Tag: Trump botched COVID-19 response killed over 227000 Americans

White House Touts Trump’s 5 Science Accomplishments, Including ‘Ending The Pandemic’

Well, here’s some amazing news. On Tuesday, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy issued a press release of the Trump Administration’s science and technology accomplishments from President Donald Trump’s first term. The release accompanied the unveiling of a longer document from the Office and listed five highlights. Guess what the first one on the list was. “Ending the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Who knew? Does that mean the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic is now really over? Well, no. Because it’s not over. The pandemic has not been ended. In fact, it may be just ramping up as the weather becomes colder and less humid with the number of cases per day increasing. 

Listing “ending the Covid-19 pandemic” as an accomplishment would be even more audacious than listing “Iron Man” as your job position on LinkedIn. At least, you could be Robert Downey, Jr., a triathlete, or really good at removing wrinkles from clothes. On the other hand, unless the pandemic has really ended (it hasn’t) and you yourself actually clearly did something to end the pandemic, saying that you ended the pandemic would be like the waistband on some really worn underwear: a bit of a stretch. Continue reading.

Achieving COVID-19 herd immunity through infection is dangerous, deadly and might not even work

White House advisers have made the case recently for a “natural” approach to herd immunity as a way to reduce the need for public health measures to control the SARS-CoV-2 pandemicwhile still keeping people safe. This idea is summed up in something called the Great Barrington Declaration, a proposal put out by the American Institute for Economic Research, a libertarian think tank.

The basic idea behind this proposal is to let low-risk people in the U.S. socialize and naturally become infected with the coronavirus, while vulnerable people would maintain social distancing and continue to shelter in place. Proponents of this strategy claim so-called “natural herd immunity” will emerge and minimize harm from SARS-CoV-2 while protecting the economy. 

Another way to get to herd immunity is through mass vaccinations, as we have done with measles, smallpox and largely with polio. Continue reading.

U.S. coronavirus infections hit record levels, with hospitalizations and deaths on the rise

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The coronavirus pandemic continued setting records in the United States on Tuesday, as a relentless raft of new infections pushed the country’s seven-day average of reported cases to its highest level ever.

For the first time, the nation’s rolling average — considered more reliable than fluctuating daily cases counts — topped 70,000, according to Washington Post data.

This latest surge has spared no corner of the country: 29 states have reported record numbers of infections in the past week. Continue reading.

As coronavirus cases surge, Trump has another message

While the U.S. sets new daily records for Covid-19 cases, Trump is betting voters care more about the economy and loosening restrictions than controlling the virus.

With one week left in the election, President Donald Trump is perfecting his closing argument about the pandemic gripping much of the nation: Don’t worry about it.

In rally after rally, tweet after tweet, Trump is encouraging his supporters and everyone else to stop talking about the coronavirus. His key message: It’s not that big of a deal, vaccines are on the way and if people get sick, most of them will survive it just as Trump and his family did.

It’s a look-the-other-way approach not all that different from how Trump spent the summer, focusing on the need to reopen the economy and schools and stop disrupting lives — despite a death toll that has now climbed above 215,000 people in the U.S. Continue reading.