Coronavirus infections continue: #TrumpVirus

 Reported in The Week:  the U.S. hits a grim pandemic milestone.  

In fact, the U.S. surpassed 200,000 coronavirus related deaths this week, the last week in September 2020, just days after Donald Trump publicly challenged the Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) scientific advice about wearing masks and its timeline for a Covid-19 vaccine. Moreover, Trump said the CDC director, Dr. Robert Redfield had been "confused",  when he told Congress (under oath) that that a vaccine likely will not be "fully available" until the summer or fall of 2021.  (Pinocchio!) 

Trump stupidity in his own words!

Nevertheless, Donald Trump insisted that a vaccine could be approved as soon as October, 2020, with 1000 million doses ready by the end of the year. Concern about the political pressure being exerted on the CDC grew after the agency published and then removed new guidelines warning that the virus can be transmitted via respiratory aerosols- tiny particles that can linger in the air- as well as by larger respiratory droplets that fall quickly to the ground.  Donald Trump gave his (botched!)response to the pandemic as being "A-plus" and, at a packed rally in Ohio, where few were waring masks, he falsely said the Covid-19 "affects virtually nobody" except the elderly people with heart problems.

Meanwhile, Minnesota, Montana, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Wyoming and Utah set record highs for morbidity, with a seven day average of new confirmed cases and 21 other states saw increases in infections.  In fact, Olivia Troye, a former coronavirus task force adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, spoke out emphatically against Trump's handling of the pandemic, saying he showed a "flat-out disregard for human life" and cared only about his re-election. Troye, whom the White House called a "disgruntled ex-staffer", claimed that Trump once said, "Maybe this Covid thing is a good thing," because, "I don't have to shake hands with these disgusting people", meaning his supporters.

What the editorials said: #TrumpVirus

Mourning the 200,000 (++) dead, said The Washington Post, "and be angry- very angry".  The tragedy has been worsened by Donald Trump, who minimized the threat, refused to mobilize a large-scale government response, dismissed the importance of mask wearing and prodded the GOP run states to reopen before the viral spread was under control.  "Nothing more could have been done", Trump has said about coronavirus casualties. But, there is work to do.  "Wear a mask. Social distance. Wash your hands. And vote", wrote The Post. 

What the columnists said:

Tragically, the Trump administration is letting, "politics distort science", said Claudia Wallis in ScientificAmerican.com. Leaked emails have revealed how political appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services have tried to slow the release of data that contradict Trump, including a negative report on the fake cure hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug that Trump touted as a Covid-19 therapy, and information about children spreading the virus. With scientific findings being run, through a political "distortion field", will the public be able to "trust federal assessments about the coronavirus treatments and the vaccines?," she wrote.

Here is the reality check:

The U.S. is trapped in a pandemic "death spiral", said Ed Yong in TheAtlantic.com.  Influenza season 2020-21, is approaching, which will make it harder to identify Covid-19 symptoms, and winter is not far away, which will pack people indoors. Our failure to build testing capacity and hire enough contact tracers means that many parts of the U.S. could see a repeat of the horror that New York City suffered in the spring 2020. Tragedy-numbered Americans might, "stop treating the pandemic as the emergency that it is," and, instead, accept thousands of daily deaths as "the unthinkable normal." #TrumpVirusGenocide, IMO.