"The U.S. Has Given Up"
The absolute failure of Donald Trump in one chart
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When the rest of the world looks at the US, it can’t believe what it sees. Under Donald Trump, America has abandoned its leadership role in the world. It’s waging war on facts. It’s waging war on science. But in the war it should be fighting—on COVID-19—America is waving the white flag.
Especially in GOP-states that re-opened early and without meeting the Trump Administration’s own guidelines, cases are surging.
As the virus keeps spreading—with big surges now being reported in Florida, Texas, Arizona, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama and Georgia—Trump, idiotically, is claiming the opposite, that “it’s fading away.”
120,000 are already dead.
200,000 are now projected to die by the end of September.
As I wrote on May 26: It didn't have to happen.
Since May 26, when the US death toll passed 100,000, there have been more than 20,000 additional deaths in America. There have been only 11 additional deaths in South Korea, bringing that country’s total to 280. And remember: South Korea and the US reported their first COVID-19 cases on the same day.
As I wrote previously, South Korea took the threat seriously from Day One. They manufactured tests from the WHO recipe Trump rejected. They quickly began testing 10,000 people a day. In February, while Trump was still golfing, South Korea was already offering drive-through testing.
On May 26, America’s death toll per capita was 60 times higher than South Korea’s. It’s now 73 times higher.
But even if you set aside the South Korea comparison and overlook Trump’s complete failure to commit to testing, contact tracing and stopping the initial spread, what happened next is even worse.
Not only did Trump’s incompetence force America to endure more than three months of unprecedented death and suffering. But now, in his mad rush to “re-open,” Trump is ignoring all the painful lessons that America and Europe have learned over the past few months. In the process, he’s setting America up for a lot more anxiety, pain, and tens of thousands more unnecessary deaths.
“I can’t imagine what it must be like having to go to work knowing it’s unsafe.”
As The Washington Post reports today:
Health experts in countries with falling case numbers are watching with a growing sense of alarm and disbelief, with many wondering why virus-stricken U.S. states continue to reopen and why the advice of scientists is often ignored
“It really does feel like the U.S. has given up,” said Siouxsie Wiles, an infectious-diseases specialist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand — a country that has confirmed only three new cases over the past three weeks and where citizens have now largely returned to their pre-coronavirus routines.
“I can’t imagine what it must be like having to go to work knowing it’s unsafe,” Wiles said of the U.S.-wide economic reopening. “It’s hard to see how this ends. There are just going to be more and more people infected, and more and more deaths. It’s heartbreaking.”
The comparisons with Europe are particularly damning.
Italy was the first European country to initiate a lockdown in its Lodi province on February 21. It reported a major surge in cases on February 23. By the end of the month, cases had spread from Italy to at least 14 other countries. Italy’s national lockdown began March 9, two days before Trump blocked visitors from Continental Europe, and four days before he declared a national emergency in the US.
By then, as Dr. Anthony Fauci later admitted, the virus had already been “seeded” in New York, even as Trump was downplaying the risks and lying to Americans by falsely claiming that passengers from Italy were being screened.
Today, more than 31,000 New Yorkers have died—a preventable death toll equivalent to more than ten 9/11s. If New York State were a country, it would have the 5th largest death toll in the world, following the US, Brazil, the UK and Italy, and ahead of France and Spain.
Trump is ignoring the US science that Europe is using to beat COVID-19
Most baffling to Europeans is the way Trump and many Republican Governors are ignoring America’s experts and pressing ahead with dangerous and deadly re-opening plans that defy commonsense.
Example: Germany’s decision to make face masks mandatory on public transport and in supermarkets, “almost entirely relied on U.S. studies.” Meanwhile, Texas Governor Greg Abbott is still blocking mayors in nine cities who want to mandate masks to slow the deadly spread.
And when it comes to re-opening decisions:
After consulting U.S. research and German studies… German leaders agreed to make reopening dependent on case numbers, meaning restrictions snap back or reopening gets put on hold if the case numbers in a given region exceed a certain threshold.
Meanwhile, several U.S. states have reopened despite rising case numbers.
“I don’t understand that logic,” said Reinhard Busse, a health-care management professor at the Technical University of Berlin.
Instead of using the same US research that has helped Europe reduce average daily cases to just 4,000, Trump and his toadies have caused the seven-day rolling average of new cases to spike to 23,000.
If any major European country was looking at America’s numbers, lockdown restrictions would already have “snapped back” into place. Trump, though, is going full steam ahead. He’s not just pushing re-openings, but also relaunching his campaign with a #MAGADeath rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday night.
Amid a spike in cases in that state, local health officials have begged Trump to postpone. His response? He won’t be “Covid shamed” into cancelling.
So this Saturday, you won’t be able to ride the bus in Germany (622 new cases yesterday) without a face mask. But here in the US (27,924 new cases yesterday) you will be able to join 20,000 other COVIDIOTS at an indoor Trump rally. Masks at the MAGA rally will be entirely optional. You just have to sign a waiver promising not to sue Trump in the event you contract the virus while stroking his ego.
These are troubled times. And the election is still more than five months away. Things will only get worse if Trump is re-elected. This ad-free email newsletter will continue to deliver news and arguments to fight back against Trump’s lies and corruption. All posts will be free through election day, so whether you’d like sign up for $0—or support with a paid subscription at 30% off in June—just click here:
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"But here in the US .. you will be able to join 20,000 other COVIDIOTS at an indoor Trump rally"
Well, not 20k as it turns out; only about 6k showed up. Still, very few masks. They're convinced it's a hoax.