4/8-10/20: I try to stick as close to the
facts on this blog as possible (albeit wrapping them in a giant bow of liberal reasoning
and mockery).
So, the fact is, President Trump’s chances of winning a second
term appear to be rising. As of Thursday,
April 10, if we take an average of polls, his disapproval rate is actually
dropping.
As a liberal, I might argue that this proves many Americans don’t
follow the news closely enough.
Unlike the president, however, I don’t deny facts.
In an update this evening, Johns Hopkins University reports that
the U.S. has 496,535 confirmed
cases of COVID-19. That’s more than three
times as many as Spain, the next most suffering country. I know. Facts. Our
population is seven times greater. Adjusting for that, Spain has been hit
harder.
____________________
The U.S. and South Korea both discovered their first cases of
COVID-19 on January 20.
____________________
So, where did we go wrong? The U.S. and South Korea both discovered their first cases of COVID-19 on January 20.
Two days later a reporter asked Mr. Trump if he had any “worries about a pandemic.” Trump replied: “No, not at all. We have it totally under control [emphasis added, unless otherwise noted]. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control.”
On January 24, Trump complimented the Chinese for the way they were handling the outbreak, tweeting, “China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency….I want to thank President Xi!”
Trump still wasn’t worried.
Recently, the president insisted that no one could have predicted
this outbreak. Then The New York Times revealed an email, sent on
January 29, from a top White House official, warning that the coronavirus could
“evolve into a full-blown pandemic, imperiling the
lives of millions of Americans.”
The existence of that email is a fact.
Even Trump didn’t dare deny the email existed. He
simply claimed he never saw it. He never heard of it. And no one told him about it
(even though it circulated widely in the West Wing.) Even if he had, it
wouldn’t have changed his decision-making. Because he did everything right.
Still, it’s a fact: On January 29, he was too
busy tweeting to focus on COVID-19, including about a big rally he had planned. Ticket
requests were through the roof. He was so thrilled! What
could go wrong? You know, big
crowd in one place: “175,000 ticket requests. Keep America
Great!”
So,
it was 29 tweets that day – and too busy to read the email. It was 46
tweets on January 30; and Trump still wasn’t worried. January 31 was a “slow”
day on Twitter for Trump; but on February 1 he was talking about huge rallies
again.
“Trump
poll numbers are the highest since election,” he wrote, “despite constant phony
Witch Hunts! Tens of thousands of people attending rallies (which the Fake News
never mentions) to see ‘The Greatest Show On Earth’. Fun because USA is WINNING
AGAIN!”
Trump wasn’t worried about the coronavirus. We now know that on that date the
U.S. has eight
confirmed cases.
February 8: 12 cases.
February 15: 15.
February 22: 30.
A Disastrous Press Conference.
By February 26, the country has 60 cases although that figure will not be confirmed until later that day. Trump remains blissfully, cluelessly unaware. He’s not worried, telling reporters that the U.S. has only 15 cases (correct based on what was known when he spoke). And we’re not talking “Fake News.” We’re talking White House transcripts. This is what the orange guy said. On that day, Trump could tell reporters, and a national television audience, all of the following:
Because of all we’ve done, the risk to the
American people remains very low.
As most of you know, the – the level that we’ve
had in our country is very low, and those people are getting better, or we
think that in almost all cases they’re better, or getting.
Of the 15 people – the “original 15,” as I call them – 8 of them have returned to their homes, to stay in their homes until fully recovered. One is in the hospital and five have fully recovered. And one is, we think, in pretty good shape and it’s in between hospital and going home.
(All quotes from the White House transcripts.)
Congress had just voted to give the Trump administration $8.5 billion to handle the growing threat. Trump wasn’t worried:
We were asking for two and a half billion, and we think that’s a
lot, but the Democrats, and, I guess, Senator Schumer wants us to have much
more than that. And normally, in life, I’d say, “We’ll take it. We’ll
take it.”
If they want to give more, we’ll
do more. We’re going to spend whatever is appropriate. Hopefully, we’re
not going to have to spend so much because we really think we’ve done a great
job in keeping it down to a minimum. And again, we’ve had tremendous
success – tremendous success – beyond what people would have thought.
I spoke with President Xi. We had a great
talk. He’s working very hard, I have to say. He’s working very, very
hard.
That day, the
president makes one of many comparisons of the coronavirus to the regular flu.
As has often been the case since he won election, even rudimentary science
seems to baffle the man:
The flu, in our country, kills
from 25,000 people to 69,000 people a year. That was shocking to me.
And, so far, if you look at
what we have with the 15 people and their recovery, one is – one is pretty sick but hopefully will recover, but the others
are in great shape. But think of that: 25,000 to 69,000.
(Look at that. Fifteen sick vs. 25,000 to
69,000 dead. This is like the flu. Only not so bad.)
A reporter
asks if he might limit travel from other countries besides China? Perhaps Italy
or South Korea?
…it’s one person, and many
countries have no problem whatsoever. And we’ll see what happens.
But we’re very, very ready
for this, for anything – whether it’s going to be a breakout of larger proportions or
whether or not we’re – you know,
we’re at that very low level, and we want to keep it that way.
So we’re at the low
level. As they get better, we take them off the list, so that we’re going
to be pretty soon at only five people. And we could be at just one or two
people over the next short period of time.
The Johns Hopkins, I guess – is a highly respected, great place – they did a study, comprehensive: “The Countries Best and Worst
Prepared for an Epidemic.” And the United States is now – we’re rated number one. We’re rated number one for being
prepared. This is a list of different countries.
(Trump waves around a list. Later, when the virus spreads widely, he blames the Obama administration for leaving the country unprepared. But he just bragged about how his administration was the best prepared of any country.)
A reporter
inquires, “Mr. President, the CDC said yesterday that they believe it’s
inevitable that the virus will spread in the United States, and it’s not a question
of ‘if’ but ‘when.’ Do you agree with that assessment?”
Trump
replies, “Well, I don’t think it’s inevitable. It probably will. It
possibly will. It could be at a very small level or it could be at a
larger level. Whatever happens, we’re totally prepared.”
(We
weren’t totally prepared. In failing to realize that the president ensured that
we would fail to be prepared. There was no urgency at the top.)
Congress is willing to give us
much more than we’re even asking for. That’s nice for a change. But we
are totally ready, willing, and able. It’s a term that we
use. It’s “ready, willing, and able.” And we have – we have – it’s going
to be very well under control.
Now, it may get bigger, it may
get a little bigger. It may not get bigger at all. We’ll see what
happens. But regardless of what happens, we are totally prepared.
(Trump believes the country is totally
prepared.)
When you look at a country this size, with so
many people pouring in – we’re the number one in the world for people coming into a country, by
far. And we have a total of 15 cases, many of which, or most – within a day, I will tell you most of whom are
fully recovered. I think that’s, really, a pretty impressive mark.
(Today’s
mark: 496,535. Definitely, not “pretty impressive.”)
Now, we did take in 40 people that were
Americans, and they’re also recovering. But we brought them in, so I call that – I have a different group. But we felt we
had an obligation to American citizens outside of the country that were trying
to get back in. We thought it was very important.
(Trump doesn’t think those 40 should count against him. He
wants to stick to the “original 15.” That means he’s doing a fabulous job. But
when President Obama brought back seven sick Americans with Ebola in 2014,
Trump called him a “psycho.”)
A reporter
asks, “Mr. President, should Americans be going out getting protective
equipment such as masks and so forth? And if so, what is the U.S. doing to
boost production of masks?”
Well, we can get a lot of
it. In fact, we’ve ordered a lot of it just in case we need it. We
may not need it; you understand that. But in case – we’re looking at worst-case scenario. We’re going to be
set very quickly.
But we – I don’t think we’re going to ever be anywhere near that. I
really don’t believe that we’re going to be anywhere near that. Our
borders are very controlled. Our flights in from certain areas that we’re
talking about are very controlled. I don’t think we’ll ever be anywhere
near that.
(Trump
still has no idea how this virus might spread, from American tourists returning
home from Italy, for example.)
“I would say the number is way under 1
percent.”
Asked about
cutting off travel from other countries, the president is optimistic about what
will happen with tourism in the U.S.A.:
What it’s going to do is keep
people home, and they’re going to travel to places that we have. We have
the greatest – it’s the
greatest tourism country in the world. So instead of leaving our country,
leaving our shores, they’ll stay here.
And again, when you have 15
people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to
zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.
*
BY THE END OF FEBRUARY, we have 70 confirmed cases. Trump still isn’t worried. He ends the month by tweeting about “Sleepy Joe Biden,” “Crazy Bernie Sanders” and “Mini Mike Bloomberg.” He doesn’t have time to bone up on the coronavirus or to ponder the implications if he did. He’s too busy tweeting again on March 1 (29 tweets) to attend to the crisis. He did have time, however, to quote a poll which made him sound better than President Obama!
A
Poll in today’s New York Post says that 77% of “U.S. adults have confidence in
their government’s ability to handle the Coronavirus (Number One), compared to
other health threats.” 64% for Zika, 58% for Ebola. Others way down on list. Our
professionals are doing a great job.
And the president was way too busy the following day, when he
tweeted 49 times on March 2, including:
I was criticized by the Democrats when I closed the Country down to China many
weeks ahead of what almost everyone recommended. Saved many lives. Dems were
working the Impeachment Hoax. They didn’t have a clue! Now they are fear
mongering. Be calm & vigilant!
He still wasn’t worried enough on March 3 (37 tweets), March 4
(39) or March 5 (31) to focus on the threat. Instead, his second tweet of the
day on March 5, was a complaint about how he was being treated unfairly,
I NEVER said people that are feeling sick should go to work. This is just more
Fake News and disinformation put out by the Democrats, in particular MSDNC.
Comcast covers the CoronaVirus situation horribly, only looking to do harm to
the incredible & successful effort being made!
So, here’s what Trump did say on March 5 (when the U.S. had
only 161 confirmed cases). I think it’s fair
to say he made it clear he wasn’t concerned about the virus spreading.
“It’s, you know, a very, very small number in this country,” he told Sean
Hannity in a call to his evening show. The World Health Organization was already
warning that as many as 3.4% of those infected could die. Trump wasn’t buying. “I
think the 3.4% is really a false number. Now – this is just my hunch…because a
lot of people will have this and it’s very mild,” he told his host. “Personally,
I would say the number is way under 1 percent.”
At that point, only a dozen Americans had
succumbed. The president continued: “So if, you know, we have thousands or
hundreds of thousands of people that get better, just by, you know, sitting
around and even going to work, some of them go to work, but they get better.”
Did he say people “should” go to work?
Maybe not. Did he indicate they could and probably should?
You be the judge.
Certainly, doctors were appalled. Dr.
Kathie Allen, a family physician from California, responded via Twitter: “Am a
doctor. Don’t go to work with Coronavirus. Don’t listen to Stupid.”
“It’s extremely irresponsible and dangerous for
Trump to say that people with mild symptoms of the coronavirus can get better
just by going to work,” Dr. Eugene Gu added. “They can transmit the coronavirus
to their coworkers, some of whom may have chronic medical conditions and suffer
bad complications.”
That same day, March 5, the World Health Organization warned, “This is not a drill.
This is not the time to give up. This is not a time for excuses. This is a time
for pulling out all the stops.”
President Trump wasn’t worried.
The
next day, he headed for Mar-a-Lago for the weekend, stopping on the way for a
tour of the Atlanta headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Anybody right now and yesterday, anybody that
needs a test gets a test,” he told reporters. “They’re there. They have the tests
and the tests are beautiful.”
In
reality, the U.S. testing program was a mess.
On
March 7, Trump found time for a round of golf. Then he hosted a birthday bash
for his son Don’s girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle (as you might guess, a former broadcaster
for Fox News).
Trump
wasn’t worried.
He
had a hunch.
The
death rate from COVID-19 was way less than 1%!
But the warning signs were multiplying, and the president missed
them or refused to face up to reality. By that time two dozen states had
declared emergencies. A cruise ship, carrying infected passengers and crew was parked
off the West Coast. No port wanted to allow them to debark. The Dow was in a
steep decline. Major music and sporting venues were being canceled.
USA Today captures the president’s lack
of concern at that point perfectly:
Armed with all of that evidence, President Donald Trump spent the next week treating COVID-19 in much the same way that he had over the previous two months: he hosted large gatherings at Mar-a-Lago, went golfing, attended fundraisers, dispensed misinformation about the virus and flouted social distancing guidelines known to stem its spread. If his behavior was meant to be a model for Americans to follow, the message was clear—life could proceed as normal.
“It doesn’t bother them and it doesn’t bother me.”
The next week could have been used to effect, as could the two months prior. But Trump continued to act like the virus was flu, only under a different name. On March 6, before heading south, he took time during a White House meeting to call Elizabeth Warren “a very mean person.” At a stop in Tennessee, to offer support for people who had been hard hit by a tornado, Trump shook hands with everyone. In one case nearly a hundred people crowded round to take pictures.
A reporter asked if he might have to end his large rallies, rather than risk having supporters spread the virus.
Trump replied confidently, “It doesn’t bother them and it doesn’t bother me.”
During his stop at CDC, Trump found time to “comfort” the worst-hit state of Washington, by labeling the governor “a snake.”
USA Today describes what came next:
Fox News host Tucker Carlson later said that he drove to Mar-a-Lago that Saturday
night [March 7] and urged Trump to take the novel coronavirus more seriously.
But the glitzy backdrop and a ballroom of attendees forming a conga line – or as it’s called in Mar-a-Lago, “The Trump
Train” – seemed removed from
the reality that a deadly, ultra-contagious virus was quietly seeping through
the country.
On Sunday, Trump found time for another round of golf, this time
with a group of Major League baseball players. Those players would soon be
idled by the cancellation of the start of the season.
Trump still wasn’t worried.
On Monday, March 8, he appeared at a fundraiser. The Dow Jones
plunged. And in the three days he was off in Florida, the number of confirmed
cases of COVID-19 doubled from 262 to 583.
The next day the U.S. had 959 confirmed cases.
Over the course of the next few days, as USA Today
explains, the White House consistently violated the tenets of “social distancing.”
Trump wasn’t worried.
“A tremendous amount has been learned.”
Finally, on March 13, Trump declared a national emergency. By then, the U.S. had 2,179 confirmed cases, and the explosion we’ve seen since was all but guaranteed. “This will pass through, and we’re going to be even stronger for it,” Trump insisted. “We’ve learned a lot. A tremendous amount has been learned.” At a press conference that very day, 18 individuals crowded the podium. Trump shook hands with everyone who spoke, save one, who offered an elbow bump.
USA Today explains what another lost week meant:
On February 20, 104 South
Koreans had tested positive for the virus, according to the WHO. Thirty-two
days later, that number was 8,961, and 111 had died.
A similar number of Americans
were confirmed to have been infected by mid-day on March 6, according to the
same data. Thirty-two days later, on April 7, the WHO stated
that 333,811 Americans were infected and nearly 10,000 were dead.
South Korean leaders recognized the threat and acted quickly to stem the spread.
The U.S. did not – because our president did not believe or could not understand there was a serious threat.
Today, the numbers stand at:
South Korea: 10,450.
U.S.A. 496,535.
Or, according to a second website, which updates later in the day: 502,876 cases, including 18,747 deaths.
By the way, that’s a death rate of 3.7%.
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