According to the CDC, various
varieties of the flu have infected anywhere from 9 to 49 million people a year
in the U.S. since 2010. The vast majority of cases, as occurs with the common
cold, resolve on their own. Deaths are relatively rare, occurring mainly with
the very young or very old who have problems with weakened immune systems.
Although the current coronavirus isn’t much different in its effects
than other flu-related illnesses, the fact that it is “new” and there is
currently no vaccine specifically against it, efforts to control its spread
until a vaccine is developed have been treated with more urgency—better safer
than sorrier.
Some of the actions taken at
first glance seem to be overdone, like the NBA, NHL and the NCAA suspending
their seasons—something which did not stop the MLB season during the swine flu
epidemic of 2009. Still, since the coronavirus has that “exotic” nature of
being an “unknown,” acting as if it isn’t really all that great a threat
without all the facts isn’t a very sound idea. For some people, “safe than
sorry” isn’t really much of a nuisance, especially for office workers for whom
being sent home to work and getting paid is more like an opportunity to take a
semi-vacation; those who work hourly wages doing real work, of course, would just
have to take an unpaid “vacation.”
One of those people who seems to
be taking a paid vacation into his fourth year is Donald Trump, who doesn’t
seem to do much thinking on his own, especially with Stephen Miller and William
Barr basically running the country while others feed him “goodies” like how to
cut more taxes for himself—and what is “good” for him is “good” for “everybody.”
And then there was his televised speech in which he put on his beanie cap (the kind with the little "propeller") and played “commander-in-chief” against the coronavirus "invasion."
First, Trump talked “about our
nation’s unprecedented response to the coronavirus outbreak that started in
China and is now spreading throughout the world.” Of course, when Trump says “our”
he means “his,” and naturally he has to make sure that people know it is
someone other than himself to “blame.” Trump obviously wasn’t “around” during
the 1976 or 2009 swine flu epidemics, so his point of reference is a bit
skewed. And frankly, with the science-challenged Mike Pence “in charge,” the
only “unprecedented” value that can be applied to the Trump administration’s “response”
is how slow-to-take-seriously and ill-conceived it is.
Trump continued reading off the
teleprompter in a tone that suggested that he was more concerned about looking
like an idiot who couldn’t read or pronounce “hard” words correctly: “This is
the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in
modern history. I am confident that by counting
and continuing to take these tough measures, we will significantly reduce the
threat to our citizens and we will ultimately and expeditiously defeat this
virus.”
Uh, what exactly are those “aggressive”
and “comprehensive” efforts to confront this “foreign” invasion?” “Our team is
the best anywhere in the world. At the very start
of the outbreak, we instituted sweeping travel restrictions on China and put in
place the first federally mandated quarantine in over 50 years. We declared a public health emergency and issued the
highest level of travel warning on other countries as the virus spread its
horrible infection.”
This is what Trump said a week
ago after the WHO estimated that 3.4 percent infected by the virus might die:
“Well, I think the 3.4 percent is really a false number.
Now, and this is just my hunch, and — but based on a lot of conversations with
a lot of people that do this,” Trump said, going on to peg the real figure as
“way under 1 percent. Because
a lot people will have this and it's very mild. They'll get better very
rapidly. They don't even see a doctor. They don't even call a doctor. You never
hear about those people. So you can't put them down in the category of the
overall population in terms of this corona flu and — or virus. So you just can't
do that. 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.”
It
isn’t that Trump may or may not be “wrong,” it is just that when he doesn't take things seriously before, his subsequent “responses" tend to be “unprecedented” only in their belated 180 degree turns. Trump had also claimed that "within a couple of
days (the virus cases) is going to be down to close to zero. That's a pretty good job we've
done." Obviously a very
fact-challenged assumption, and even if it such a thing did happen, it would have nothing to do with anything Trump did. He also claimed that "There's a theory that,
in April, when it gets warm — historically, that has been able to kill the
virus." Well, everyone knows that summer colds are the “worst” ones, and
why should that be any different that with this? After all, the 2009 swine flu
occurred during “warm weather” months. Trump also has claimed that
the “pandemic” was a Democratic “hoax” and "fake media" creation--which of course now he is taking "unprecedented" measures against, although we're not sure if it is the virus or Trump's perceived "enemies" who are actually under attack.
Trump went on in his speech to
announce a 30-day ban on travel from the EU—but not the UK, where many are
criticizing the Boris Johnson government for taking things too “calmly.” Trump
went on to say that he was halting all trade and cargo from the EU, which of
course is the kind of thing to send the markets spirally downward, and it’s the
kind of xenophobic stupidity we can expect from Trump’s principle speechwriter,
Stephen Miller. The administration was subsequently forced to put out a message
stating that Trump only meant “people.” But as The Guardian noted, it seems that Trump and company only really see
the virus issue as an excuse to expand in its “crudely racist worldview that
divides the globe into a clean, acceptable Anglosphere set against a tainted,
diseased ‘abroad’”—unless, of course, you come from India with H-1B visas in hand, where many people
speak English from back in the British colonial period.
Trump went on to make claims of
actions that are unlikely to occur, waiving co-payments for treatments and expanding
coverage, making vaccines developed “quicker” by cutting “red-tape,” and
various financial gimmicks that are more a right-wing “wish list” than what can
actually happen. Probably the one that can actually be more damaging that the
virus itself is “saving” $200 billion on payroll taxes for the remainder of the
year; payroll taxes fund Social Security and Medicare—social safety net
programs that Trump and the Republicans have been trying to destroy for ages,
and this seems to be a backdoor way to do this.
Trump’s ended by claiming that “Our
future remains brighter than anyone can imagine. Acting
with compassion and love, we will heal the sick, care for those in need, help
our fellow citizens and emerge from this challenge stronger and more unified
than ever before.” In effect, this speech was what many are saying it was: a
self-congratulating, xenophobic campaign speech that says less than what the
words actually say. With Trump in office, this country is more divided than it
ever has been, and some “fellow citizens” seem to be more “equal” than others
in Trump’s world. Coming from Trump, the
declaration “acting with compassion and love” has a distinctly clammy feel to
it; we know he doesn’t really mean it outside his own immediate family, just
words someone wrote on a piece of paper that he was told would him would sound “good”
to some gullible listeners. We are learning that women and children seeking
asylum in this country are being flown directly to violence-prone Guatemala to
seek “asylum” there; is this “acting with compassion and love”? Only a person
who lacks “compassion and love” believes that.
No comments:
Post a Comment