybodies form, compelled to admonish small businesses going about their business trying to service their guests, on the verge of collapse, with unpaid operating expenses, rent, leases piling up on moratorium that need to be paid, families and worker’s livelihoods they have to feed, or track people on Facebook and report visitors and businesses to law enforcement. Similar to the way places abroad that do not enjoy or have the same freedoms and liberties we are supposed to have in America, experience becoming informants for the state for the sake of self preservation. Where is the aloha, laulima “working together” and compassion for families, people and businesses in such untenable situations everywhere?
June 23, 2020 Hawaii News Now post details a group known as the Hawaii Quarantine Kapu Breakers have been tracking visitors on social media, reporting to the Hawaii Attorney General’s office, visitors violating the 14 day quarantine rule.
May 2, 2020 KHON2 post Calvin Hill Urges Stay At Home Aloha Later
May 1, 2020 KHON2 post Jasmine Trias Urges Aloha Later
It is also no ones failures but ours when we were insufficient with our homework, due diligence, thinking critically and determining for ourselves what is best. Even worse is the way the local news posts pictures and publicly shames visitors. How will future visitors and our ohana abroad feel about this the next time they are choosing where to visit and spend their hard earned vacations? Has the confidence in our ohana living abroad been adversely affected observing this? Hawaii competes with the West Coast of the United States, Mexico, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Oceania, Polynesia, Melanesia, Philippines, Guam, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand as destinations for travel. Will this leave a bad taste in their mouth and choose alternate locations to visit instead of us? Will they not feel anything about this and carry on as usual? Reporting our ohana from abroad on public news was unwarranted and left an embarrassing impression about how behaviors are when we succumb to fear.
On May 1, 2020Anita Lorinc, a local of Honolulu and working in the Real Estate sector organizing the Reopen Hawaii protest that was held at the Honolulu State Capitol, was arrested by police and dragged off into the police car.
It is unclear what the true cause of the arrest was. All local news sources failed to clarify how a State and County Stay at Home proclamation and Honolulu Police Department (HPD) could supersede the 1st amendment freedom of assembly and the supremacy clause. Her testimony of what transpired with the police is above. Although there is only one side to this testimony available at this moment, If her claims of torture and police brutality are true this is a very sad and infuriating reality of Hawaii that departs far from the traditions of America, culture of Hawaii and how we treat our local Ohana and Kupunas. Our Kupuna may have cause to initiate a massive constitutional threshold federal article III claim against the state, county and HPD for any harm and injury our kupuna experienced. This will be an interesting development to follow.
Martin Luther King Visit to Hawaii circa 1959 after becoming the 50th State
Martin Luther King Jr. 1959 Statehood Hawaii
Hawaii is like the Singapore of the Pacific with regards to the ethnic and cultural influences that make up the local culture. Dr. Martin Luther King spoke eloquently about his experience here;
“It is certainly a delightful privilege and pleasure for me to have this great opportunity and, I shall say, it is a great honor to come before you today and to have the privilege of saying just a few words to you about some of the pressing problems confronting our nation and our world.
I come to you with a great deal of appreciation and great feeling of appreciation, I should say, for what has been accomplished in this beautiful setting and in this beautiful state of our Union. As I think of the struggle that we are engaged in in the South land, we look to you for inspiration and as a noble example, where you have already accomplished in the area of racial harmony and racial justice, what we are struggling to accomplish in other sections of the country, and you can never know what it means to those of us caught for the moment in the tragic and often dark midnight of man’s inhumanity to man, to come to a place where we see the glowing daybreak of freedom and dignity and racial justice”
Portuguese immigrant family in Hawaii during the 19th century
Chinese Family in Hawaii circa 1893
Hawaii Lasting Trauma From Past Plagues and Diseases
In our prior post Our Lomi Lomi Is Not Aloha Ohana, we go over briefly some of our history of disease, plagues, epidemics throughout Hawaii in the 19th century brought to us from abroad. Our Leper colony in Kalaupapa Molokai and Father Damien’s lasting legacy still have a settlement with inhabitants residing there to this day. There are still many unknowns about Leprosy or Hansen’s Disease and a cure is still not available in 2020. Anecdotally and from recorded history, many families here in the past from the aristocratic to the common working families have suffered greatly from disease outbreaks. There maybe perhaps a genetic memory of trauma from these collective experiences that pervades to this day. There is compassion here with understanding the history of plagues in Hawaii that helps to explain some of the phobia behaviors that we witnessed in March and April 2020. How many descendants of families who have experienced such pain and suffering from losing their great grandmother and grandfathers and other loved ones in the past, may still be an acute and horrific memory which may resort to welcoming social isolation, sheltering in place and discouraging travelers and visitors.
Father Damien with the Kalawao Girls Choir Kalaupapa Molokai circa 1878
Korean immigrant family in Hawaii during the 19th century
Many cultures, people and families from abroad have been immigrating to Hawaii sharing their culture, language, customs, gastronomy, delicious foods, and traditions evolving what is the local Hawaii culture of today. When we look back at history during the mass influx of people to Hawaii in the late 19th and early 20th century, the pictures of Korean, Chinese, Portuguese families are proof to show that we are all incomplete without our Ohana from abroad.
SARS-Cov-2 State Support, Learning from Experts Abroad
In sum, Hawaii is empty and Waikiki is not Waikiki without our ohana from abroad staying with us and coming back to us. In late January 2020 and February only predictive models for SARS-Cov-2 were available which caused a lot of worry and concern due to the many uncertainties. This feeling reminded us of the uncertainties and unknowns felt during the early days of the HIV AIDS epidemic. The hope is that we treat people recovering from this illness with care and compassion rather than being bashed as pariahs and freaks the way HIV and AIDS afflicted patients were treated. Remember at one time there were posters and news about how HIV could be contracted by touching infected toilet seats. It was a sad, fearful wrecked state of affairs and ridiculous now that we have the data about transmission vectors, viral loads to transmit knowing a great deal more about HIV and AIDS.
AIDS Mass Hysteria, Evening Herald, February 5,1985, Ireland
Now that actual new data is becoming available for SARS-Cov-2 every day to replace predictive models, the worry and concern has subsided. Independent research into SARS-Cov-2 over the last couple months have helped a lot to form limited conclusions on how to orient how to service guests based on the available data now. Concerted initiatives were taken to understand where the State of Hawaii, Department of Health, local Hospitals and Clinics stood in terms of helping to improve confidence in how to operate logged below;
Inquiry To State of Hawaii DOH Disease Outbreak and Honolulu Covid Response
May 11, 2020 Interest in Serology Data for the State of Hawaii for Covid-19 (Antibody Prevalence) compelled another inquiry into the Department of Health to understand how far or close our community was to Immunity. Calls were made to Hawaii Department of Health Disease Outbreak +1 808-587-6845 and Honolulu Covid Response +1 808-768-2489 to request for Serology Data. Covid Response recommended we email covidexemption@hawaii.gov . DOH Disease Outbreak stated they are still compiling the Antibody data for Covid-19 and do not have any information available. When a timeline was requested, they stated no timeline is available at this time. When preliminary data was requested on whatever information was available they could not provide any data.
When asked about how the Department of Health could measure what factors whether social distancing, lockdowns or immunity were the causes of the decreasing spread of SARS-Cov-2, they were not sure, furthermore stated that they are not sure if immunity exists for SARS-Cov-2.
As of May 6, 2020 no reply received from the Lt. Governor’s office.
Inquiry To Queen’s Hospital and Straub Clinic
April 24, 2020 As more is learned about current treatment sets and plans available for people working in health care. Contact was made with Covid hotline at Queens Medical +1 808-691-2619 and Straub Clinic Honolulu +1 877-709-9355. The Queens Medical Covid Hotline representative were callous and unhelpful directing us to the CDC. A Dr. Nohea at Straub was very helpful and explained currently there are no treatment plans for mildly symptomatic patients or patients discharged that are simply not recovering as of yet. Unless patients are in serious condition repurposed treatments will not be considered for administering. Remdesivir and Favirpiravir are currently unavailable at Straub Clinic.
Inquiry To Makahiki Clinic Waikiki Health Center
April 23, 2020, calls were made to Makahiki Clinic for clarification and inquiry for treatment plans, prophylactics, certified hospital grade UVC germicidal lamp. the clinic mentions they do not know or have any medications specifically for treatment of COVID-19 and we should talk to Queens Hospital or Straub for assistance.
Inquiry To State of Hawaii DOH Disease Outbreak and Lt. Governor Green’s Office
From April 1, 2020 to April 6, 2020 several calls were made to the Department of Health Disease Outbreak +1 808-587-6845 calls and email to Lt. Governor Green’s office +1 808-586-0255 to confer guidance on safety protocols developed in house, questions regarding if they were certain regarding the 1-2 meters or 6 feet safe distance based on new models of respiratory pathogen emissions provided by Dr. Lydia Bourouiba from MIT , request for recommendations on UV germicidal disinfecting lamp vendors, and prophylactics and repurposed medicines, treatment plans available now locally for the general public, health care and related sector workers were made. Their response was;
If our safety protocols follow their’s and CDC guidelines that is what they recommend to use as a guide.
Regarding recommendations for UV germicidal equipment vendors, the DOH Disease Outbreak mention look up and research the vendors ourselves.
With regard to prophylactics and repurposed drugs their stance felt highly reluctant towards using unapproved drugs for unapproved purposes even for compassionate uses. They do not wish to invite lawsuits from families of patients that pass away from complications or suffer any adverse effects resulting from the use of repurposed drugs and medicines.
No treatment plans or prophylactic plans are available in Hawaii to their knowledge currently as of April 6, 2020 for patients, for health care and related workers.
As of May 11, 2020, The conclusion with the State of Hawaii support so far has been an emperor has no clothes on type of situation where they do not know anymore than anyone else. With little to no assistance with feedback for upgraded measures provided, their customer support and requests for clarification have been absolutely poor and unreliable. Brilliant experts abroad, Businesses and our local Ohana are the only people we can turn to for support. In fact taking cue from the data from epidemiologists, virologists, immunologists, ER doctors, Bio-Statisticians such as Knut Wittkowski, and Johan Giesecke below and others abroad in many cases have provided advanced notice ahead of the Department of Health, CDC and WHO.
May 26, 2020 Graham M. Lawrence reposts Journeyman Pictures Interview above with Mathematcian and Bio-Statistician Knut Wittowski Removed From Youtube for Violating Terms of Service.
May 16, 2020 Journeyman Pictures Interview above with Mathematcian and Bio-Statistician Knut Wittowski Removed From Youtube for Violating Terms of Service. Alternate link to Interview is below at Jamaica Live Facebook Page.
April 25, 2020 Johan Giesecke, Sweden’s former Chief Epidemiologist and Advisor for the Swedish Health Agency and WHO author of Modern Infectious Disease Epidemiology speaks about how immunity for coronaviruses are deduced and Sweden’s moderate lockdown policy and how mortality rates are measured differently in countries.
To date, the data and experts that have assisted in helping us upgrade mitigation measures are from various parts of the world. From what they extrapolate,
Sweden’s model of mitigating this virus without digging themselves into grave of destroying the economy appears the most sensible. Their culture appears to have public trust and confidence between the populace and the government’s recommendations. Confidence in government especially for the State of Hawaii at this juncture is at an all time low in America. Perhaps the Swedish model may not overlay exactly for us however we can definitely cue and learn from their moderate approach. “People are not stupid and able to think for themselves and do what is best for them”, per Dr. Dan Erickson of Accelerated Urgent Care. “Forcing people with police, jail, laws, ordinances to shelter in place, shut down businesses, schools, cancel elective surgeries, wearing masks, destroying economies and people’s livelihoods is unnecessary” per Johan Giesecke. It appears Hawaii is heading towards Sweden’s model and Our hope is we can learn from this and take a scientific evidence based approach going forward into the future. We welcome the return of our ohana living abroad now, who love Hawaii and wish to come back to stay with their families, friends and associates. Always Aloha. We will be here with great anticipation with open arms for your return.
