General Update / Trump: What He Did Right / What He Did Wrong / Final Grade / What About Biden?
Yes ... I know that the virus doesn't care about politics, and yes ... politics should be entirely separate from the virus. After all, the virus only cares about lungs and nom nom nom, whether we be Republican, Democrat, white, black, Asian, gay, straight, devout Christian, Muslim, atheist, or whatever.
But unfortunately if there's anything 2020 has taught us is that politics can and does determine how successfully the virus can spread. Some policies give the virus more lungs to infect, and some policies do a better job at protecting people.
So now we'll take a good look at how Trump has done, and give him a grade for his biggest test of his career.
But first ...
General Update
Deaths are slowing down, and New Cases are showing the very first signs of starting to speed up again. Worldwide, several countries in Europe are seeing resurgences. Brazil and Peru seem to be the most ballistic at the moment.
In the US, it looks like it's time for the midwest to have their turn at being the center of attention. The south is still trying to go down in counts, though my state of NC continues to struggle because of school outbreaks.
I guess that's all I got right now for updates ... so ...
What Trump Did Right
Next we must all realize that most everyone who is passionate about this subject wants the best for the people of the United States.
We may all disagree as to the best strategy. On one end of the spectrum, some believe that not even a single person should die from this disease, so we must all lockdown until it's all over in 4-6 weeks. And on the other end of the spectrum, some believe that we should ignore the virus, change no habits, and let our healthy immune systems take care of it.
However, we have a long history of pandemics, and other lesser breakouts. We have knowledge, experience, and experts who dedicate their lives to learning and stepping in to protect people from these sicknesses. These experts keep up to speed on the differences and similarities between outbreaks, and believe it or not, there are more similarities than differences, and thus we are able to use time-tested strategies.
For example, we know that universal mask wearing is effective with SARS coronaviruses, but not so much with influenza. We also know that identifying exposed people and quarantining them is very effective with practically all outbreaks, which means testing and contact tracing are vital to success. Lockdowns are only supposed to be used in emergency situations where other methods fail.
So, what about Trump?
I think he actually started out strong. At the end of January, he instituted travel restrictions against most parts of China. And he also instituted heavy quarantine measures on anyone exposed to the virus, while his opponents accused Trump of being racist or xenophobic. At the time, it seemed that Trump was the one overacting (good), and the Democrats were mocking him. (Though, isn't it funny that the Democrats are silent on all the countries that now have travel bans against us at this time?)
It was clear in early February that Trump did not want this virus in our borders, and I believe that his actions did indeed delay the spread of the virus for about a month compared to Italy and Spain whose cases shot up like a big explosion. Later in mid March, he increased travel restrictions to include most of Europe. He also instituted a 15-day "Slow the Spread" campaign encouraging social distancing and no groups larger than 10 people.
As the disease progressed late March/April, Trump (eventually) made sure there were plenty of supplies for New York, and he also mobilized military personnel to assist and set up makeshift hospitals to handle overflow. He also provided daily coronavirus briefings to keep the states informed on the latest developments.
In early April, Trump announced Operation Warp Speed, an effort to expend resources in an attempt to speed up the development of a safe vaccine against COVID19, though it's unclear to me how much this has helped the three vaccines currently in Phase 3 trials.
Up until this point in April, it really looked like Trump was mostly sincere about the fight against the virus, but then as soon as cases and deaths started to go down, he just seemed to stop caring.
What Trump Did Wrong
Despite the evidence that Trump tried to fight the virus through April, he wasn't consistent. From the beginning he wasn't perfect, though I'd say his handling was average through mid-April. He could have acted faster, pushed the "Slow the Spread" two weeks earlier, helped to push more testing earlier to help identify and quarantine.
The earlier containment strategies weren't the best. My favorite story was when our administration decided to rescue Americans off of the Diamond Princess mid-February. They loaded up a couple buses with everyone who had tested negative for the virus. But as they approached the planes, word came out that 14 of the passengers just then tested positive.
And remember what the rescuers did? They decided to go ahead and bring the sick people home. The 14 were placed at the very back of the plane with a plastic sheet to separate them from the rest of the non-infected passengers. Oopsies! Nom nom nom!
And as usual, Trump has been inconsistent throughout the whole epidemic with his tweets and strange utterances. For example, as early as March 9, he tweeted some stats from Fox News:
"So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!"I think this confused the general public. People did think about it, and they resisted safety protocols.
When Trump was pushing hard for the drug HCQ, and immediately after, there was an uptick in poison calls from people ingesting a fish chemical with a similar sounding name. And when Trump talked about detergents, again there was an uptick in bleach poisoning.
It all just shows how influential utterances from the President can be. It's part of the job, so when Trump shows that he personally can't take the virus seriously, it inspires practically all of his base to likewise not take it seriously -- and the result? More spread of the virus. Nom nom nom.
One day Trump says, "You should be wearing masks," and then the next day, he can't be caught dead wearing a mask, and even goes so far as to imply that NOT wearing a mask is showing support for himself. Even a couple of days ago in a rally in Pennsylvania, Trump again mocked Biden for wearing a mask everywhere he goes, and how stupid he looks.
So -- which message are we supposed to believe? The one where Trump is serious and says, "Wear your mask"? Or the one where he's joking around and saying, "Masks are stupid"? When provided with two conflicting messages, the general public is going to pick the one they want to hear most. (Nom nom.)
If it were just saying stupid things and being a little lax at the beginning, I could probably cut Trump some slack, but this is not all.
In mid-April, when Trump was hoping to reopen the economy by Easter, even though the base of Active Cases was still very high, he first indicated that he was going to force every state to reopen. But then the very next day he said he was going to leave it up to the states' governors to decide how to best reopen. But then again the very next day after that, in response to some lockdown protests, he tweeted on April 17:
LIBERATE MICHIGAN, LIBERATE VIRGINIA, LIBERATE MINNESOTA.This wasn't just saying something stupid, but rather a direct attempt to incite an insurrection against the very governors he purported to be free to proceed as they saw best. And ever since then he has been openly critical about "liberally run" cities and states that are slow to reopen ... even threatening to cut funding on schools that don't resume in-person schooling.
If anything, after mid-April, Trump has shown an enormous and complete lack of support in the efforts of local states and cities to do what it takes to eradicate the virus, which in and of itself contributes to the spread of the virus. Nom nom nom nom. Yeah.
And ... this is very important to understand ... I know why Trump is doing this. It all started mid-February when the global stock markets crashed. The market was his pride and joy, knowing that if the stocks are down, so are the chances of his reelection. That's when he started painting more of a rosy picture ... when he went from overreacting to under-reacting ... (and incidentally about the same time the liberals started taking it more seriously -- except for Pelosi?).
So, he has been downplaying the virus for months now, just so the markets can come back up and save his election. In other words, he has been choosing to take these actions to benefit himself ... not to save you and me from the virus, but to make the numbers look good for his chances. Don't believe me yet?
Just look at his campaign trail of death. In June, he held a rally in heavily-infected Tulsa, OK. Free masks were available on request, but everyone got the message -- if you truly support Trump, don't wear the mask. The organizers of the event negated their agreed-upon safety precautions by removing safety tape from social-distancing empty chairs so the participants would be allowed to cram together.
Trump knows that a well-attended rally drums up support, so he wasn't going to let a non-existent virus stop the perception of a lively event. Again, more proof that his own reelection was more important than the safety of the people. During the rally setup, several of Trump's staff -- organizers and secret police -- caught the virus, and a noticeable surge hit Tulsa shortly after. It was about the same time that Herman Cain caught the virus and subsequently died. He could have also picked up the virus at any of the other events held in Arizona and elsewhere that week.
At the Republican Convention in Charlotte, reports are already coming in of virus spread during the event. I haven't heard anything yet from the DC gathering for Trump's acceptance speech, but just give it time. Again ... trying to ignore the virus doesn't stop it from munching on lungs ... nom nom nom.
Also recently, Trump has added a new member to his coronavirus task force -- not an epidemiologist, but rather a radiologist? He doesn't know much about epidemics, but he sure knows how to pretend to know, and had been quite loud on Fox News. Trump liked what he saw, so he welcomed Dr. Scott Atlas on board. Evidently, he has been instrumental in pushing for some of the more recent policies to downplay the virus. It's almost as if the Emperor with the New Clothes desired to hire someone to tell him that he indeed is wearing clothes.
Dr. Atlas, it seems, was the one who recently forced the CDC to announce the guideline that asymptomatic people no longer need to get tested, even if exposed to someone with the virus. Seriously? Nom nom nom.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/us/politics/trump-scott-atlas-coronavirus.html
And this will be my last observation in this section. The CDC is a federal department that reports to the President. As such, Trump has corrupted guidelines and instructions issued from the CDC. The one I just mentioned above was one instance -- one in which the Director Redfield was vehemently opposed.
Another case involved guidance removed from the CDC guidelines for reopening churches. The CDC had a paragraph warning against the dangers of singing in church, being proven to be superspreading events. Evidently the Trump administration had the paragraph removed because of concerns that it might be seen as trampling on First Amendment religious rights. (Nom nom nom.)
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/29/865324310/cdc-quickly-changed-its-guidance-on-limiting-choirs-at-religious-services
Final Grade
There is so much "little" evidence against Trump, I'm struggling to bring it all together into this one blog post. All you have to do is open up the news and you can see the latest and greatest tactic Trump is using to promote himself over the safety of his constituents. Yet, the most interesting thing is that his base can't see any of this. Trump can do no wrong.
But to tell you the truth, even now I could delete that whole last section above and just present the following evidence, and by itself it would be enough to condemn Trump -- it would condemn any leader of any country that had the results you're about to see.
For months now, I've been tracking the total COVID deaths per million for several countries. This is much more appropriate number to track than total Cases reported or even total Deaths. Seeing it on a per-capita basis takes care of the issue of the US having a relatively large population. And Death counts are much more accurate than Case counts -- the last of which depend on testing, which rates vary between each country.
My source comes from the data at this website: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
And here is what my latest compiled graph looks like:
I start counting when a nation reaches 1 death per million to put each country on the same basis. The US is the bold green line with the currently steep upward slope. At the beginning of this week, the US ranked 9th place in the world for this stat. (Note that this excludes San Marino and Andorra, which are very small countries -- their high stats don't make sense in this context.)
But in the last couple of days, the US just now passed Sweden, and in a few days will bypass Italy as well, putting us in 7th place. It may even bypass Spain and the UK (and Chile) in a couple of weeks, placing us in 4th place. Not pictured in this graph are Chile at 600, Belgium at 854, and Peru at 894.
And keep in mind that this is out of 156 countries that have 1 million or more population (anything under that amount fails in this analysis).
That means by this stat alone, our current 8th place means there are 148 countries that are doing better than us. Also for comparison, Germany -- that curve just above 100 -- ranks 41st place, leaving the vast majority of countries below that line. The average for the whole world combined is 112.8 deaths per million. The US is at 580 deaths per million. 5 times more than world average!
There's just no way to spin this except to say that whoever is in charge of this country is doing a terrible job. He isn't doing whatever all these other countries are doing, and people have been dying from it.
The results speak for themselves. We're doing really poorly, and many experts are saying that we're not even halfway done yet. Is it possible to start doing what some of those other countries are doing? Maybe -- but not likely under the current leadership, and the confusing messages being sent to our public, and the lack of support in all the right places.
Trump's final grade: F
He doesn't even get points for trying early on. In fact it's so bad that I believe if Ebola were to hit us now, like it did in and around 2014, I think we'd have a humanitarian disaster on our hands. I do not feel safe.
What About Biden?
Are there any good alternative candidates that may more effectively fight the virus? If anything, I think Biden couldn't do worse. He is already running on the platform of issuing a nation-wide mask wearing mandate, not unlike what many successful countries have done.He also evidently has a 8-step plan that he says will reopen the nation safely.
https://joebiden.com/reopening/#
I definitely prefer his proposals over Trump's plan (wait -- does Trump even have a plan?). But some items on his list might be a little overkill, and I really think we could benefit from the Google/Apple automated contact tracing app -- it could really save us a lot of time and help the human contact tracers.
And as I said before, the trifecta of masks / testing / contact tracing are together what get the best results in the most successful countries. Biden's plan almost sounds like that.
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