Tag: Trump response to coronavirus

Trump’s baffling coronavirus vaccine event

Washington Post logoAs a private citizen and presidential candidate, Donald Trump was a proponent of vaccine skepticism — ignoring the scientific consensus on stuff like how vaccines don’t cause autism. As president, he is now surrounded by experts on the subject, including on Monday when he held a coronavirus roundtable with his task force and the heads of several pharmaceutical companies.

Yet despite the increasingly scary situation involving the disease and preparations having been underway for weeks, he still appears rather clueless on the subject.

At the event Monday, Trump peppered the drug companies with questions that were some variant of “How fast can you get it done?” But despite this having been a focal point in recent weeks, he still didn’t seem to process the fact that producing a vaccine means conducting months and months of trials before it can be deployed. He even at one point asked whether the flu vaccine could be used to combat coronavirus. Continue reading.

Columbia University virologist explains why the US government’s coronavirus response is lacking the appropriate ‘level of concern’

AlterNet logoThe global death toll from coronavirus has surpassed 3000, including at least five deaths in Washington State — where the disease appears to have been circulating undetected for weeks. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University in New York City, discussed the Trump Administration’s coronavirus response and offered some tips on dealing with the disease in a Q&A interview with Rolling Stone.

During the interview, Rasmussen was critical of the travel restrictions the Trump Administration has implemented in response to coronavirus.

“Our travel restrictions have not been implemented sensibly,” Rasmussen told Rolling Stone. “I disagree strongly with President Trump’s statement the other day that they, in fact, (have) worked. There’s no reason to expect that allowing U.S. citizens to come in, as opposed to foreign nationals from China, would not bring the virus in. I mean, the virus doesn’t care what passport you’re carrying. It was not an effective way to prevent the spread.” Continue reading.

Economist who predicted 2008 crash says coronavirus will send Trump’s 2020 prospects down in flames

AlterNet logoNouriel Roubini, the economist who earned the nickname “Dr. Doom” for his accurate predictions of the 2008 financial crisis, believes that the spread of coronavirus will tank the stock market and cost President Donald Trump the 2020 election.

Per Business Insider, Roubini told German newspaper Der Spiegel that he expects the virus will cause the stock market to drop by as much as 40 percent this year.

When that happens, Trump will lose his top talking point about the purported “greatest economy ever” and his reelection campaign will go down in flames, the economist predicted. What’s more, he said that Trump’s campaign was toast no matter who wins the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Continue reading.

Conservative pundits blame a grab bag of supposed villains amid the coronavirus outbreak

Washington Post logoChoose your scapegoat: Democrats, the news media, the Chinese government, the “deep state,” Bernie Sanders or even “identity politics.”

All received some share of the blame this week from conservative media figures for the growing public concern over the coronavirus, the communicable disease that has spread across the globe.

In fact, many conservative commentators have expressed less interest in the spread of the virus or efforts to combat it than they are in the story of the virus — a story they are convinced shows evidence of bias designed to harm President Trump. Continue reading.

Coronavirus pushes Trump to rely on experts he has long maligned

Washington Post logoWhen President Trump sought to reassure a nation on edge over the coronavirus, he was flanked Wednesday evening at the White House by more than a half-dozen public health experts.

But the very officials whose expertise the president is now counting on are part of the vast bureaucracy of scientists and other public servants that Trump has repeatedly maligned, ignored and jettisoned.

Throughout his more than three years as president, Trump has obsessed, at times conspiratorially, over what he calls the “deep state” — the thousands of career government specialists in national security, intelligence, science and other areas whose expertise he shuns in part because he suspects they are disloyal saboteurs. Continue reading.

Nation Troubled By Incoherent White House Response To Coronavirus

The Trump administration has offered myriad responses in the face of a growing global virus outbreak that has left thousands dead and at least 80,000 infected worldwide, even as health experts warn the United States may be in danger.

Donald Trump claimed on Wednesday that the country was in “great shape” just one day after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned COVID-19, the disease caused by a strain coronavirus that officials say originated in China, could spread across the nation.

“Low Ratings Fake News MSDNC [sic] (Comcast) & @CNN are doing everything possible to make the Caronavirus [sic] look as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible. Likewise their incompetent Do Nothing Democrat comrades are all talk, no action. USA in great shape!” he tweeted Wednesday morning. Continue reading.