What the hell has happened to this country? In the United States I grew up in, when there was a global crisis, America was always at the front of the pack leading the charge and viewed as a reliable partner for the rest of the word to lean on. Today, there is a global pandemic that is wreaking havoc across the globe and where is America? Rather than leading the effort to try to get our collective arms around this catastrophe, America has retreated. We are withdrawing from the World Health Organization and we are in no position to provide global leadership because we can’t even get our own act together.
We know what to do so why aren’t we doing it? Virtually all credible public health officials, epidemiologists, and physicians of all kinds have stated repeatedly that the way to get this virus under control is to do the following: implement a national testing strategy and greatly increase the number of tests; get people to wear masks and practice social distancing; avoid large gatherings; and wash your hands about a million times a day! It’s no mystery. We know what to do so why the hell aren’t we doing it?
It doesn’t take pouring through reams and reams of data to determine that the CDC guidelines work. Arizona is being cited as a case study. They started to open things up, cases started to skyrocket, they clamped down again and reimplemented some of the restrictions and cases have started to come down. This is not difficult. It just boggles my mind that we bill ourselves as ‘the most powerful nation in the world’ and we are struggling with this like some third world country few people could properly place on a map. Why the hell are we failing so spectacularly as a nation? I will tell you – Donald J. Trump and his abysmal lack of leadership.
Why the hell can’t we put a national testing strategy in place? Right now, we have a patch work strategy that is pretty much left up to each state. Labs are overloaded and test results are sometimes taking a week or more to get analyzed. Just think about that – a test for an extremely contagious disease and you have to wait a week or more to find out if you test positive or not. It’s certainly frustrating for you but what about all of the people you’ve come in contact with between when you got tested and when you got the results?
Or here’s another nightmare scenario – you get tested and a week later you get the results and they are negative. You celebrate but unbeknownst to you, you contracted the virus between when you got tested and when you got the results. So now, you’re running around all happy thinking you are virus free when, in fact, you are positive and potentially spreading the disease to those around you.
This patchwork testing strategy that is currently in place is a ridiculous way to fight this battle. We are currently conducting something like 700,000+ tests a day which is, by itself, an impressive number, but the fact is the health experts say that we need to be testing millions per day to be able to identify and isolate cases quickly. Since there are no national strategies, a consortium of governors from seven states got together and developed their own coordinated strategy. Where the hell is the Federal government? Oh, yeah, the President wants to do less testing so then we’d be reporting fewer cases. It’s no small wonder he can’t even pronounce ‘Yosemite’!
Imagine that a foreign army were invading this country – do you think there would be a national strategy in place? I would sure as hell hope so. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where each state was responsible for developing their own battle plan. And yet here we are. The country is under attack and we have this crazy quilt approach to defeating this enemy. It’s absurd.
The same is true for wearing masks and all of the other CDC guidelines. Its just another crazy quilt set of policies. Just this week, the Sturgis motorcycle rally is kicking off in South Dakota and they are expecting attendance of around 250,000 people – no masks required. And when the rally is over, all of these people will disperse across the country and it is a 100 percent probability that some of them will be COVID positive. So even if the state you live in, like here in Montana, where masks are mandatory, they will likely see a bump in cases due to Sturgis attendees returning home.
Some of the latest models are projecting that there will be up to 300,000 deaths in America by the end of the year if nothing changes. In an interview a couple of days ago when Trump was asked about the number of deaths (currently around 160,000) he responded with, “It is what it is.” Appalling.
I think I have figured out the problem. Trump understands that his ticket to reelection depends upon the economy. And right now, we all know the economy has taken a major hit so Trump’s ticket to the White House is looking a little ‘iffy’ right now. He understands that if he can show that the economy is rebounding at all, he will take credit for that and it will improve his chances. That’s why he wants schools re-opened. It has nothing to do with education, child welfare or anything else – it has to do with making sure parents have somewhere to send their kids so they can go to work.
Everything Trump is doing these days is driven by getting the economy going in the hopes of getting reelected. If it costs the lives of 300,000 Americans by the end of the year – in his mind, that’s just the cost of doing business. As has been stated many times before, Trump is very transaction oriented. He views everything in terms of winners and losers. In this case, if Trump can get the economy going (or at least convince enough people that the economy is recovering whether true or not) and get reelected then it will simply be a case of “I win, you’re dead”. And he will simply respond, “It is what it is.” Tens of thousands of American lives needlessly sacrificed on the altar of Trump’s ego. This is not the America that I grew up in.