How Trump fell short in containing the virus

[Rogue Valley]

The lost days of summer: How Trump fell short in containing the virus

165,000+ US COVID deaths. Donald Trump shrugs "It is what it is."

8/8/20
As the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows is responsible for coordinating the vast executive branch, including its coronavirus response. But in closed-door meetings, he has revealed his skepticism of the two physicians guiding the anti-pandemic effort, Deborah Birx and Anthony S. Fauci, routinely questioning their expertise, according to senior administration officials and other people briefed on the internal discussions. Meadows no longer holds a daily 8 a.m. meeting that includes health professionals to discuss the raging pandemic. Instead, aides said, he huddles in the mornings with a half-dozen politically oriented aides — and when the virus comes up, their focus is more on how to convince the public that President Trump has the crisis under control, rather than on methodically planning ways to contain it. Meadows is not alone in being skeptical of medical expertise, part of the politics-first, science-second attitude that has become pervasive inside the White House this summer — and which has been championed foremost by Trump. “It’s one thing to question science, and it’s another thing to attack science,” said a former senior administration official. If the administration’s initial response to the coronavirus was denial, its failure to control the pandemic since then was driven by dysfunction and resulted in a lost summer.

Under mounting pressure to improve the president’s reelection chances as his poll numbers declined, the White House had what was described as a stand-down order on engaging publicly on the virus through the month of June, part of a deliberate strategy to spotlight other issues even as the contagion spread wildly across the country. A senior administration official said there was a desire to focus on the economy in June. It was only in July, when case counts began soaring in a trio of populous, Republican-leaning states — Arizona, Florida and Texas — and polls showed a majority of Americans disapproving of Trump’s handling of the pandemic, that the president and his top aides renewed their public activity related to the virus. Trump and many of his top aides talk about the virus not as a contagion that must be controlled through social behavior but rather as a plague that eventually will dissipate on its own. Aides view the coronavirus task force — which includes Fauci, Birx and relevant agency heads — as a burden that has to be managed, officials said. As the nation confronts a once-*in-a-century health crisis that has killed at least 165,000 people, infected 5+ million and devastated the economy, the atmosphere in the White House is as chaotic as at any other time in Trump’s presidency — “an unmitigated disaster,” in the words of a second former senior administration official.

This is what happens when science-deniers occupy the highest rungs of our federal government.

Political ideology rides roughshod over empirical knowledge, and tens of thousands of Americans perish needlessly.

 

[Helix]

He fired the Pandemic response team, defunded Predict, downplayed the virus to his supporters, pulled us out of the WHO, and interfered with the CDC. His response was ridiculously incompetent at best.

 

[ReubenSherr]

This is what happens when science-deniers occupy the highest rungs of our federal government.

If Democrats had been in charge, we'd be going through the Great Depression 2.0

 

[SkyFox76]

If Democrats had been in charge, we'd be going through the Great Depression 2.0

If anyone competent had been in charge we would have had briefings by experts and the administration would have backed those experts so we could be lowering cases, able to safely open businesses and be making wise choices on opening schools.

 

[ReubenSherr]

If anyone competent had been in charge we would have had briefings by experts

???

We did.

CNN and MSNBC didn't cover any of the briefings except the initial introduction by Trump.

This is why you need to watch Fox.

 

[OrphanSlug]

He fired the Pandemic response team, defunded Predict, downplayed the virus to his supporters, pulled us out of the WHO, and interfered with the CDC. His response was ridiculously incompetent at best.

While I still do not entirely trust WHO, your post largely sums up how I feel about all this.

 

[ReubenSherr]

the administration would have backed those experts so we could be lowering cases

The administration backed every member of the team except Fauci.

You are giving Fauci too much credit, he is a slick, self-centered bureaucrat trying to get his buddy Andrew Cuomo a position in the Biden Administration.

If Trump had backed Fauci, we would be experiencing the Great Depression 2.0.

 

[Ontologuy]

The lost days of summer: How Trump fell short in containing the virus

165,000+ US COVID deaths. Donald Trump shrugs "It is what it is."



This is what happens when science-deniers occupy the highest rungs of our federal government.

Political ideology rides roughshod over empirical knowledge, and tens of thousands of Americans perish needlessly.

I do have one complaint about Trump's handling of the pandemic: he really needed to emphasize keeping the elderly and the infirm safe and maybe segregated from the more riskier Gen. Z crowd and New Millennials under about 32 years of age who tend to think they're COVID-19 bullet-proof .. .. though, admittedly, the WHO and CDC had already communicated that the elderly and infirm were at risk and basic common sense was likely sufficient for people to figure out for themselves they needed to be self-protective .. plus emphasizing this danger could have lead to panic, and the President's primary goal was to avoid panic in a situation where all that could really be done was being done.

But otherwise, I'd like you to imagine that back in January and early February President Trump knew:

1) COVID-19 is 16.57 times more deadly than the flu.
2) Immunity by any means lasts only 3-6 months.
3) It's super contagious and likely to mutate into an even more contagious form.
4) Herd immunity is thus logically simply not possible.
5) As the virus mutates and becomes more infectious it will thereby eventually become less deadly like the common cold and then and only then can we go back to our old normal no matter how long that takes.
6) The only way for the virus to mutate is to spread.
7) It was analyzed six ways from Sunday, but there simply is no reasonable way to snuff the virus out with a national quarantine and border seal with the military donned in protective gear doing all essential jobs and food delivery to everyone else in their home for 21-28 days.
8) We must avoid communicating panic to everyone, which requires the President appear aloof about the whole thing .. while, yes, hundreds of thousands of Americans will die .. about which there really is nothing that can be done, because shutting the economy down with partial quarantines that we realize many right wingers won't abide by and thus will fail to accomplish its goal, cause a third of the workforce or more to lose their job, exacerbate the homeless problem and our national debt, and is thus simply not worth doing, plus it will also slow the mutation process and delay the virus mutating to a less deadly common-cold form.
9) Thus we wait it out, encouraging immunotherapy and vaccine development .. while exhibiting an attitude of "What, me panic?".

Yes, Trump knew all this from the onset, as all the previous validating analysis and studies were already in.

Now, given the facts as I have just stated them .. what more do you think Trump could have done?

 

[ReubenSherr]

plus emphasizing this danger could have lead to panic, and the President's primary goal was to avoid panic in a situation where all that could really be done was being done.

This is the aspect of all this liberals do not seem to understand.

If Pelosi had been in charge, unemployment would be at 30%.

 

[SkyFox76]

???

We did.

CNN and MSNBC didn't cover any of the briefings except the initial introduction by Trump.

This is why you need to watch Fox.

I hate to break it to you, but I did in fact watch the first set of briefings on various channels including OAN and Fox. And I watched them to hear the experts, not Trump.

What you don't seem to understand is I have zero interest in Trump rambling off monotone numbers or parading around the my pillow guy, because I wanted to know what experts were learning as they followed the virus. I wanted to know strategies to fight it.

The briefings were meant to help us as the citizens know what we could do to help our communities as a whole. That's where competent leadership from the top would have gotten on the same page as the experts. Instead you've still got idiots saying the virus is fake, thinking that wearing masks is a political statement and we're nowhere near having this under control.

 

[CaughtInThe]

he's just a friggin idiot with morals = pond scum.

 

[Ontologuy]

This is the aspect of all this liberals do not seem to understand.

If Pelosi had been in charge, unemployment would be at 30%.

I couldn't agree more with your first sentence.

As to your second sentence, I think if Pelosi had been in charge it could have simply gone the same way as with Trump in charge, as she too would have been informed by the giant minds analyzing it all in the Pentagon basement the same way Trump was.

But, if I'm wrong, and Pelosi is that mentally incapacitated by her compulsion to pander to left wing identity politics special interests, keep in mind that the sum total of all filings for unemployment during the pandemic has been 51 million people, which is a full third of the workforce .. and thus had Pelosi tried to do one of the infamous Dem. Governors' phased shutdowns on a national basis she could have easily cost us nearly half of the workforce .. and perhaps a bit before then our entire economy would have crumbled like a house of cards.

Bottom line: you and I agree that the Dems, especially Pelosi, should not be in charge.

 

[ElChupacabra]

While I still do not entirely trust WHO, your post largely sums up how I feel about all this.

The thing is steps could have been taken to ensure the WHO isn't bending to political pressures; especially since the US provided the majority of the funding. With the US withdrawing, and China providing more funding to counteract the absence of US funding, China will have even more influence over an organization which helps developing countries in these types of situations as well as identifying new threats. China does well with soft power, and I see this as an extension of that strategy. China wants to be an even bigger player than it is, so the more spheres of influence it has, the better its chances of achieving that end.

 

[Luce]

If Democrats had been in charge, we'd be going through the Great Depression 2.0

So what you're saying is, "Hoover did a really good job and didn't leave a mess for FDR"?

 

[trouble13]

The lost days of summer: How Trump fell short in containing the virus

165,000+ US COVID deaths. Donald Trump shrugs "It is what it is."



This is what happens when science-deniers occupy the highest rungs of our federal government.

Political ideology rides roughshod over empirical knowledge, and tens of thousands of Americans perish needlessly.

Empirical knowledge of what? Opinions are not empirical knowledge, they are educated guesses and ot appears very likely that those opinions are influenced with peoples partisan beliefs.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

 

[SkyFox76]

The administration backed every member of the team except Fauci.

You are giving Fauci too much credit, he is a slick, self-centered bureaucrat trying to get his buddy Andrew Cuomo a position in the Biden Administration.

If Trump had backed Fauci, we would be experiencing the Great Depression 2.0.

You do realize Fauci isn't the only expert weighing in on things right?

 

[Rogue Valley]

Now, given the facts as I have just stated them .. what more do you think Trump could have done?

We didn't need hot garbage like this. Now we are paying the price.

 

[Lord Tammerlain]

While I still do not entirely trust WHO, your post largely sums up how I feel about all this.

Would anything the WHO said have changed the US response to Covid 19?

China locked down Wuhan and Hubei province on Jan 23. Other than travel bans from China and a poor response to develop a testing kit what did the US do to plan for the virus for the next month and a half?

 

[ReubenSherr]

Instead you've still got idiots saying the virus is fake, thinking that wearing masks is a political statement and we're nowhere near having this under control.

These statements prove to me that you didn't follow the specifics of what the task force was doing. They sound like CNN talking points.

You do understand that Pence is the head of the task force. He worked closely with Birx, Hahn, and others the entire time. Why no comments about Pence?

Are you implying that Trump was not following Pence's advice?

 

[Lord Tammerlain]

These statements prove to me that you didn't follow the specifics of what the task force was doing. They sound like CNN talking points.

You do understand that Pence is the head of the task force. He worked closely with Birx, Hahn, and others the entire time. Why no comments about Pence?

Are you implying that Trump was not following Pence's advice?

Pence is the VP not the President.

The president makes the decisions, he/she is the decider. The VP gets to shake hands and go to meetings

 

[Luce]

Would anything the WHO said have changed the US response to Covid 19?

China locked down Wuhan and Hubei province on Jan 23. Other than travel bans from China and a poor response to develop a testing kit what did the US do to plan for the virus for the next month and a half?

Trump planned on a miracle happening. He said so himself.

 

[Drawdown]

The lost days of summer: How Trump fell short in containing the virus

165,000+ US COVID deaths. Donald Trump shrugs "It is what it is."



This is what happens when science-deniers occupy the highest rungs of our federal government.

Political ideology rides roughshod over empirical knowledge, and tens of thousands of Americans perish needlessly.

But if you need someone to hold your hand, I will tell you if Biden wins, it isn't going away. If Trump wins, it isn't going away. Only with Howie might you have a slight chance of surviving.
I suspect that by June most people were well enough aware that COVID was out there to where they didn't need a daily meeting to tell them :roll:

 

[ReubenSherr]

Pence is the VP not the President.

The president makes the decisions, he/she is the decider. The VP gets to shake hands and go to meetings

???

The VP is the head of the pandemic task force team. Trump stated it outright, from the beginning.

Pence worked with the experts, and verbalized this during meetings. The reason you all are not focusing on Pence is because most of the mainstream media didn't think it was important to cover the substantive part of the briefings.

 

[reflechissez]

But if you need someone to hold your hand, I will tell you if Biden wins, it isn't going away. If Trump wins, it isn't going away. Only with Howie might you have a slight chance of surviving.
I suspect that by June most people were well enough aware that COVID was out there to where they didn't need a daily meeting to tell them :roll:

The purpose of daily meetings is not to tell people that "COVID was out there."

 

[Lord Tammerlain]

???

The VP is the head of the pandemic task force team. Trump stated it outright, from the beginning.

Pence worked with the experts, and verbalized this during meetings. The reason you all are not focusing on Pence is because most of the mainstream media didn't think it was important to cover the substantive part of the briefings.

And Pence can not wipe his but without getting approval from Trump