COVID 19

 

Let’s review the COVID pandemic of this past year and how we got here. COVID 19 began in Wuhan China. At first the Chinese government tried to sweep it under the rug, but soon realized that was an error and mounted a vigorus campaign to control the problem. By then the virus had begun to spread outside of China, particularly to Europe. Then from Europe it began to spread to the USA. Early this year (2020) in a recorded interview with Bob Woodward, Trump admitted that he knew the virus was more contagious and more deadly than previously realized. At the same time Trump continued to downplay the importance of the virus to the American people publicly (and particularly targeting his loyal base) saying that it was just a regular flu and would spontaneously resolve soon. He apparently thought that alerting the public to the seriousness of the problem would be bad for him politically. At that time (and still today) the only effective measures to contain the problem were face mask wearing, social distancing, and cleanliness, but Trump discouraged those measures. To Trump’s followers, protecting themselves and their fellow Americans from the virus became politically incorrect. Trump tried as much as possible to remove scientists with integrity from high office and replaced them with sycophants who say what Trump wants to hear. The person who now has Trump’s ear is Dr. Scott Atlas, a radiologist (not an infectious disease expert or epidemiologist). Contrary to the real experts on the subject, Dr. Atlas favors herd immunity. Herd immunity means let the epidemic proceed  on its own without interference from us humans so it can kill off the most vulnerable (like us old people and also young people with other complicating diseases) and the rest can get sick and develop antibodies. However that means killing off a larger number of Americans (so far more than 200,000), and we don’t yet know with certainty to what extent the antibodies protect us from this particular virus. As a result of Trump’s reckless policy (or lack of policy), the USA has become the worst infected of all the developed countries in the world, and the pandemic has been disastrous for the American economy.