Reason # 72: COVID Misery and Inflation
Why do we need to defeat Donald Trump and ensure that a Democrat occupies the White House?
To date we have talked a lot about the Trump/Republican Party failure to act effectively to control the COVID-19 pandemic and prevent the deaths of more than a million Americans. COVID-19 did not just kill, it also caused enormous suffering and catastrophic disruption of our society and our economy.
Let’s start by looking at what happened to a person infected with the virus. Typically, the first symptom was fever and chills, followed by what might best be described as a bad cold i.e. sore throat, malaise, cough, runny nose, headache and GI symptoms. If the disease was identified by immediate testing and a five-day course of Paxlovid was taken, the disease usually disappeared in a short time. But if diagnosis was delayed or treatment was not taken, the disease often took a nasty turn. In many people, particularly the elderly, the frail or those with disease causing immunosuppression, a progressive illness developed, with high fever and worsening pneumonia. As the lungs filled with fluid, breathing became progressively more difficult. Many people died of agonizing suffocation at home. The others made their way to chaotic, overcrowded emergency rooms, packed with others in similar distress. Many, like President Trump, required hospital admission and treatment, including Paxlovid and sometimes infusions of serum from previously infected patients. He took a helicopter to the ER.
Further progression to respiratory failure was all too common, requiring admission to intensive care units, intubation and placement on ventilators. Because a tube in the windpipe is unbearably uncomfortable, such patients must be heavily sedated. Once this stage was reached, survival was uncertain, and a high percentage died despite all measures taken. As an added misery, family members were not able to be with or comfort the suffering, during their final days. They died alone.
Those who did make it through were badly damaged and required long periods of convalescence. Many lost their sense of taste and experienced many other debilitating forms of “long COVID”.
Caregivers also suffered terribly. Hospital personnel worked long hours, under constant stress of becoming infected themselves, working in claustrophobic cocoons of mask respirator, gloves, gown and face shields. They were surrounded by suffering, death and tragedy, day after day after day. They grew exhausted, depressed and burnt-out. They were despondent that despite all of the carnage, public officials were still claiming that the disease was under control; that it was time to reopen schools and churches; that vaccines were unsafe. Many first responders and health care providers themselves became infected and died.
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/covid-19s-negative-impact-caregivers-ways/story?id=88153207
Failure of – primarily Republican public officials – to act sensibly and effectively, allowed the COVID 19 crisis to spin out of control and persist, long after it had been controlled in most other first world nations, including our neighbor, Canada, where vaccination rates are 20% higher and population mortality is far lower.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60380317
The crisis was also astronomically expensive. The longer the epidemic persisted, the longer business activity was hamstrung. Unemployment skyrocketed as businesses closed. Laid-off workers, with no income, now had family members on ventilators and funeral expenses. Many hospital bills would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions. Since few could pay such bills, hospitals also suffered financially.
Children were at home. Who would provide safe childcare, if a parent still had a job? If grandma watched the children, she might pay the ultimate price.
That is about the extent of my economic knowledge. The following link provides exhaustive graphic data on the business impact of a pandemic and the international recession caused by COVID 19.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60380317
The Biden administration’s American Rescue Act provided financial support, but incurred increasing federal debt of $1.9 trillion, in the process. All Republicans voted against the stimulus bill.
Disruption of the supply chain was evident to the naked eye. Shelves in grocery and department stores were bare. Inevitably, prices began to rise rapidly as staples became scarce. Inflation reared its ugly head and soared. It required two years to bring back under control.
And of course, having failed to prevent the catastrophe or to effectively control it, Republicans now seek to exploit public concern over an inflation – that was the direct result of their inaction and irresponsible governance.
Now, four years later, Joseph Biden has – remarkably – navigated through the shoals and brought us back to safe haven. Unemployment is at a very low level, while simultaneously inflation has been brought under control; something that is supposedly highly improbable under classical economic theory.
Things are going so well, in fact, that the Federal Reserve has just reduced the bank loan rate by 0.5%. Predictably, Donald Trump tried to pressure Republican senators and representatives to oppose the Fed rate reduction, so that he could squeeze a few more votes out of America’s financial misery.
In the end, only the rich profited from the pandemic. The Dow-Jones stock price index has risen to a historic level.
Have a heart; use your mind, search your conscience, and vote for Democratic candidates – across the ballot – on November. 5th.
Don’t let Donald Trump get away with blaming the inflation he caused on Democrats.
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 67 Reasons NOT to vote for Donald Trump . They are
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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.
Fred Grannis
October 2, 2024