Trump to be at Fault for 100,000 Deaths and a "Must Read and Forward" Column

 
Do You Know the Score?

It’s a waste of time for you to read this blog IF you are regularly getting your news on TV from any news source other than Fox News.  You must already know the score. 

And if you regularly read the New York Times or the Washington Post, or any local paper that carries some of their columnists and news stories, you can similarly skip reading this blog.   You must already know the score. 

But if you don’t read such newspapers and get your news from Fox or even worse, from Internet sources, AM radio or newspapers or radio stations owned by the Sinclair group, YOU MUST READ THIS BLOG, every word of it.   Because then, you do not know the score.

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If you don't read any further, please read conservative Republican Mona Charen's recent column by CLICKING HERE.  Then perform a good deed by forwarding it to any one you know who is even considering voting for Donald Trump in November.  That would be about the most un-American thing a voter can do!
JL


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The President, after the doctors on his staff finally hammered it into his skull, has begun to recognize the seriousness of the Covid19 pandemic.  He actually repeated Dr. Fauci’s estimate of somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 deaths in this country from it, but did so in a blithe manner, implying that getting by with that 100,000  number was okay, considering that the number might be ten or twenty times that if the Administration were doing nothing.  Actually, other than a lot of talk and providing money to States to get the job done, that well describes what they are doing.  Most of the work in fighting the pandemic is being done locally, primarily under the leadership of governors, and that is the reason these estimates are reasonable, but only if everyone plays by the rules, observes social distancing and stays where they are.  The federal government is primarily a supply source.  The president had even suggested to States to search out their own supplies.

Anyway you look at the numbers, the number of new confirmed Covid19 cases increases daily all over the country, chiefly in urban areas where people live in close proximity to one another.  The good thing is that most of these cases do not require hospitalization and the symptoms go away after a week or two.   But the number of people infected, with and without symptoms, is enormous.  Without adequate testing, we will never really know that number.  That’s why statistics are unreliable.  

It seems to me, from what I read and hear, that no more than 20% of those who are infected manifest symptoms, and of that number, only those who do not recover in a week or two on their own are hospitalized.   Of that number  the percentage who die is about 2% or 3%.   That percentage seems to pertain to those showing symptoms requiring hospitalization.  If you are looking for a mortality percentage for the far greater number of those testing positive for Covid19, including those without symptoms, the mortality percentage probably would be much, much lower.  But we don't have those numbers due to inadequate testing.

In any event, this kind of “modelling” is what resulted in Dr. Fauci’s very general 100,000 to 200,000 total death figure.   Using the lower estimate of 100,000 deaths, and assuming a death rate of 2%, that means about 5 million people will have contracted the virus with symptoms sufficient to call for (but not necessarily get) hospitalization.   That’s a big number.  Obviously, these figures are hairy and tentative.  But since the number of confirmed cases is still increasing daily, they cannot be ignored.  When these increases, State-wise and nationally, level off and start to decrease, we will have a handle on the problem.  The president now says give it until the end of April.  I think that is a bit optimistic.

We must never forget that for months, President Trump did not take the virus seriously, although the government presented him with the facts early in the game.  He even had shut down the Administration’s NSC unit keeping an eye on Pandemics! CLICK HERE TO READ ABOUT THAT.   Dr. Fauci was not in a cave somewhere all of this time, either.  Trump called it a hoax, saying it would disappear shortly and minimized its effect on Americans.  Republicans in government at all levels echoed this.  Only when the effects of the virus started to affect the economy and the stock market did the President wake up.  His first impulse was to save the economy and get people back to work.  But by then it was too late.  The virus had a two month head start before anything like social distancing was even thought of by governments at all levels.  The large number of deaths mentioned above is the direct result of this delay and is attributed to no one other than the president because of that delay for which he cannot dodge responsibility.  There already is blood on his hands.  There will be more.   No matter how he twists and turns, he cannot get away from what he said and what he didn’t do in a timely manner.  Steps taken belatedly and blame placed on predecessors do not excuse his earlier blunders.

To hear him speak today, he paints himself as the one who leads the nation in solving the medical and economic problems caused by Covid19, when he is the precise opposite, the cause of the problem.  Certainly, Ahab was captain of the Pequod, but that didn’t help in the long run.   Both “captains” share at least a portion of the blame for disaster.

In Trump’s presidential election campaign, he should be reminded each day of his documented misdirections.  His many statements and tweets, minimizing the virus epidemic, and even calling it a Democratic hoax, should be thrown in his face at every opportunity.  Even Republicans should now understand Donald Trump’s shortcomings and desert him.  Donald J. Trump redefines what we always have thought of as the "lowest of the low."  In some way, shape or form, he must be gotten rid of.  His performance in the face of Covid19 is reason enough.  (Forget the rest of his lying and cheating and nepotism.) The 2020 election is the cleanest way.

Any effort to delay or contaminate that election should be fought vigorously.   At a minimum, it should proceed on a "vote by mail" basis.  Congress must act on making this possible.  

JL