According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, 200,710 Americans have died of COIVD-19, while 6,890,662 Americans have become infected. Tens of thousands of Americans who have survived the virus continue to suffer a range of serious symptoms (including “fatigue, a racing heartbeat, shortness of breath, achy joints, foggy thinking, a persistent loss of sense of smell, and damage to the heart, lungs, kidneys, and brain”). They haven’t recovered. We don’t yet know whether, or to what extent, they will.
In no other country in the world is the toll of infection, suffering, and death as high as it is in the United States of America.
The President of the United States — who has refused to make and implement a plan to defeat the coronavirus — evinces indifference to this toll, as he campaigns for reelection before thousands of mostly unmasked followers failing to maintain any semblance of social distance, and tells them stories, as he did last night in Ohio:
We now know the disease. We didn’t know it. It affects elderly people – elderly people with heart problems and other problems. If they have other problems that’s what it really affects. That’s it.
You know, in some states thousands of people – nobody young. Below the age of 18, like, nobody. They have a strong immune system, who knows? Take you hat off for the young, because they have a hell of an immune system.
But it affects virtually nobody. It’s an amazing thing.
By the way, open your schools. Everybody, open your schools.
The President is lying. Recordings of Bob Woodward’s interviews reveal that in March, six months ago, Trump understood the gravity of the threat the virus posed to Americans, though he deliberately downplayed it in his public statements. “I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic,” he told Woodard on March 19.
Trump knew the virus was airborne, that it was much more deadly than the flu, and that it affected young and old alike. On March 7, he told Woodward:
Donald Trump understands the risks the virus poses and, where his personal health is concerned, he respects the simple guidelines for staying safe. Earlier this month in Nevada, before Trump spoke at a rally of unmasked followers crowded into an indoor auditorium, he had this exchange with Deborah Saunders, a reporter with the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
Aren’t you concerned about getting COVID though in an enclosed room?
No, I’m not concerned. I’m more concerned about how close you are.
Sorry about that.
You know why? I’m on a stage that’s pretty far away. And so I’m not at all concerned.
Trump understands social distancing. And – behind him, at stage level – the fans wear masks. It is the thousands of followers in the main auditorium, crowded together unmasked but far from the President, who are most at risk.
And by all accounts, they believe Trump when he tells them the risks don’t exist, or perhaps as a signal of their embrace of their leader, they choose to accept the risks.
As I noted in a previous post, at a Michigan rally earlier this month, when CNN reporter Jim Acosta asked folks who came to cheer on Trump, why they weren’t wearing masks, they were dismissive. “It’s my prerogative,” “Because there’s no COVID. It’s a fake pandemic created to destroy the United States of America.…,” and “I’m not afraid. The good lord takes care of me. If I die, I die. We gotta get this country moving.…”
A certain number of Trump acolytes will acquire the virus at a rally. Some will become ill, some will die, some will infect others who will die.
Trump knows this. He knows, when he urges, “Everybody, open your schools,” that the virus hasn’t been contained. He knows, when he says, “I want football back,” that a number of Americans will die this fall as a result. He understands, as he has for many months, when he urges governors to reopen their states to business, that — until the virus disappears (as he promises repeatedly) — Americans will die because they’ve become infected on the job or as customers in face to face interactions unless they take the precautions that he has taken (but which he publicly dismisses).
Trump is shielded from infection, not just at rallies, but in the White House. Here is an exchange during a recent presidential press briefing:
Q But my question is: Why not wear it more often or have the White House staff wear it more often to set an example for the country?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I’m tested, and I’m sometimes surprised when I see somebody sitting and — like, with Joe. Joe feels very safe in a mask. I don’t know, maybe he doesn’t want to expose his face. I don’t know what’s going on. He’ll be way away from people, nowhere near people — there will be nobody with him. He doesn’t draw any crowds. He’ll have circles. These big circles. They’ll be way far away. There’s no reason for him to have masks on.
We get tested — I’m tested; I have people tested. When people come into the Oval Office, it’s like a big deal. No matter who they are — if they’re heads of countries, they all get tested. So I’m in sort of a different position. And maybe if I wasn’t in that position, I’d be wearing it more. But I’ve worn masks. And especially I like to wear them when I’m in hospital. Not for me so much as for other people. Okay?
The illnesses and deaths of Americans are not just numbers. Individuals with connections to others — people who are parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, neighbors, shopkeepers, customers, colleagues — have lost their lives, one at a time, mostly dying apart from the folks who love them, who will miss them the most. The vast majority of the Americans who have perished as a result of the pandemic, if not for Donald Trump’s fecklessness and recklessness, would still be alive today.
And the spread of infection, the misery, and the death toll continue to increase.