Virus Follies

The Joke's On Us:  In 2014 Trump tweeted “Obama just appointed an Ebola Czar with zero experience in the medical area and zero experience in infectious disease control. A TOTAL JOKE!” Yesterday during a morning interview,  Donna Shalala, the Florida Congresswoman who previously served as President Clinton’s Health and Human Services Secretary, said that since presidents aren’t experts in the minutiae of health care the best way to reassure the public during a crisis is to limit their speaking time while keeping the experts front and center.  Trump clearly didn’t get that message nor does he remember that 2014 tweet so last night he controlled the mic during a press conference intended to reassure the country that his administration has a handle on the Coronavirus pandemic and announced that he was putting VP Pence in charge of his COVID 19 effort citing Pence’s stellar experience managing health care as Governor of  Indiana rather than the real reason, his total obsequiousness, as his chief qualification.  In case you are wondering Pence’s health care experience includes his decision to defund a major Indiana HIV testing facility because it was run by Planned Parenthood, his efforts to block a needle exchange program that was desperately needed in an area where addicts were injecting opioids and sharing used needles and cutbacks in overall health expenditures.  The defunding of the HIV testing facility and his opposition to the needle exchange program led to a very preventable spike in AIDs cases.  Then there is that op-ed that Pence wrote in 2000 in which he claimed that the notion that smoking kills people was just ”hysteria from the political class and the media.”  In other words, by Trump standards Pence who appeared unusually red faced and who actually wiped his nose with his hand during the press conference while germophobe Trump was correctly extolling the importance of good hygiene and hand washing, is perfect for the job.

Fun Facts:  Trump, who admitted that he only just learned that 12,000 to 61,000 Americans die from the flu every year, did have a few health experts standing behind him and even let a some of them speak but notably Dr Nancy Messonier, the CDC official who warned that we are likely to face life disruptions going forward was not one of them.  Messonier, who believe it or not is Rod Rosenstein’s sister, is now in the conservative pundit penalty box for making those frank remarks because apparently she, like her brother, is just another member of the never Trump dark state.  Getting back to the experts who were at the press conference, right after Trump’s vaccination expert said that one for COVID 19 wouldn’t be available for at least a year and that even that schedule was optimistic, Trump contradicted him, saying it would be out really soon.  And after another one said that the incidence of COVID 19 in the US was likely to increase soon, Trump said that would probably not happen because he has his best people on the case.  Trump also blamed this week’s stock market drop on the Democrats, saying that it was their Tuesday night debate that was responsible for the sharp decline.  He’s not wrong about that debate being unsettling, but since it followed two days of declining indexes blaming the Democrats rather than concerns over the potential impact of the coronavirus was just more Trumpian bunk. He also criticized Speaker Pelosi and Senator Schumer’s insistence that more funds than he thinks are necessary be allocated to fighting the virus but said he’d take them if offered, probably planning to reallocate them to his wall because who thinks that exposed health care workers really need face masks and other such things anyway?  As to Trump’s assertion that concerns about COVID 19’s spread are overstated, last night the CDC confirmed the first case of unknown origin in Northern California, indicating possible “community spread” of the disease.  And, closer to home, or at least closer to my home city, Nassau County health officials placed 83 individuals who recently returned to New York from China in self-quarantine due to concerns they had been exposed to the virus.  The good news is as least so far none of them are exhibiting any symptom. We’re likely to survive this virus, but that will be despite Trump’s efforts rather than because of them.   

Et Cetera:  Trump’s campaign is suing the NY Times over an op-ed that he found offensive.  It’s a pointless harassment suit but very on Trump’s brand.  Disagreeing with three other federal appeals courts one in NY ruled that the Trump administration can withhold millions of dollars from law enforcement agencies in so-called sanctuary cities that don’t cooperate with immigration enforcement agencies. That decision affects New York as does the administrations’ decision to halt the state’s participation in the trusted traveler program and a recent decision by the Army Corp of Engineers to freeze a study on a NYC sea wall that Trump thinks is stupid, mostly because Trump now hates his former home because we don’t like him.  And so it goes and goes.

Wash Your Hands!  A lot!