There is a bit of good news today. Apparently, the vaccine being developed by Moderna is showing promising results. If it pans out, that will be a good thing. If the efficacy and safety of the vaccine are borne out in the Phase 3 trials (30,000 people) that are due to start soon, the next major hurdle will be to manufacture sufficient doses for the entire country – or potentially the world. And that brings up a couple of interesting questions.
Given Trump’s penchant for using the withholding of funds as a lever against state governors with whom he disagrees, I wonder if there is any chance that the allocation of vaccines will be used in the same manner? Will all of the ‘red’ states get vaccines first? Will California be last on the list? With previous administrations, that question would not even come up, but this is a different time and this president has engaged in behaviors that have not been seen before so you cannot just dismiss such things as ‘impossible.’
A more interesting question comes up when it comes to the world at large. If the US comes up with a vaccine before anyone else, will Trump use that as a political cudgel? Will he offer it to other countries at an inflated price, i.e. make a profit for the US? Since Trump only thinks in terms of dollars, that is certainly not out of the realm of possibility. Will he make a deal with Putin to provide vaccines to Russia before our NATO allies? Or will he simply use it to get trade concessions from various countries? Like I said previously, with other administrations these questions would never come up, but we are in new territory now.
I posted something on Facebook a few days ago which was a satirical look at the whole idea that increased testing being the cause of the marked increase of cases in the US. I have included that post below since it now seems somewhat prescient. Why? Within the last day or two, the administration has mandated that hospitals now send their COVID 19 data to DC (Health and Human Services – run by a Trump appointee) rather than to the CDC. Anyone really believe that we will be getting the real picture from now on out?
Since Trump really needs the numbers to start improving to help his re-election, I’ll bet this is the more likely scenario: Magically the numbers of cases will start improving over the next few weeks based upon reporting out of HHS. There will be an investigation by the NY Times, Washington Post, etc that will ultimately uncover the fact the data are being manipulated and mis-reported and are painting a far rosier picture than the reality. Trump will label all of this ‘fake news’ and will begin touting in his campaign ads what a great job he’s done with the pandemic. Any takers?
On the good news front – I am set to receive Mary Trump’s book tomorrow. I’m sure that will be very entertaining (if not just downright scary). My previous post about testing is below.
I was driving home from picking up some pizza last night and listening to the news as they were discussing Trump’s continuing insistence that we are only seeing more COVID-19 cases because we are doing so much testing and if we would just do less testing, the number of cases being reported would decrease! Fascinating logic! And then it struck me.
According to a recent study, Montana has the highest drunk driving fatality rate in the nation. This is obviously not an enviable thing to lead the nation in. However, if we can just persuade the Montana Highway Patrol to pull over fewer people, issue fewer citations, and stop doing toxicology tests on drivers involved in accidents, that should greatly improve the numbers!! I’m not sure that it will actually prevent people from getting killed by drunk drivers, but the numbers will look much better and we can cede our dubious distinction of being the state with the highest drunk driving fatality rate to the next state on the list. I don’t know why someone didn’t think of this sooner. As long as the numbers look good, the number of people who actually die is really irrelevant – right?
I talked it over with my panel of experts below and they all agree. I will get a letter in the mail to Governor Bullock forthwith.
I think we should refer to the President as Dr. Frankentrump, the expert in alternative medicine for COVID-19. I always thought he was a snake oil salesman. What amazes me more is how many stupid people we have in this country that believe his lies.