4/4/20: You can slice the bread any way you like it, thick or thin, or let the entire loaf turn stale, and punt it like a football. President Trump is a terrible prognosticator.
As of Saturday afternoon, the U.S. had piled up 312,249 confirmed cases of COVID-19.
This would be roughly 312,234
more cases than Dr. Zero (Donald J. Trump) predicted we’d have on February 26.
Since noon Friday, the United States has compiled almost 55,000 new cases. Worse, the number of dead jumped by more than 1,300 on Friday to 7,406, making it the deadliest day yet. This morning the death toll stands at 8,468, with another 8,206 individuals in serious or critical condition.
On Friday, the CDC recommended we all wear cloth masks in public, where social distancing rules are hard to follow. Trump then said during his daily press conference – during which he found time to brag again about how great the economy used to be – that wearing a mask should be “voluntary.” He wasn’t ready to order a nationwide stay-at-home order. “I leave it up to the governors,” he explained testily.
(He’s
testier than ever lately.)
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Wear a mask - maybe not this kind, though. |
Dr. Anthony Fauci, a key member of the Trump
administration’s coronavirus-fighting team, has said he can’t understand why governors
in several states are resisting such orders. “You know, the tension
between federally mandated versus states’ rights to do what they want is
something I don’t want to get into,” he said during a CNN
interview on Thursday. “But if you look at what’s going on in this
country, I just don’t understand why we’re not doing that.”
____________________
“That would be national suicide, and yet, that is what Anthony Fauci is suggesting, at least.”
Dr. Tucker
Carlson
____________________
Of course, we couldn’t have the leading infectious disease expert in the country spouting off and maybe making Dr. Zero look indecisive. So that other right-wing medical expert, Dr. Tucker Carlson, decided it was time to offer medical diagnosis. On his Friday night show, “Dr. Tuck” first threw out the baited hook to catch unwitting Fox News viewers, calling Fauci an “impressive person.”
Then he reeled in the dupes. “That doesn’t mean he’s never wrong. On the question of the pandemic, Fauci has been repeatedly wrong.”
Or to put it in Foxspeak: Don’t believe Fauci. Keep believing
that President Trump knows exactly what he’s doing.
Carlson then cited the ten million jobs already lost and probably sent his loyal viewers off to load up their guns when he added, “Imagine another year of this. That would be national suicide, and yet, that is what Anthony Fauci is suggesting, at least.”
National suicide!!!
At least!!!!!!!
This
was a stupid statement to make. And this blogger found himself wondering. Where
did Dr. Tuck get his medical degree? Corinthian College?
No one was advocating a shutdown for a year. Not Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer, or all three stacked atop each other. Not Dr. Fauci, surely. Not even the Easter Bunny. What experts are saying is that action now – for another month, maybe two – will keep us from having to fight an even more drawn-out, difficult, and economically devastating battle later.
Dr.
Tuck, had he wanted viewers to understand, might have explained that in South
Korea, where they instituted strict quarantines of all infected individuals, and
tested robustly from the start, the spread of the disease has been nearly halted.
He might have talked about how Washington State, California and Ohio moved
quickly to shut down non-essential businesses and schools to stop the spread. And
there it’s working. He could have compared those three states with Florida, where
the governor dallied, and where the numbers of confirmed cases are still
ballooning. Dr. Tuck might have explained that 90% of the U.S.
population
was already under stay-at-home orders. He might have added that almost every child, in grades K-12, has
been told to stay home as schools in all fifty states have turned out the
lights. He might have explained that the only way to start getting those ten
million jobs back was to stem the inexorable spread of the virus, as quickly
and surely as possible.
Only Dr. Tuck wasn’t there to give patients good medical advice. He was there to land a cheap shot – to undercut the real expert – noting that Dr. Fauci had “bulletproof job security.”
See what Dr. Tuck did! He intimated that Dr. Fauci wasn’t worried about anyone else because he still had a job.
Then Dr. Tuck went for the kill, warning that if critics of the president had their way, we’d all be doomed. High unemployment rates, he said, are “a far bigger disaster than the virus itself by any measure.”
“Our response to coronavirus could turn this into a far poorer nation,” he groaned. “Poor countries are unhealthy countries, always and everywhere. In poor countries, people die of treatable diseases. In poor countries, people are far more vulnerable to obscure viruses, like the one we are fighting now. You want to keep Americans from dying before their time? Then don’t impoverish them.”
(But we’ve still got to deny the newly-unemployed millions any chance to sign up for healthcare under the Affordable
Healthcare Act!)
Dr. Tuck’s solution: Take two aspirin and keep believing in Dr. Zero, the guy who said the virus would go away, like “a miracle.” Also, keep tuning into Dr. Tuck’s show nightly.
Dr. Tuck, of course, has “bulletproof job security,” himself.
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Dr. Tucks "thinking hard" face - to impress viewers. |
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