II’m late about this, but a disturbing study was published about ten days ago showing that at least 36,000 U.S. lives would have been saved if U.S. authorities in Washington, D.C., starting with President Donald Trump, would have taken this coronavirus called COVID-19 seriously only one week earlier by trying to prevent its spread. The New York Times reported about this study in an article that begins as follows:
“If the United States had begun imposing social distancing measures one week earlier than it did in March, about 36,000 fewer people would have died in the coronavirus outbreak, according to new estimates from Columbia University disease modelers.
“And if the country had begun locking down cities and limiting social contact on March 1, two weeks earlier than most people started staying home, the vast majority of the nation’s deaths — about 83 percent — would have been avoided, the researchers estimated.
“Under that scenario, about 54,000 fewer people would have died by early May.”
I posted in “Doctor Trump” saying such things publicly as the following:
January 22nd: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”
February 10th: “Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.”
February 24th: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. … Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”
February 27th: “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
March 4th: “I think the 3.4% [fatality rate] is really a false number.”
March 9th: “The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power … to inflame the CoronaVirus situation.”
March 10th: “We’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”
President Trump finally started to turn around and take this virus threat seriously when he said on March 15th,“This is a very contagious virus. It’s incredible.” But he still added, “But it’s something that we have tremendous control over.” The next day, on March 16th, President Trump said, “We have an invisible enemy.”
Why did President Trump talk this way for several weeks, dismissing COVID-19 as nothing? I’ve blogged many times about his narcissism as the cause for such talk. But also, he’s been a real estate mogul and developer who is a big salesman. He just tries to make a deal by spouting off a bunch of malarkey–meaning saying less than the truth–to make it happen. That’s why you can’t hardly believe anything this guy says. How many lies has he told now, according to the fact checkers, since he has been president?
The Times article explains the study as follows, “The findings are based on infectious disease modeling that gauges how reduced contact between people starting in mid-March slowed transmission of the virus. Dr. Shaman’s team modeled what would have happened if those same changes had taken place one or two weeks earlier and estimated the spread of infections and deaths until May 3.”
Trump’s legacy as president will include his several weeks of denial about this coronavirus when so many American lives could have been saved.
Now we’re into another chaos with this president acting like a dictator about the police killing of George Floyd that has caused demonstrations all over the country, with Trump threatening to call out the military. This president just gets worse and worse in how he handles one crisis after another.
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