Tag: Trump mishandling pandemic

An indelible image of this pandemic: Trump, without a mask, on a golf course

Washington Post logoIt was the murderous dictator Joseph Stalin who supposedly said that one death was a tragedy, one million deaths a mere statistic. One hundred thousand deaths are difficult to get one’s mind around. The toll in our nation from covid-19, as it reaches that horrific milestone, must be seen as a catastrophe — and an indictment.

The long Memorial Day weekend gave the pandemic an indelible visual image: President Trump, wearing a ball cap but no mask, enjoying himself on his Northern Virginia golf course. Last week, you will recall, Trump declared it was “essential” that Americans be able to spend Sunday at church services. He chose to head for the links instead.

Primary blame for those 100,000 deaths must go to the killer itself — the novel coronavirus that spreads so easily, overwhelms defenseless immune systems and turned New York hospitals into charnel houses. But not all of covid-19’s victims had to die. Some responsibility must be laid at the feet of a president who ignored the threat until it was too late, who failed to mount an adequate response and who still, after so many lonely deaths and socially distanced funerals, insists that the enemy will somehow just magically disappear. Continue reading.

In crucial Florida, some senior voters cast a skeptical eye toward Trump’s reelection

Washington Post logoAllen Lehner was a Republican until Donald Trump became his party’s nominee in 2016. The 74-year-old retiree says he couldn’t bring himself to vote for someone who lied, belittled others, walked out on his bills and mistreated women — but he also couldn’t bring himself to vote for Hillary Clinton. So he didn’t vote.

Trump has done nothing since to entice Lehner back.

Lehner, who now considers himself an independent, says he is frightened by the president’s lack of leadership and maturity amid the nation’s health and economic crisis. Several people in his gated community in Delray Beach, Fla., have gotten sick; at least one has died. He worries about his own health — he has an autoimmune disease — and also about his adult children, including a daughter who has gone back to work and a son whose pay has been cut. Continue reading.

Stoking divisions and driving a new explosion in the pandemic: Republicans think they can win through sheer chaos

AlterNet logoPresident Trump’s daily coronavirus briefing rallies aren’t even attempting to be relevant to the ongoing pandemic anymore. To the extent it even comes up, it’s entirely Trump bragging about anything that’s gone right and blaming others for everything that’s gone wrong. If you want to know the latest information about the emergency, you’ll need to look elsewhere. These are Trump campaign rallies done for the strict purpose of energizing his base.

If you’re reading this, you have probably read and heard vast amounts of reporting revealing the overwhelming failure of the Trump administration in this crisis. Just this weekend we learned that CDC officials were actually embedded with the World Health Organization in January and repeatedly alerted the U.S. government about the coronavirus outbreak, which completely undermines Trump’s attack on the organization.

Unfortunately, the foot-dragging and the errors continue. The testing that everyone but Trump acknowledges must be in place before the economy can come back to life is still not available. Hospitals and first responders are still in dire need of medical equipment and protective gear. If the Trump administration pushes people back out of their homes prematurely, there’s an excellent chance we’ll have another outbreak well before we’ve recovered from the first one. Continue reading.

A plan to defeat coronavirus finally emerges, but it’s not from the White House

Washington Post logoIn the absence of federal direction, states and America’s top experts forge the path ahead.

A national plan to fight the coronavirus pandemic in the United States and return Americans to jobs and classrooms is emerging — but not from the White House.

Instead, a collection of governors, former government officials, disease specialists and nonprofits are pursuing a strategy that relies on the three pillars of disease control: Ramp up testing to identify people who are infected. Find everyone they interact with by deploying contact tracing on a scale America has never attempted before. And focus restrictions more narrowly on the infected and their contacts so the rest of society doesn’t have to stay in permanent lockdown.

But there is no evidence yet the White House will pursue such a strategy.