Tag: Trump mishandling pandemic crisis

U.S. Coronavirus Testing Still Falls Short. How’s Your State Doing?

To safely phase out social distancing measures, the U.S. needs more diagnostic testing for the coronavirus, experts say. But how much more?

The Trump administration said on April 27 that the U.S. will soon have enough capacity to conduct double the current amount of testing for active infections. The country has done nearly 248,000 tests daily on average in the past seven days, according to the nonprofit COVID Tracking Project. Doubling that would mean doing about 496,000 a day.

Will that be enough? What benchmark should states try to hit? Continue reading.

Trump meets harsh reality with coronavirus threat

The Hill logoPresident Trump’s flirtation with disbanding the White House coronavirus task force is just the latest reflection of his eagerness to put the coronavirus pandemic behind him and turn his focus to the economy.

Yet Trump’s eagerness to move on keeps running into reality.

The idea of disbanding the coronavirus task force was quickly abandoned; Trump said he got calls from “very respected people” who said it would be better to keep it open. Continue reading.

Military official who serves as Trump valet tests positive for coronavirus

The Hill logoA member of the U.S. military who serves as a valet for President Trump has tested positive for the coronavirus, underscoring the threat of the virus to top officials in Washington, D.C., even as the president insists the country must start to reopen.

“We were recently notified by the White House Medical Unit that a member of the United States Military, who works on the White House campus, has tested positive for Coronavirus,” deputy White House press secretary Hogan Gidley said in a statement. “The President and the Vice President have since tested negative for the virus and they remain in great health.”

CNN first reported that the individual who tested positive is a member of the U.S. Navy who serves as one of the president’s personal valets. The network reported that the individual started exhibiting symptoms on Wednesday morning. Continue reading.

Trump Aims To ’Terminate’ Obamacare In Midst Of Pandemic

Donald Trump on Wednesday said he still supports a Republican-led lawsuit before the Supreme Court that seeks to invalidate the Affordable Care Act, even amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than 1.2 million Americans have tested positive for the virus, and nearly 72,000 have died from it, according to a tally from the Washington Post.

Meanwhile, more than 30 million people have lost their jobs, and with that, they may have lost their employer-sponsored health care. Without the ACA — better known as Obamacare — it’s unclear how those Americans would secure health insurance to pay for the cost of medical care or hospitalization if they contracted the coronavirus. Continue reading.

Trump gives a pathetic excuse for not preparing for a pandemic: ‘I have a lot of things going on’

AlterNet logoIn an interview with ABC News’ David Muir, President Donald Trump admitted Tuesday that he didn’t do enough to prepare for a pandemic before the outbreak of COVID-19, claiming he was distracted by the investigations into his conduct.

Muir, reacting to Trump’s repeated false claims that the Obama administration left the stockpile shelves bare of equipment that is needed during a pandemic, asked why the president didn’t fill those shelves.

“You’re three years into your first term,” Muir said. “You’re now applying for the job again. What did you do when you became president to restock those cupboards that you say were bare?” Continue reading.

While Thousands Die, Trump Says ‘Everybody’s Excited’ By Stock Rise

Even as the death toll from the new coronavirus continues to rise, Donald Trump is focused on the stock market.

A Trump administration internal document predicts that the daily death toll from the virus will reach 3,000 by June 1, which would be a 70 percent increase from the current number of deaths per day, the New York Times reported on Monday.

Yet before boarding Air Force One to visit Arizona on Tuesday, Trump took time to brag about stocks.

And right now, the stock market’s way up. Everybody’s excited.
They’re going back to work. Safely. But they’re going back to work. We’re opening up our country again. And this is what we’re doing.  And I’ll tell you: The whole world is excited, watching us, because we’re leading the world.

Continue reading.

Trump says coronavirus task force will remain ‘indefinitely’ but will evolve

The Hill logoPresident Trump signaled Wednesday that the White House coronavirus task force would not be dissolved entirely but would evolve, saying it would remain in place “indefinitely” but that he may “add or subtract” officials to or from it.

The president said in a series of tweets that the task force will now focus on safely reopening the United States amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, echoing remarks he made on Tuesday during a trip to Phoenix. Trump also said that the task force would be “very focused” on vaccines and therapeutics.

His remarks came a day after Vice President Pence signaled the White House would wind down the work of the task force, indicating a shift in those plans. Continue reading.

Yale epidemiologist calls Trump’s coronavirus response a potential war crime: ‘Genocide by default’

AlterNet logoWith President Donald Trump signaling that he’s ready to wind down his own administration’s COVID-19 task force even as the disease continues killing thousands of Americans every day, a Yale epidemiologist believes the president is ready to accept mass death as long as he gets re-elected.

Gregg Gonsalves, an epidemiologist who works as an assistant professor at Yale School of Public Health, wrote a scathing tweet about the president’s latest efforts to send Americans back to work even though more than 70,000 people have died so far with no end in sight.

“How many people will die this summer, before Election Day?” he asked. “What proportion of the deaths will be among African-Americans, Latinos, other people of color? This is getting awfully close to genocide by default. What else do you call mass death by public policy?” Continue reading.

Top Trump Adviser’s Model Predicts Deaths At Zero By May 15

A Trump administration economic adviser with no experience in epidemiology created a coronavirus model that predicted deaths from the virus dropping to near zero by May 15, the Washington Post reported. The model offers an extremely optimistic prediction that no others have shown.

The adviser who created the model, Kevin Hassett, has denied it plays a role in decisions related to the virus. “I have never, ever said that that’s my projection of what the death count was going to be, and no administration policy has been influenced by my projections,” he told the Post.

However, according to a Post report, Trump and his aides used that model to justify plans to start reopening the economy. White House officials, like Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, were reported to have relied on it because it “affirmed their own skepticism about the severity of the virus and bolstered their case to shift the focus to the economy, which they firmly believed would determine whether Trump wins a second term,” the Post reported. Continue reading.