Trump's CoronaVirus Lies Are Making People Sick (& Tired)
President Trump has cancelled a visit to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta because, his handlers say, he doesn’t want to interfere with that agency’s work on the CoronaVirus.
In no time at all, the president contradicted his staff, saying he scrapped the trip because “they had one person who was potentially infected, and speaking of that I’d like to go...because of the one person they didn’t want me going, but I would prefer going.”
(TRUTH: One person was tested because of potential exposure, and was deemed not infected.)
UPDATE: Once word about this got out, the President's visit was re-scheduled.
Afterwards, Donald Trump is going to Mar-A-Lago for the weekend.
Rather than getting serious in a crisis, Trump's showman/conman instincts to lie and fool'em with the razzle dazzle seem to intensify.
Meanwhile, the virus will spread. For 80% of the population, it’s direct impact will be a flu-like illness. The older population and those with underlying chronic conditions are the ones in serious jeopardy. Unfortunately, those who aren’t as adversely impacted still serve as carriers, exposing those who are vulnerable.
If you haven't figured it out already, the U.S. government has screwed up big time in responding to the disease. At every opportunity, public relations, lies, and optics have trumped science based decision making.
Trump said the World Health Organization’s estimate of a 3.4 percent death rate for infections was “really a false number. “Now this is just my hunch, but based on a lot of conversations,” Trumps said on Fox News, “personally, I’d say the number is way under 1 percent.” The true death rate is unknown and disputed in good faith, and the WHO figure may not be accurate, but Trump’s dismissal of it as “false” is baseless.
Trump discussed the fact that people could go to work while carrying the virus and get better, seeming to suggest this would be fine. In fact, public health experts are urging people not to go to work if they are sick or infected.
He repeatedly compared the virus to the flu, even though estimates suggest the Covid-19 is much deadlier. And its impact on society could be much more severe than the flu because it has the potential to overburden the medical system.
Trump has repeatedly said that a vaccine for the virus could be coming soon, even though administration officials have consistently told him and the public that a year to a year-and-a-half is the best-case scenario for having a vaccine ready for widespread use.
When asked whether he agreed with his supporters, such as Rush Limbaugh — who falsely claimed the coronavirus was the “common cold” and that it was being weaponized against Trump — Trump said he agreed. He later said the coronavirus was the Democrats’ new “hoax,” though he later said he meant the reactions to the outbreak were the “hoax.”
This response is yet another sign post along the road to authoritarianism precipitated by the Trump administration.
https://twitter.com/JesseRodriguez/status/1235951814060761094?s=20
As Michelle Goldberg notes in the New York Times:
...democratic countries are far better than authoritarian ones at fact-based policymaking and at sharing the truth with the public. “Non-democratic societies often restrict the flow of information and persecute perceived critics,” The Economist piece noted. We’ve seen this in China. As Li Yuan wrote of coronavirus in The Times last month, “As the virus spread, officials in Wuhan and around the country withheld critical information, played down the threat and rebuked doctors who tried to raise the alarm.”
Unfortunately, you could substitute “Washington, D.C.” for “Wuhan” in that sentence and it would be equally true. So far, Donald Trump’s response to coronavirus combines the worst features of autocracy and of democracy, mixing opacity and propaganda with leaderless inefficiency.
Trump's obsession with undoing anything Obama put in place, like eliminating critical pandemic response, has created a disaster now beyond his control, with an outcome he can never blame the previous administration for.
But it’s not like the president hasn’t tried to blame Obama.
From the Associated Press Fact Check:
President Donald Trump and his officials are falsely asserting that they’ve accelerated coronavirus testing by easing a restrictive policy introduced by the Obama administration…
...THE FACTS: It’s not true that an Obama-era rule limited laboratories run by companies, universities and hospitals from developing and running tests for the coronavirus during an emergency. No such regulation existed.
The Trump administration’s action Saturday only undid a policy that its own Food and Drug Administration put in place.
The public isn’t buying into the White House effort to protect Trump’s reelection prospects at all costs, as this just released polling from Public Policy Polling shows:
A new national Public Policy Polling survey finds that voters are very concerned about the coronavirus and strongly disapprove of the administration’s response.
72% of voters say they’re concerned about the impact the virus will have on the economy, including 36% who say they’re ‘very concerned.’
57% of voters say they’re concerned that they or someone in their family will get sick from the virus, including 24% who say they’re ‘very concerned.’
Voters take the virus a lot more seriously than the president does. Only 8% of voters agree with Trump’s claim that the virus is a Democratic hoax, while 82% think the virus is real. Only 16% of Trump’s own voters agree with him that the virus is a hoax.
Better late than never… State and local governments, public institutions, and corporations are quietly scrambling to take steps designed to limit the spread of the CoronaVirus. Nobody wants panic, and in an era where social media gives credibility to the worst sorts of misinformation and conspiracies, working unobtrusively seems like a rational decision.
Trump will lie, as always, but a public health disaster and recession tell truths he can't hide.
For most of us, the New York Times checklist will be a sufficient reaction:
Keep your hands clean, and keep your distance from sick people
With children, keep calm and carry on — and get the flu shot
Here’s my advice:
Please don’t rely on social media or emails from unofficial sources for information.
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https://twitter.com/abradacabla/status/1235965081084661762?s=20
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