Thirty days ago, Donald Trump said confidently that “we have 15 cases of COVID-19 that have been detected in the United States… [but] because of all we’ve done, the risk to the American people remains very low. … within a couple of days [the number of cases] is going to be down to close to zero.”
Today, less than a month later, we will hit 100,000 confirmed cases. And experts say that because of limited testing capacity, many more than we know are infected. If current trends persist, we’ll have one million cases on April 6.
Yet despite the rapid spread of the disease, there’s still an abiding belief among many conservatives that this is no more serious than the seasonal flu, and the problem is being hyped by Democrats and the media to hurt Trump’s chances in November. A poll released this week found that over 60 percent of Fox News viewers embrace that view. Right-wing pundits talk about the annual death rate from influenza and car accidents, and while doctors and nurses say that many COVID-19 fatalities are going unreported, some on the right are convinced that the rising death toll is also exaggerated. Continue reading.