The following would be funny if it did not reflect reality in this time of corona:
As medical staff in the US face a rising number of COVID-19 cases with a dwindling supply of protective gear, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has updated its advice, suggesting that, in a crisis, healthcare workers could use bandana or scarves over their faces while treating patients, despite the fact that neither are proven to be effective.
(Business Insider, March 19, 2020)
But I hasten to clarify that effective masks are hardly the only personal protective equipment (PPE) at issue:
Dr. Jane Jenab, a Denver-based emergency room physician, warned on Wednesday of area hospitals already rationing vital medical equipment for health care workers. Items like face masks, surgical gowns and gloves, she said, were already part of a ‘significant shortage’ that threatened the health of doctors and nurses and would eventually impact hospital patients. [Not to mention a nationwide shortage of ventilators to treat critically ill patients.]
(CBS News Denver, March 18, 2020)
Despite all that, President Trump insists he deserves an “A” for managing this crisis. He continually cites his reflexive decision to ban all flights from China for that grade. But he’s also patting himself on the back for willfully calling this pandemic the Chinese virus; notwithstanding universal cries that doing so is recklessly racist.
Unfortunately, nothing has characterized his (mis)management of this crisis quite like his big lies about progress in fighting it. For example, just yesterday,
During an at-times-confusing White House press conference, Trump said that chloroquine was approved for use and that he wanted to ‘remove every barrier’ to test more drugs against Covid-19 and ‘allow many more Americans to access drugs that have shown really good promise.’
An FDA spokesperson said the drug hadn’t been approved for use in Covid-19 patients.
(Bloomberg, March 19, 2020)
Such self-aggrandizing lies invariably compel administration officials to clean up after he dumps sh*t like this on an increasingly virus-weary public. But you have to wonder why so many high-profile people stand by and allow him to spout such bald-faced lies.
VP Mike Pence – with his Pavlovian praises for Trump and that permanent countenance of constipated sincerity – I get. But why would any self-respecting professional sacrifice their reputation at the altar of Trump’s idle ambition…?
In this case, surely Dr. Deborah Brix and Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams knew what he was saying about this test drug was bullshit. What’s more, this was consistent with the BS he’s been saying for weeks about the availability of test kits, masks, and other supplies. Yet, every time, they all just stand there like his friggin’ Praetorian Guards.
Nero may have fiddled while Rome burned. But Trump is not just stroking himself but flipping off everyone else while America dies.
To be fair, though, he has made clear his intent to pass the buck for this fiasco back to Obama – just as he has done with every other fiasco he has presided over during his presidency:
President Donald Trump on Friday declared he isn’t responsible for America’s shockingly slow response in finding out how many U.S. residents are infected with novel coronavirus. …
‘I don’t take responsibility at all because we were given a set of circumstances and we were given rules, regulations, and specifications from a different time,’ he told reporters.
(ABC News, March 13, 2020)
Frankly, to say this corona is Trump’s Katrina is an insult to George W. Bush. And Harry Truman (and every other dead president for that matter) must be rolling over in his grave.
Meanwhile, governors from coast to coast are trying to compensate for Trump’s lack of national leadership. This has ranged from the governor of Ohio canceling the Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday to the governor of California ordering a statewide quarantine on Thursday.
That said, I am still licking the wounds some of you inflicted after reading my original commentary, “Coronavirus? Makes More Sense to Quarantine People with the Flu, No?” February 18, 2020. Nevertheless, I remain stupefied … almost beyond words.
For example, as of this writing, the CSSE is reporting 266,082 coronavirus cases and 11,153 deaths worldwide. It is reporting 16,605 cases and 215 deaths in the United States. But, during this same period, over 100,000 Americans died from preventable causes like heart disease and nicotine.
Yet state governments are imposing quasi-martial law, thereby plunging the national economy into a depression, in a march of folly to fight the former while blithely ignoring that the latter has been the norm for decades. Clearly coronavirus is not the enemy; sheer madness is.
If countries truly wanted to save lives, they would simply ban nicotine and alcohol; that is, instead of following the fetishistic fascistic fashion afoot from Beijing to Washington and all capitals between.
This is why, instead of holding Groundhog-Day briefings, which are only driving people stir-crazier, I urge Trump to execute the following four-point plan to stop this madness:
- Outmaneuver all state and local lockdown orders (i.e. to shutdown all non-essential businesses and stay at home) by rescinding his own travel bans. Instead, he should instruct the airline industry to enhance airport screenings/testing and reinforce new socio-hygienic awareness to prevent the spread of this and other viruses as much as practicable.
- Assure the American people that he will marshal all government and private resources to fight this pandemic — just as previous presidents did to fight others like bird flu and swine flu without willfully destroying the economy or needlessly quarantining anyone. That would include using executive authority to a) mass produce test kits to do the kind of “testing, testing, testing!” and contact tracing that are making South Korea’s battle so much more effective; b) mass produce PPEs to make our frontline healthcare soldiers more confident and effective; and c) fast track possible vaccines and treatment therapies to make living with corona similar to living with the flu.
- Tell state and local officials to let the American people get back to work and resume their normal lives. (Not least because I can already smell the smoldering of a French-style revolution in the air during my daily walks. After all, expecting Americans today to stay home and watch nothing on TV except politicians and pundits droning on about a virus is rather like expecting Frenchmen back then to sleep on the streets and eat cake … if they could steal it.)
- Have the surgeon general assure the public not only that common sense is sufficient to determine self-isolation and social distancing, but that over 98 percent of people who get coronavirus survive it after experiencing relatively mild symptoms. But Trump himself should prevail upon the American people to accept wearing masks and washing hands (obsessively) not only as new (patriotic) norms, but as second nature.
All else is folly.
That’s why, instead of passing the buck, as Trump has done every day of this crisis, I can think of no better way to show fidelity to his oath of office than to execute these points. And I cannot overstate that, if we can live with the scourge of nicotine and gun violence, we can live with this far less deadly pandemic of coronavirus.
Put another way, fighting Covid-19 does not require locking down all economic and social activities — with all of the destabilizing and potentially deadly consequences that portends. Executing these points might not help Trump win re-election, but they might redeem what little regard anyone has ever had for his presidency.
God help America.
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