Reason # 67: Initial Trump Response to COVID
Why do we need to defeat Donald Trump and ensure that a Democrat occupies the White House?
Yesterday, we looked at the principles of management of a viral pandemic and the advice that Donald Trump received from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Did he pay attention; did he follow their wise advice?
The first thing was to lock down travel from China to the U.S.
Trump shut down travel from China to the U.S. on February second.
This prevention was botched and COVID cases and death found their way into the U.S. in February. Donald Trump consistently underplayed the seriousness of this pandemic.
“The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. ” 2/24/24
The next step, once the epidemic was established, was to ban large public meetings where viral spread was a virtual certainty.
On March 2, 2019, Trump held a rally with more than 7,000 people attending in Charlotte NC. When criticized for doing so, he responded. “I think it’s very safe.”
What about social gathering in other venues? Did he urge citizens not to gather in churches?
“So I think Easter Sunday and you’ll have packed churches all over our country. I think it would be a beautiful time. And it’s just about the timeline that I think is right.” March 24, 2019
What about spread of the virus in the workplace?
Would he receive pushback from U.S. business. CEOs would certainly oppose measures to keep their workers safe and prevent spread of the lethal disease in the population. Wouldn’t they?
“ “I mean, I’ve had many friends, business people, people with great, actually, common sense, they said, ‘Why don’t we ride it out?’ A lot of people have said, a lot of people have thought about it, ‘Ride it out, don’t do anything, just ride it out, and think of it as the flu.’ But it’s not the flu.”
A few days later he responded to this suggestion.
”“We don’t turn the country off, I mean every year. Now when I heard the number, we average 37,000 people a year. Can you believe that? And actually this year we’re having a bad flu season, but we lose thousands of people a year to the flu. We never turn the country off. We lose much more than that to automobile accidents. We didn’t call up the automobile companies, say, ‘Stop making cars. We don’t want any cars anymore.’ We have to get back to work.”
April 2, 2019
These quotes are courtesy of Fact Check.org.
The CDC early recommended use of face masks to prevent respiratory spread of the virus. Did Donald Trump use his bully pulpit as POTUS to reinforce this advice?
““So it’s voluntary; you don’t have to do it. They suggested for a period of time. But this is voluntary. I don’t think I’m going to be doing it. … So with the masks, it’s going to be, really, a voluntary thing. You can do it. You don’t have to do it. I’m choosing not to do it, but some people may want to do it, and that’s okay. It may be good. Probably will. They’re making a recommendation. It’s only a recommendation. It’s voluntary.” April 3, 2019
Given this muddled and ineffective response to the pandemic, it should not surprise that, by the end of the month, more than one million Americans had been diagnosed with COVID and 57,000 were dead.
Surely, President Trump learned the lessons from his early failures and stepped up in subsequent months. Fat chance. More tomorrow on Trump and COVID.
The President’s number one priority is to safeguard the lives of Americans. Trump failed miserably and if reelected, will fail again and again. It is not safe to vote for Donald Trump.
Have a heart; use your mind, search your conscience, and vote for Democratic candidates – across the ballot – on November. 5th.
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To date, I have written 67 Reasons NOT to vote for Donald Trump . They are archived at my Facebook page
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Why have I committed to posting 100 Reasons NOT to vote for Donald Trump? Because I do not have time to post 10,000 reasons.
Fred Grannis
September 26, 2024