There have been four themes echoed by those who tell us that we misunderstand the coronavirus that is presently striking our land. These have been put forth by Trump and those who think he is doing a banged up job when it comes to the way Trump has handled Covid-19.
- One school of thought is that the numbers of those who die from coronavirus are highly exaggerated and less than ten percent of what it is reported.
- Another is that masks do little good in preventing the spread of the virus.
- Trump is doing a good job because he banned most of the travel from China in January and set up a task force to deal with the virus.
- We have turned the corner on the virus.
With regard to number 1, the last I looked is the number of deaths from the virus is 243,000 with the number going up by over a thousand every day. If we use the 10% figure that suggests in the nine months since people started dying 24,300 people died from it. Even with that figure it would be a significant number of people. But as I have shown the U.S. figure of 243,000 is one percentage point less than the deaths from the virus that the worldwide community outside the United States is reporting. It is either that all the doctors in the world are confused about why people are dying or those who suggest that only 10% of the reported number have died from the virus are just plainly wrong.
With regard to number two we have to consider why some countries have low rates of positive virus cases while the U.S. has the most in the world. The countries with the lowest rates are Asian which happen to be the countries with the highest percentage of people wearing masks. The U.S. has a president, vice-president, and staff who avoid wearing masks suggesting to those who follow them that is what should be done. The virus is pretty much the same world wide and people’s susceptibility to it would likely be equal. The efficacy of masks appears obvious without going further into the matter.
As to number three that banning air travel from China and setting up a Task Force was all that was required of the president. Perhaps that may have accomplished something if everything that was done by Trump after that did not undo those little steps. Remember he said he knew how bad it was after talking to China’s Xi but he decided not to warn the American people about it. He downplayed it for months and still does. He admitted it saying he did not want to panic the people. Rather than facing it and acting boldly he though by ignoring it then it would disappear. As we have seen it has done the opposite and is infecting an ever greater numbers of people – over 10 million. His Task Force has all but disappeared. The one thing people want to give him credit for is Operation Warp Speed which encouraged the development of the vaccine. Yet, without it the same thing would have happened as we have seen throughout the world. Pharmaceutical companies and other countries have done the same thing and are doing as well as Warp Speed. Pfizer was not part of Warp Speed nor were others who will produce, hopefully, a safe and effective vaccine.
As to number four turning the corner it speaks for itself. We are shooting straight up toward the moon and the last I knew there were no corners on the last moon trip.
Out here in Wisconsin, Covid is conquering all. My little town is completely shuttered due to the spread of this plague. Even the courthouse is shut down. The county’s population is only thirteen thousand souls. As of today, over a thousand folks have tested positive for Covid. Just prior to the election, all the Trumpies in town went to Glorious Leader’s rallies. When they returned to town, the idiots paraded around in a two hundred vehicle cavalcade of bare-faced drunken revelers slobbering all over each other. Two weeks later, here we are.
Trump deserves credit for sensibly focusing on the development of a vaccine. This became a dramatic race for life involving large and small medical companies around the globe. I think Trump blew it by making noises about the arrival of a vaccine by Election Day. This made the effort seem political. I’m also not sure about calling our effort Operation Warp Speed, a name that’s great if you’re a Star Trek fan, but maybe isn’t familiar some Americans. I also thought the name tended to trivialize a very important endeavor by evoking the memory of a cheesy ’60s TV series. Anyway, this brings us to the crux of the matter: the destruction of Donald Trump’s presidency by Covid19. You know Trump would have sailed to reelection easily if the virus hadn’t come knocking. So what went wrong? (If you believe the election was stolen, there’s no need to consider this question, or engage in any critical thought for that matter.) Overall, I think Trump’s failure to fashion a coherent national Covid policy brought him down. Trump ceded leadership (and responsibility) to 50 governors. The usual political sniping and confusion ensued. Certain events also come to mind, principally getting medivaced to Walter Reed for treatment of a fairly serious case of Coronavirus case of his own. (Now he puts on a mask!) His made-for-TV return to the White House didn’t help. He’s wearing a mask but dramatically removes his face covering BEFORE strolling into a building where various folks work. And we all remember the (medically) disastrous Rose Garden gathering for Judge Amy. Even the president of old Notre Dame came down with the bug. There are other factors as well. And don’t forget that Trump lost to a fairly weak candidate in Joe Biden. That shouldn’t happen to an incumbent president, but Trump managed the trick.