By Dustin Rowles | Politics | March 5, 2020 |
By Dustin Rowles | Politics | March 5, 2020 |
There’s a good episode of the NYTimes The Daily podcast out this morning about the Coronavirus outbreak in Washington state, where the virus has taken root in a nursing home in what is basically the worst-case scenario. There have been 11 deaths from the Coronavirus in the United States. Ten in Washington. Most out of one nursing home in King County. The way it was handled there was troubling, to say the least. No one was being tested. Even those in the nursing home weren’t being tested. And those people still in the nursing home are sitting ducks, waiting for the virus to come. One woman — whose mother is in that nursing home — has been reduced to being able to look in on her mother from the outside through her window. Once. It’s a heartbreaking situation. Meanwhile, some people who do have it — particularly those who were on the Princess cruise ship — are suffering more from the anxiety over dying than the symptoms themselves, which is a product of being quarantined and left alone with nothing but one’s thoughts.
It’s a mess. And it’s spreading, mostly in California and Washington, but there are 13 cases in NY, so far. New Jersey reported its first case today. It’s in 17 states. The Met Opera has gone on quarantine. There’s another cruise ship parked off the coast of Los Angeles. Hand sanitizers are gone. Schools are starting to close.
And against this backdrop, we have Donald Trump literally out there suggesting that going to work with Covid-19 is fine. He’s repeating things he heard on Fox News to Fox News, which reports it, and then Trump repeats it to the news he created as new news. Our f**king response to a health crisis in the United States is stuck in a Fox News feedback loop and our President operates off of hunches.
Trump to Hannity on WHO saying coronavirus death rate is 3.4%: "I think the 3.4% number is really a false number. Now this is just my hunch, but based on a lot of conversations … personally, I'd say the number is way under 1%."
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 5, 2020
Astoundingly irresponsible. pic.twitter.com/uC9c03zX31
In this clip, Trump:
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 5, 2020
1. Denies WHO's coronavirus death rate based on “hunch"
2. Calls coronavirus "corona flu"
3. Suggests it's fine for people w/ Covid-19 to go to work
4. Compares coronavirus to "the regular flu," indicating he doesn't get the difference pic.twitter.com/uC9c03zX31
If the Administration had used the time after the initial outbreak in China to prepare for a potential outbreak, we may have been able to contain it here. Trump chose to pretend the problem didn’t exist — that the pandemic was a hoax conjured up by Democrats and the media. Now, Trump thinks he can gaslight a pandemic, that he can bully it away. To make matters even worse, Trump — Donald J. — is accusing Biden, Joseph of senility.
Trump responds to Biden criticizing his response to the coronavirus by suggesting that Biden is too senile to even know what he is criticizing pic.twitter.com/OPwJRfHaJG
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) March 5, 2020
How f**ked do you feel right now? Because I am feeling very f**ked. And not the good kind.