The federal government is preparing to send thousands of people to their deaths, every day. According to internal government documents acquired byThe New York Times, the administration is now projecting that the country will experience more than 3,000 deaths every day as soon as June 1 due to coronavirus. Currently, that number averages around 1,750. Per the Times’s report, published Monday, the numbers are based on modeling by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But at the same time as his administration’s scientists are projecting death tolls on the order of a new 9/11 attack every single day, President Trump is urging states to reopen their economies and ease on social distancing restrictions. Desperate to turn around the grim economic trend lines that have erased all the gains the economy has made since he took office, Trump appears prepared to throw human lives into the thresher as grist for the market.
At the end of the day, coronavirus has not become less infectious. The shutdown strategy adopted across the country has helped mitigate the rate of transmission, but it has not made the virus any less infectious or deadly. But rather than show any semblance of steady leadership, Trump and his government have ricocheted from number to number, policy to policy, in search of the one that will juice his re-election chances the most at any given moment. Continue reading.