“I don’t care. Just because everyone’s doing it, doesn’t make it legal. The Texas governor said it’s not legal and I don’t have to. Do you hear that? (He goes on, addressing a woman walking past him on the phone who’s wearing a thin, blue surgical mask.) The Texas governor says you don’t need shit. Call the cops. You think I’m scared?”
– A man in San Antonio without a mask yelling at a 99 Cents Only store employee for asking him to put on a face covering or leave (May 22, 2020)
We knew Trump would never concede the presidency. We knew he would claim the election was rigged. We knew the narcissistic autocrat would do everything possible to deny losing both the popular and electoral vote – lie, obstruct, and rally his base. But, did we really expect Donald Trump to sabotage his successor and purposely act to make the pandemic worse? He is guilty as charged. Trump is a stone-cold killer.
In pursuit of personal and political gain, Trump has given up on fighting the spread of COVID-19. As the pandemic rips across all 50 states, his callous and negligent post-election leadership advocates a strategy of herd immunity. His minions continue to follow his reckless inaction.
The Trump administration does not care about protecting vulnerable Americans. With the president at the helm, his administration turns a blind eye to the devastation. Victims of this neglect will be thousands of Americans whom health experts expect to die or get sick in the absence of a coordinated national response to the winter spike in infections.
Trump has no interest in containing COVID-19. He never did. He still doesn't believe the raging pandemic is a serious problem. Do you doubt his disregard? Remember how Trump regaled crowds of unmasked supporters with rants about how COVID-19 is actually fake news? Trump told a crowd in North Carolina in October …
“That’s all I hear about now. Turn on television, ‘Covid, Covid, Covid Covid Covid.’ A plane goes down, 500 people dead, they don’t talk about it. ‘Covid Covid Covid Covid.' By the way, on November 4, you won’t hear about it anymore.”
The potential carnage of Trump's policies includes workers caught up in new restrictions imposed on business by local leaders trying to get the virus under control as well as the millions of schoolchildren who are already falling behind while classrooms remain shuttered.
Death tolls continue to soar. More than 1,700 healthcare workers have died of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, according to a new report (September 28) from one of the largest nurses' unions in the country, National Nurses United. That figure includes more than 200 nurses. Of the nurses who have died, a disproportionate number (60%) were people of color compared to the approximately one-quarter of registered nurses in the U.S. who are people of color, the report said.
The data demonstrate the government's lack of reporting requirements and ability to track healthcare worker deaths—as well as failures by health systems to provide adequate protection for front-line workers, NNU officials said.
(Tina Reed. “More than 1,700 U.S. healthcare workers have died from COVID-19, nurses' union says.” Fierce Healthcare. September 28, 2020.)
First responder deaths related to COVID-19 are up according to several sources. For example, the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) reports 18* confirmed on-duty firefighter deaths attributed to COVID-19, making it the leading cause of death so far this year.
(“COVID-19 increases line-of-duty deaths.” U.S. Fire Administration. FEMA. September 19, 2020.)
“What is not well documented is the toll on family members. New research suggests the damage is enormous. For every person who dies of COVID-19, nine close family members are affected, researchers estimate based on complex demographic calculations and data about the coronavirus.”
Many survivors are shaken by the circumstances under which loved ones pass away – rapid declines, sudden deaths and an inability to be there at the end – and worrisome ripple effects may linger for years, researchers warn
(Ashton M. Verdery, Emily Smith-Greenaway, Rachel Margolis, and Jonathan Daw. “Tracking the reach of COVID-19 kin loss with a bereavement multiplier applied to the United States.” Highlights. Proceedings of the National Academy of Scientists of the United States of America. July 28, 2020.)
"More people may die if we don't coordinate," Biden warned bluntly on November 16, stepping up his pressure for Trump to recognize his defeat in the election and impending exit from office.
Unlike Trump, who is wallowing in his sense of personal grievance and fury at what he sees as a humiliating loss, Biden has a sense of urgency and new proposals, and he is calling for a coordinated national effort to mitigate the harrowing impact of the nationwide spike in infections.
But while Biden has the moral standing of an election win, he has no power to implement his plans until Inauguration Day on January 20. Members of the White House coronavirus task force are coming forward saying they should be able to meet with the Biden transition team to stop the pandemic. However, Trump is doubling down on his refusal to concede and riling up his base, including tens of thousands of supporters who gathered in Washington, D.C., to protest the election results.
So far, Trump has prevented infectious disease health experts from handing off key information to the incoming Biden officials to help curb the pandemic.
One of Biden’s COVID-19 advisers, Dr. Atul Gawande, recently told ABC’s “This Week” show …
"It is in the nation's interest that the transition team get the threat assessments ... understand the vaccine distribution plans, you need to know where the stockpiles are, what status is of masks and gloves … There's a lot of information that needs to be transmitted. It can't wait to the last minute."
The country’s top infectious disease expert. Dr. Anthony Fauci, a fixture on Trump’s coronavirus task force – who has been through political transitions involving six presidencies – told CNN …
"Of course it would be better if we could start working with them. It’s very clear that the transition process that we go through ... is really important in a smooth handing over of the information. It's almost like passing the baton in a race. You don't want to stop and then give it to somebody; you want to essentially keep going."
Fauci and another coronavirus official, Admiral Brett Giroir of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, both said that it has been "several months" since Trump met with the White House coronavirus task force, which is headed by Vice President Mike Pence.
Giroir called news of the possible eventual success of the Pfizer vaccine a "game changer," but that the surge in the number of new cases still leaves the country in a critical situation and the lack of a transition from the Trump administration to Biden’s troubling.
"I want to be as transparent as possible with everybody; this is not a political issue," he said. "This is an issue of public health and saving American lives. And I think there's nothing more important than that."
(Ken Bredemeier. “US Health Officials: Trump Hindering COVID-19 Care by Blocking Transition to Biden.” VOA News. November 15, 2020.)
Through misinformation, incompetence, and stupidity, Donald Trump has abetted the spread of the coronavirus. His machismo and desperation were behind his attempt to falsely convince Americans that the pandemic will come to an end at any moment. For months, as Covid-19 spread across the country, Trump tried to pretend that the country itself was, essentially, fine and the virus was no worse than the flu. All of this denial even as the White House’s lax safety protocols infected the president, his wife, his campaign manager, several senior administration officials, three United States senators, and many others.
“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,” Donald Trump boasted in 2016. And now Trump supporters have allowed him to get away with figurative murder. Robert Reich, former US secretary of labor and professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley says …
“Trump is, in effect, standing in the middle of Fifth Avenue, killing off tens of thousands of Americans.”
(Robert Reich. “Trump said he could kill and win – Covid and cheating may prove it.” The Guardian. October 11, 2020.)
In the closing months of his presidency, President Donald Trump does nothing to stop the deadly pandemic. In October when White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, pressed to explain why the pandemic cannot be reined in, said, “Because it is a contagious virus just like the flu,” Meadows revealed Trump's true intention – the administration has given up on controlling COVID-19. And, the horrifying fact is he never tried to effectively control the virus. His political and personal aspirations made that impossible. Trump views the death and destruction simply as collateral damage.
“Just in case you were about to feel an unfamiliar spasm of sympathy for Donald Trump following his contraction of coronavirus, this week has provided a helpful reminder not only of his morally repugnant character but also of the danger he poses to the United States and the wider world … This virus has done to Trumpian machismo what it’s done to Trumpian disrespect for rules and science: it’s exposed it as hollow and a failure.”
– Jonathan Freedland, Guardian columnist, regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, and presenter of BBC Radio 4's “The Long View”
No comments:
Post a Comment