Reason # 70: COVID Politics Trump Style
Why do we need to defeat Donald Trump and ensure that a Democrat occupies the White House?
Late 2020; time before the election was short. Polls predicted a close election. What did Donald Trump do? Did he act responsibly and campaign remotely, in order to protect his constituents? Of course he didn’t.
He cared more about getting reelected than in protecting Americans.
Remember a few reasons back, when I explained that the average person infected with COVID infects two others on average and that, if the population takes no protective measures, the entire population will quickly become infected and millions will die.
Things are very different when people protect themselves using recommendations based upon epidemiological science. For example, when COVID struck, my family isolated socially as recommended. I was retired and did not have to go to work. We only grocery shopped in the early AM, when stores were empty, once a week, wearing face masks. We practiced strict hand washing and disinfection of exposed surfaces. We did not go to movies, church, sporting events or other social gatherings. We did not meet with family, despite how painful that was. We did not kiss, hug or shake hands. All social interactions were via ZOOM. We were traumatized but we survived.
Now, consider how differently Donald Trump behaved. Despite overwhelming scientific evidence and consensus, he not only convened thousands of people in tightly packed audiences, on at least eighteen occasions, but allowed – even encouraged – attendees to be unmasked.
What happens under such circumstances? We knew the answer within months of the onset of COVID. In February 2020, an Italian football match spread COVID and death throughout Europe. A neologism was invented to describe such events; they were called “superspreaders”.
A choir group in Washington State had 51 of 62 members contract COVID and several died after a single practice!
Such events proved that COVID was not just spread by particles coughed or breathed upon those in the near vicinity. The viral particles could float as an aerosol, throughout a large space, to infect those distant from the source.
When Donald Trump stubbornly and irresponsibly held his rallies, he was deliberately hosting superspreaders, literally incubating the virus by providing it with innumerable new hosts. Predictably, Trump superspreader rallies were followed by a minimum of thirty thousand new cases
and more than 700 deaths, including that of Herman Cain, a former presidential candidate who refused to wear masks.
But that was just the beginning. This is a contagious illness; by definition and nature, it spreads to others. Each of the thirty thousand infected Trump rally-goers went home and infected their own family. Their children went to schools – that Republicans insisted should stay open – and infected classmates, who in turn, went home and infected their parents and grandparents, many of whom died. They attended church services and infected their neighbors.
As the pandemic accelerated, there were domino effects. Emergency rooms, hospitals, intensive care units were overwhelmed by new cases. Patients suffered and died as a direct result. In a grotesque development, portable refrigerated mortuaries had to be brought in to store dead bodies. Health care workers became exhausted, and many died.
Infected caregivers spread the disease in senior facilities, where frail elderly residents were unable to fight off the disease and deaths skyrocketed.
This was the state of affairs when the first COVID vaccines were administered on December 14, 2020. Finally, things would get better. Or would they?
Tomorrow we will begin to review how Donald Trump and the Republican party reacted to vaccination of COVID and other infectious diseases.
You know enough by now to be able to anticipate that it will not be a heartwarming narrative.
Have a heart; use your mind, search your conscience, and vote for Democratic candidates – across the ballot – on November. 5th.
Please share this message with your friends and please, add your thoughts, to expand upon what are only brief sketches here.
To date, I have written 70 Reasons NOT to vote for Donald Trump . They are
archived at my Facebook page
“100 Reasons NOT to vote for Donald Trump”. Please visit and share the URL with your friends and colleagues.
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61565843924438
Why have I committed to posting 100 Reasons NOT to vote for Donald Trump? Because I do not have time to post 10,000.
Fred Grannis
October 1, 2024