On Covid-19, Donald Trump fiddles as America burns

As New York goes from 0 to 84,046 Covid-19 cases, ill-prepared Trump refuses to be informed, placing lives in danger while being more worried about his TV ratings. President Trump must be voted out as the USA braces for the Coronavirus storm.

In February, Republican Senator John Kennedy grilled the acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf over the Trump administration's chaotic response to the coronavirus.

“How many people are predicted to become infected with the virus,” Kennedy asked. Wolf didn't know. “We’re working with HHS to determine that,” Wolf replied, repeatedly deferring to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Why did he not know? Because he had not been preparing. Wolf then claimed the mortality rate for coronavirus is similar to the flu, both at about 2%. But Senator Kennedy could smell a rat. “Are you sure of that?” he asked the secretary.

The mortality rate for seasonal flu is closer to 0.1% but coronavirus if quite literally off the charts.

Wolf, by the way, is “acting” Homeland Security Secretary because Trump can't endure his own appointees long enough to actually permanently place them in their roles.

Instead, he appoints cultists and toadies because if they become too established “names” they only tarnish his own “brilliance,” so out they consistently go. That's why we don't have professional government appointees, we have temps.

I wrote about the Trump administration's shoddy response to the coronavirus pandemic back in February because he had shocked me with his refusal to take the coronavirus seriously at all.

First, he called it a Democratic “hoax” at his endless campaign rallies. He insisted he had it “under control” with only “fifteen people infected” which would soon be at just “one or two or zero.” It would be “like a miracle,” he said, the warm spring weather would drive it away.

CHART: New York City's coronavirus cases grow more than twice as fast as Wuhan (comparing from the day when case hits 1,000). #coronavirus #NYC #China #Wuhan pic.twitter.com/on5Ow1OGYe
— Jodi Xu Klein (@jodixu) March 30, 2020

The second big sign that Trump was not taking the coronavirus seriously at all was his placing Vice President Mike Pence in charge of the US response.

Pence was behind the worst public health crisis in Indiana's history, opposing a needle exchange program for drug users that soon led to the worst HIV outbreak in the state’s history. Had Pence's home state of Indiana acted earlier, a Yale study found that the number of people affected by the outbreak could have been reduced by more than 90%.

Sound familiar? Today there are 84,046 known cases of coronavirus in New York City alone. There are few to no tests, no medical protective wear, no ventilators, patients are being placed in makeshift tents in Central Park. It's a disgrace.

FIRST THEY TOLD US they had enough ventilators; now, in New York -- one of the world’s most important cities -- a top hospital is telling doctors to “think more critically” about who to give assistive air to.
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) March 31, 2020

Those, by the way, are just the diagnosed cases, the actual numbers of the infected in the city are likely to be twice or three times that, and those numbers are climbing by two percentage points daily. So Pence and Trump have blindly led us into a disaster.

If you live in New York City now you hear something you don't usually. Silence. There is very little street traffic and the silence is only broken by emergency service sirens. In fact, the E.M.S. system here has never received this many calls, ever.

It's already worse than a world war or 9/11 and we haven't even approached the center of the gathering storm yet.

No sugar coating: “If its rate of growth in coronavirus cases continues, the New York City metropolitan area will suffer a more severe outbreak than those experienced in Wuhan, China, or the Lombardy region of Italy.” #COVID19 https://t.co/ZqcLEl9sje
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) March 27, 2020

Now, thanks to lack of preparation, the United States of America has the worst coronavirus trajectory in the entire world (even accounting for obviously undercounted data out of China) which represents a catastrophic failure of national leadership.

The warnings were all there and they were there all there for months. I am just a journalist with an Irish American publication in the worst affected city, but even I could see and sound the alarm for six weeks whilst the Trump administration dawdled and ignored it. There’s no excuse for their inaction. We are in this mess now because of it.

And now we see Trump, like some latter-day Emperor Nero, publicly insist on the nightly news that governors who are not obsequious to him will not receive medical supplies.

Who knows what this means, but it sounds good to me! https://t.co/rQVA4ER0PV
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 8, 2020

He talks about his booming television ratings with pride as ordinary Americans lie dead in zipper bags in repurposed meat lockers. He talks about bringing the economy back to life because he can't bring the people his negligence has killed back to life. For the sake of the nation, he must be voted out and replaced by a competent and compassionate presidential leader in November.