A few pertinent facts about the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic:
The administration is proceeding with its proposed cutting of Health and Human Services funding by $9.5 billion, including a 15 percent cut of $1.2 billion to the CDC and a $35 million cut to the Infectious Diseases Rapid Response Reserve Fund’s annual contribution.
The administration still intends to cut food stamps for more than 700,000 Americans on April first, reiterating this intent just yesterday. These are the Americans who are most likely to be without work and be most effected during this pandemic.
Trump fired the US pandemic response team in 2018 and never bothered to replace them.
Two weeks ago, Trump said, “When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”
This was despite the clarion call from experts who insisted that action needed to be taken immediately.
One week ago, Trump attempted to prevent Americans from leaving a cruise ship infected with coronavirus.
He said:
“My experts would like to have the people come off. I’d rather have the people stay because I like the numbers being where they are. I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault.”
He was worried that the number of coronavirus cases would increase if Americans disembarked the ship. By leaving them in international waters, the CDC would not include them in the total number of Americans infected with the virus.
He said this aloud.
Trump claimed during his Oval Office address on Wednesday that health insurers “have agreed to waive all copayments for coronavirus treatments.”
This was not true. They have agreed to waive copayments for testing (less than $50) but not treatment, which can run into the tens of thousands of dollars if hospitalization is required, which will force many uninsured Americans to forgo testing and treatment entirely.
For many people, waiving of copayments for testing is irrelevant because coronavirus testing kits are in short supply and unavailable in many places in America, despite Trump’s assurances that testing kits are widely distributed throughout America.
Even his own officials refute this claim, often immediately after he makes it.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a total of at least 11,079 specimens have been tested since January. However, the number of people tested is likely to be lower, as patients typically provide at least two specimens for testing.
By contrast, South Korea has tested more than 210,000 people and is testing nearly 20,000 people every day, while in the UK, more than 29,700 people have been tested, and more than 1,000 tests are being done every day.
Trump claimed during his Oval Office address on Wednesday that all travel from Europe, including cargo, would be suspended indefinitely. This was also not true. Travel for American citizens returning from Europe is still permitted, as are cargo shipments. This confusion sent the stock market into another free fall on Thursday, losing another 7% in just 10 minutes before circuit breakers were triggered, halting trading.
So far the stock market has lost more than 20% of its value.
Trump has also claimed that we are testing anyone arriving from overseas for the coronavirus. This is also not true.
Trump went golfing last Sunday.
Last night he was tweeting about the magnificence of Japan’s new Olympic Stadium and attacking Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s response to the H1Ni pandemic in 2009.
America was not going to avoid this pandemic, but our response has been incompetent, deceitful, negligent, and cruel. As a result, the virus will spread in greater numbers and more Americans will die than was necessary. These are the times when we need swift, decisive, competent, clear direction from our federal government predicated on the counsel of scientists and other leading authorities.
None of this is happening.
At this point, Americans must lean on state and local officials to compensate for an incompetent, disinterested, and cruel federal government. There is nothing we can do to change the reality that I have outlined above.
But in November, Americans will have an opportunity to restore our federal government and its formal levels of expertise, empathy, and preparedness.
We have an opportunity to put the grownups back in charge.
If this crisis doesn’t convince Americans that this racist, sexist, incompetent reality show experiment has failed, I don’t think anything will.
