America now has more COVID-19 cases than any country in the world, including China. This is despite the president of the United States saying the following at a February 26 press briefing in the White House:
“As most of you know, the — the level that we’ve had in our country is very low, and those people are getting better, or we think that in almost all cases they’re better, or getting. We have a total of 15. We took in some from Japan — you heard about that — because they’re American citizens, and they’re in quarantine. And they’re getting better too.
“But we felt we had an obligation to do that. It could have been as many as 42. And we found that we were — it was just an obligation we felt that we had. We could have left them, and that would have been very bad — very bad, I think — of American people. And they’re recovering.
“Of the 15 people — the “original 15,” as I call them — 8 of them have returned to their homes, to stay in their homes until fully recovered. One is in the hospital and five have fully recovered. And one is, we think, in pretty good shape and it’s in between hospital and going home.
“So we have a total of — but we have a total of 15 people, and they’re in a process of recovering, with some already having fully recovered.”
On Tuesday the 23rd of March, 13 people died of COVID-19 at the Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens. That’s just one hospital. How does that comport with what White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told us on February 25?
“We have contained this,” Kudlow, President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser, said during an interview with CNBC. “I won’t say airtight, but pretty close to airtight.”
“This is a human tragedy,” he continued. “That’s the worst part of this. The business side and the economic side ― I don’t think it’s going to be an economic tragedy at all.”
He said this right before the stock market took an enormous crap and three million were thrown out of work in an instant.
Kudlow was back on the air on March 10:
As health experts warn of increasing coronavirus cases and encouraged workers to telecommute, President Donald Trump’s chief economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, declared again on Friday that the disease is “contained” and urged Americans: “Stay at work.”
Trump also insisted Friday: “We stopped it,” apparently referring to cases coming in from China.
The men made their comments on the same day that two more coronavirus deaths were reported — in Florida — bringing the national toll to 17.
Their remarks underscored a widening rift. Health experts are warning of a serious outbreak of a dangerous disease and the necessity for immediate, focused action. The president and his officials, however, are claiming that the threat has largely been quelled.
Kudlow, who has no known background in medical science, said on CNBC that the coronavirus “frankly, so far … looks relatively contained.”
Does it look fucking contained now?
Scientists warned that the United States someday would become the country hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic. That moment arrived on Thursday.
In the United States, at least 81,321 people are known to have been infected with the coronavirus, including more than 1,000 deaths — more cases than China, Italy or any other country has seen, according to data gathered by The New York Times.
Scientists and health experts warned us and made all kinds of recommendations which were not followed by this administration. Now we have the worst infection curve of any country in the world, and the most cases, too.
Anyone who is still listening to Trump and his minions is incurable, and I don’t mean incurable from the coronavirus.
Well, I just finished watching the last part of the Corona Virus Task Force daily circle jerk. And I am so tired of watching this debate going on every single day. Here is the reality. The virus does not give two fucks about anything we or the President might care about, or what we wish it to do. We have to act against this reality. There is a damn good chance, probably near 100%, that we are going to rapidly run away from every other country in the world. We are going to have astronomically more infections and deaths than anyone. And no amount of happy talk, or Trump rubbing his magic lantern, is going to change this. We stand a chance of tamping it down through severe restrictions and paying hyper-attention to our hygiene. But we are now in the middle of the current and we don’t have sufficiently strong oars, thanks to Federal inaction, to get us to the safety of the shore. We are going to have to ride this out, to whatever end the virus gives us. In the next 14-21 days, someone is going to end up being embarrassingly, almost criminally, incorrect about the proclamations they are making today. Who do I “believe” is correct? Obviously, the doctors and scientists could be wrong, and no doubt the likelihood of them being 100 percent correct in everything is virtually zero. But I will guarantee you that the reality come mid to late April will be much closer to what they are predicting today than it will be to happy talk from Donald Trump.
Don’t watch. (Or, during the commercial break, email the CEO of the companies who are advertising and tell them you’ll boycott if they keep advertising on that show. And cc the news director of the station/network.)
I haven’t really watched. Can’t/won’t listen to Trump. Saw someone say on twitter that Trump had left the room, so flipped over to hear from Fauci & Birx.
I’ve watched Cuomo talk about NY and he seems like a sane person. Contrast it to Trump. I wonder why the networks keeps tuned into Trump. It is really a free political rally for the Orange one.
This is going to be an inadvertent experiment in pandemic containment. Blue states will try to contain it aggressively. Red states won’t. We will see who does better.
Glad to be in a blue state…
Possible but if he moves to cancel all the shutdowns it won’t matter.
He can’t shut down all the shut downs.
And now our Orange leader will conduct an experiment on Easter. He wants to fill them up and possibly say some prayers. I wonder if he will be going to a packed church on Easter?
Part of it is that we have an administration whose minds cannot go beyond simple mathematical modeling and specifically do not understand that phenomena like this virus grows in an exponential manner (mathematical definition). We also have a president who has gotten thru life with enough resources and possesses so little humanity as to pull crazy end runs out his ass at key moments. Has a sociopath’s gift of charm. But science and math aren’t inclined to be his bitch. And we will suffer for it. We are not going to have a fucking vaccine by Easter, it takes time to find and then takes a shitload more time to make it strong enough to work but safe enough to mass distribute. That’s just not how any of this work.
PS. This may be fucking bitter, but I kind of wish that whatever strain of corona virus that got passed around CPAC was just a bit stronger