“On the morning of 13 July, more than 20 COVID-19 experts from across the U.S. government assembled in a conference room at the Department of Health and Human Services, steps from the Capitol. The group conferred on how best to gather key data on available beds and supplies of medicine and protective gear from thousands of hospitals. Around the table, masks concealed their expressions, but with COVID-19 cases surging out of control in some parts of the country, their grave mood was unmistakable, say two people who were in the room.
“Irum Zaidi, a top aide to White House Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator Deborah Birx, chaired the meeting. Zaidi lifted her mask slightly to be heard and delivered a * fait accompli: Birx, who was not present, had pulled the plug on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) system for collecting hospital data and turned much of the responsibility over to a private contractor, Pittsburgh-based TeleTracking Technologies Inc., a hospital data management company. The reason: CDC had not met Birx’s demand that hospitals report 100% of their COVID-19 data every day.
“According to two officials in the meeting, one CDC staffer left and immediately began to sob, saying, 'I refuse to do this. I cannot work with people like this. It is so toxic.' That person soon resigned from the pandemic data team, sources say."
* fait accompli – a thing that has already happened or been decided before those affected hear about it, leaving them with no option but to accept it.
(Charles Piller. “The inside story of how Trump’s COVID-19 coordinator undermined the world’s top health agency.” Science Magazine. October 14, 2020.)
Deborah Birx has served as Trump's Coronavirus Response Coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Some of her regrettable actions have undermined the effectiveness of the world’s preeminent public health agency, according to a Science investigation.
Interviews with nine current CDC employees, several of them senior agency leaders, and 20 former agency leaders and public health experts – as well as a review of more than 100 official emails, memos, and other documents – suggest Birx’s hospital data takeover fits a pattern in which she opposed CDC guidance, sometimes promoting President Donald Trump’s policies or views against scientific consensus.
And so it goes … and goes … and goes. From Bob Woodward's revelation that Trump knew the virus was “deadly stuff” in early February and he wanted to “play it down” to Trump's November post-election denial of the virus, the writing is on the wall. From the very beginning, the president has deceived Americans about the coronavirus. Trump's missteps continue to undermine the U.S.'s recovery from the pandemic.
Just one example (And there are many.) – a review of news events by USA TODAY, found that Trump and members of his administration have often flouted guidelines aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19.
From September 1 to October 6, the president and key Oval Office figures violated Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance on the coronavirus at least 27 times, ignoring recommendations on mask-wearing, social distancing, quarantining and more.
(Grace Hauck and Joshua Bote. “President Trump and his staff defied CDC coronavirus guidelines 27 times since Sept. 1.” USA TODAY. October 06, 2020.)
While Joe Biden has spent these early days as President-elect pleading with Americans to pay attention to the relentless surge of Covid-19 – with deaths averaging more than 1,000 a day in November – Trump continues to ignore the deepening crisis and touts the promises of yet-to-be-approved vaccines as his panacea.
Now, Trump even refuses to let the transition to the Biden presidency proceed and pass on knowledge that could be critical to slowing the spread of the virus next year.
"It's almost like passing a baton in a race – you don't want to stop and then give it to somebody, you want to just essentially keep going. And that is what transition is."
– Dr. Anthony Fauci
Dr. Vivek Murthy, co-chair of Biden's transition coronavirus advisory board and former Surgeon General under President Obama, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer it was "a grim day for the country." Murthy explained …
"We're at a point now, even pre-Thanksgiving, where we are surging beyond any level that we have seen over the last eight months. What we do over these next few weeks is going to have a profound impact on whether this spread increases or whether we ultimately control the spread of this virus."
(Maeve Reston. “As Trump ignores deepening coronavirus crisis, Biden calls for urgent response.” CNN. November 15, 2020.)
Right up to election day, Trump has mocked the deadly virus as a media conspiracy and insisted it is on its way out, despite having contracted it himself. “Until November 4th., Fake News Media is going full on Covid, Covid, Covid,” he tweeted on October 27. “We are rounding the turn. 99.9%.”
The bitter, egotistical loser of the election, Donald Trump, continues to lie about COVID-19 and its deadly grip on America. He has said the virus is “far less lethal” than the flu for “most populations.” That is a lie. He continues to say the virus is “disappearing.” That is another lie – it is surging.
And now Trump is keen on the idea of just letting the virus spread naturally among younger people so as to achieve “herd immunity” through infections rather than a vaccine. That “let people die” strategy in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic is roundly rejected and discredited by scientists. Deliberately letting the coronavirus rip through the population while attempting to shield the most vulnerable – such as the elderly and those with pre-existing health conditions – is more than troubling. It condones mass homicide.
The resulting death toll – estimates suggests the result could be somewhere between 1 million to 2.5 million dead Americans – would be catastrophic. Gavin Yamey, professor of global health and public policy at Duke Univerity and Director of the Center for Policy Impact in Global Health, says …
“The U.S. health system would buckle under the weight of so many hospitalizations and ICU admissions. With the health system pushed to breaking point by the virus, services for diseases like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease would be disrupted, which could lead to an increase in deaths from these other conditions.
“And among those who are infected and survive, research suggests that 10% of people at any age may develop a long-term illness, called long-COVID, that appears to affect the lungs, heart, brain and joints, and can be highly debilitating.”
(Gavin Yamey. “The White House Wants to Achieve Herd Immunity by Letting the Virus Rip. That Is Dangerous and Inhumane.” Time. October 14, 2020.)
The American public should fear Trump's long history of views against science. Thank God Joe Biden will soon take over the fight against the coronavirus. The damage already done is immense. Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette Staff Writer, paints this view of a long-lasting impression …
“In such deeply partisan times, the president’s repeated denials of the pandemic’s threat, his scorn for COVID mitigation measures, and ridicule for experts like Fauci, who over the weekend again pushed for a larger role for science in managing the pandemic, get amplified by conservative media outlets, and the conspiracy theories and disinformation spread by bad actors on social media help validate anti-science skepticism.”
(Christina Pazzanese. “Why isn’t the right more afraid of COVID-19?.” The Harvard Gazette. October 30, 2020.)
“This rejection of science and of expertise [has] become [a] demonstration of political loyalty. That’s the part I didn’t expect — that there would be an entire political movement, led by the president of the United States, to basically disavow science.”
– Tom Nichols, political scientist who teaches at Harvard Extension School and the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, R.I.
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