Charlie and I watched a news broadcast yesterday morning that had a segment about a 50 year old man who was being released from a hospital after fighting off Covid-19 in a hospital intensive care unit for 208 days.
Last night, we watched about half of the Third Presidential Debate of 2020. In it, Donald Trump bragged about his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, saying that “We’re rounding the corner on Covid-19!” and that his leadership had probably saved a million lives.
Debate opponent Joe Biden correctly pointed out that the President had initially discounted coronavirus as nothing serious, continued for months to “downplay it” (Trump’s words), said in the Spring that it would “go away soon”, said in the Summer that it “would just go away when the weather warms up”, and, now that it’s Fall, with 80,000 new Covid-19 infections yesterday, is implying that his Administration has the coronavirus pandemic “under control”.
This cheerful news reminds me of the never-ending public relations bullshit that emanated from the Department of Defense during the Vietnam War. Accompanying the statistics of enemy (and American) soldiers killed in action was always the optimistic promise that, “We can now see the light at the end of the tunnel”. The core problem was that the Johnson Administration was never able to find the tunnel in the first place.
We have the same problem in 2020 with the coronavirus pandemic and the Trump Administration. In fact, Trump yesterday publicly said, believe it or not, “We can see the light at the end of the tunnel”.
Back in February, the President and his advisors didn’t want to believe that Covid-19 was a serious threat, because that would be a big problem in a year when the President would be running for re-election. Knowing better, they publicly pretended (and privately hoped) that the pandemic would “go away” quickly.
From the beginning, once the Trump Administration realized that Covid-19 had imbedded itself in America, the public relations spin from the White House was that the coronavirus was simply another version of the annual flu, that most Americans wouldn’t become infected, and the vast majority of those who did would survive it. As in, “No big problem: life will go on”. So, the attitude was “don’t make the cure worse than the problem itself”; i.e. don’t fuck up the economy (because that’s the success story that the Trump 2020 re-election campaign will be built around).
Seven months into the pandemic and there is still a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) for hospital workers and there is no quick-turnaround Covid-19 test available to Americans. The President has undercut his Coronavirus Task Force and publicly belittles their advice to citizens. He continues to lead by example, invariably going facemask-less in public and taking pains to undermine elected officials in states (usually Democratic-led) where sound public health measures are being employed.
In the midst of this cock-up, the President has reverted to the old “Look over there!” distraction maneuver…some kind of national security scandal involving Joe Biden’s son’s supposed misplaced laptop. Honestly!
As with many things that have occurred in the Trump presidency, his inferred “solution” to the problem was not thought-out. That solution, as hard as it is to say it, seems to have been to let the chips fall as they may; after all, most people who will die from Covid-19 are old or have pre-existing health issues…so, in essence, they’re expendable.
It is morally reprehensible to even contemplate such a “solution” to a public health problem, but this attitude has been pretty apparent in Trump Administration statements for the past seven months. This should surprise no one because these are the same folks who separated would-be Latin American immigrants from their children at the border…and then (purposely?) lost them (as a deterrent?).
Coupled with his laissez-faire approach to the pandemic, the President has also employed his favorite go-to techniques: casting blame and doubling-down.
From the very beginning of the pandemic and up to the present, Trump has used every opportunity to blame the Chinese for unwittingly or wittingly unleashing the coronavirus on the world, as if this blame-throwing excuses his Administration’s lame response.
Would “They started it!” have justified FDR sitting on his hands while the Axis powers proceeded to ass-whip the United States? Probably not.
The blame game is one of the President’s favorite pastimes. Every time there is a massive forest fire in the Western states, Trump is quick to blame forest managers for not “raking leaves”. The problem is that most of the large fires in the past four years have taken place in Federally-owned/managed forests, which are under the purview of…President Donald J. Trump.
How much leaf raking has he ordered?
During his four years in office, our leader has done and said a lot of stupid things. And, yet, he never apologizes, admits a mistake, or promises to do better. Instead, when it’s obvious to everyone that he’s human and messes up now and then, he “doubles-down” on his mistake by shouting louder and taking an even more aggressive (stupider?) stance. It’s his calling card; i.e. raising the ante on a losing hand.
This has been his pattern in business dealings, and he’s imported it to the Presidency. The only difference is that, in the private sector, a numbskull can declare bankruptcy and live to make more mistakes, which Donald J. Trump did a number of times over the years to the chagrin of his bankers, contractors and vendors. In the public sector, the ones who suffer are the citizens whom Trump pledged to protect.
The President, who has led a Nationwide protest movement against his very own Coronavirus Task Force’s recommendations regarding social distancing and the wearing of face coverings, counters criticism by noting that only a fraction of the people who are infected with Covid-19 actually die from it. This is one of the few true things he has said in four years.
However, the real drag on the Nation, psychologically and economically, is the number of people who have been affected. Trump’s attitude marginalizes all of those individuals who got sick and lost work or their job due to the illness, all of the folks who had to go to work in hazardous conditions because they would lose their job if they didn’t, all of the people who contracted the virus and then infected their loved ones, all of the people who couldn’t visit their dying loved ones in hospital quarantine, all of the seriously ill survivors who now have persistent side effects and huge unpaid medical bills, all of the at-risk teachers who are terrified to return to the classroom, and all of the Americans who have lost their jobs because people are afraid to go to a stadium, or a movie theater, or a convention, or fly on a plane, take a cruise, or eat a meal at a fancy restaurant.
So, ninety-nine percent of these affected Americans didn’t die from Covid-19, but they are victims of the pandemic. Their President has seemingly given up on them, while proudly unmasked holding packed campaign rallies with thousands of his facemask-less fans, basically shoving it (the pandemic) in the victims’ faces.
Let’s go back to the story about the gentleman who recovered from Covid-19 after the 208-day hospital stay. Trump’s attitude would be, “See, most people survive the coronavirus!” True, but it took untold hours of intensive medical care for that one man to survive. A stay of 208 days in intensive care would cost a minimum of $1.5 million. How does that get paid?
Most seriously affected Covid-19 individuals don’t spend that much time in the hospital. However, plenty of them do: in fact, about 1 in 5 positive cases require hospitalization. The average hospital stay of those individuals is one week to two months and stays in intensive care (with ventilator) averaged about two weeks.
Seven months into the pandemic and this Nation has already experienced 8 million Covid-19 infections. Statistically, twenty percent of those infected people have had to visit a hospital. That is a tremendous load on the Nation’s health care system. Not only do the quarantine requirements of the coronavirus pandemic involve great costs to hospitals and emergency rooms, but the volume of these extra cases has overwhelmed many community hospitals. Doctors, nurses, aides and janitorial staff have been working for seven months straight in an environment that puts their health at risk. They are, understandably, worn out and pissed off.
During the debate, when President Trump declared that, “We’re turning the corner on Covid-19”, the country was averaging about 60,000 new reported infections per day. Two days later the number of daily infections had reached 80,000. Experts have predicted for months that this would happen, and they expect that this Fall/Winter “normal flu season” will feature a big spike in Covid-19 infections.
Turning what corner? The corner to Hell?
“Mr. 208”, the lucky survivor of Covid-19, is like the national economy, hanging on to see another day but feeling like someone who got run over by an eighteen-wheeler. Neither needed to suffer like this, but did, thanks to poor leadership in Washington D.C.
Donald J. Trump, liar and denier, will go to his grave publicly acting as if the pandemic was no big thing. (And, besides, it was China’s fault.)
