Asleep at the Wheel

 

I’ve tried to avoid saying too much about Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 virus, partially because I think there have been some on the left who have criticized every little thing he’s done, even things that weren’t within his control. However, it’s become really apparent that he’s botched this so badly that something needs to be said. He’s still trying to blame China for a disease that came from nature. They were slow to react initially, but that’s not too surprising, when there’s a new emergency it usually takes people some time to recognize it. Once the scale of the problem was apparent, they took quick action to help stop it’s spread. Trump saw what was happening but did little other than some travel bans which he seemed to naively believe would completely keep the virus out of the country. When he was told we needed to ramp up our testing capability he turned down the testing kit we were offered from the World Health Organization (WHO) and then didn’t make developing our own test a priority.

It’s been widely reported that members of the Administration downplayed the importance of testing because they were afraid that more testing would reveal more cases and make the President look bad. Trump also resisted letting infected people off a cruise ship to get treatment because it would increase our number of cases. The President clearly sees this as a political problem first and as a health crisis second. As a result of Trump’s inaction, we are far behind the rest of the world in testing capability. That’s crucial because we don’t even know what the extent of the problem is because we can’t test for it. You can’t contain something if you don’t know where it is. This lack of data is behind a lot of the cancelations because we have to assume the worst in the absence of information.

In Trump’s primetime address to the nation he apparently struggled to read the teleprompter and mischaracterized his own virus policy, White House officials had to issue corrections after the fact. He misspoke about the nature of the travel ban, he incorrectly stated cargo was being banned, he promised treatments that don’t exist yet, he said insurance companies were waiving copays for coronavirus treatments which is not true. He also said that Americans would only be allowed back in the country after being screened, which is also not true. He’s implemented a travel ban with Europe without any consultations with them. When European Union (EU) officials heard a rumor of the travel ban, they called to find out if it was true and Trump never called them back. As a result, they were left to find out at the same time as everyone else while watching it on television. When he was criticized for not giving the EU advanced knowledge of the ban, he said they don’t give us advanced warning of tariff hikes, linking a completely unrelated issue and apparently forgetting that it was he who started the trade war with Europe. All this for a policy that medical experts are saying is pointless because the virus is already here. You can’t keep a virus out after it’s already spreading in the general population.

Trump has made so many false statements about the COVID-19 virus it boggles the mind. He’s made statements saying we have plenty of tests and that anyone who wants to be tested can be, these statements are false. He’s said the virus will naturally go away when the weather warms up with no evidence to support that claim. He’s compared it to the ordinary flu and suggested it’s not a problem to go to work. Back when we only had 15 confirmed cases he stated when those cases cleared up we’d be down close to zero cases, apparently unaware of how an outbreak works. He’s blamed the Democrats for manufacturing a crisis and tanking the stock market, obvious to the fact that his own erratic statements and policies have spooked the markets more than anything the Democrats have done. The stock market declines have been driven primarily by news of the virus spreading outside of China and information coming out of the WHO and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), not anything the Democrats have done.

Once the Coronavirus started affecting the stock markets it does appear he began taking the crisis more seriously. Unfortunately, it seems he’s more concerned with how it’s affecting corporations than actual people. He’s going forward with plans to cut food stamps and has resisted paid sick leave. Trump is fine however with using the Federal government to safeguard lost revenue for the oil industry even after they’ve posted massive profits in recent years, but apparently making up lost income of people who are out of work due to the virus is socialism.

One of the most troubling statement the President has made recently came at a press conference just yesterday (March 13) when a PBS reporter asked about his decision to disband the White House pandemic office in 2018, Trump responded, “I just think it’s a nasty question . . . I don’t know anything about it.” There are two possibilities here, either he’s lying, which is usually the case, or what I fear is that he’s telling the truth. How can the President of the United States be unaware of a significant reorganization of the National Security Council? It’s easy to imagine John Bolton, the former National Security Advisor, telling the President he was going to disband the NSC’s pandemic response team and Trump not understanding what he was talking about, just going along with it. Trump likes to talk about how he’s a genius and has a natural ability to understand complicated issues, but his own remarks seem to indicate he doesn’t even have a basic understanding of what’s going on in his own administration.

In this video clip from the PBS NewsHour, the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute lays out just how inadequate our testing capabilities are. It’s a very informative interview. The clip is a little over six minutes long, if you don’t have time to watch the whole thing, the first half of it is worth watching. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIrGZUp7WO0