The expression of incomprehension and boredom on the face of the Commander in Chief speaks volumes
57
Trump will make every crisis worse
38
Give Trump a sharpie. He'll simply draw the virus away.
38
"...D.H.S. official Ken Cuccinelli told a Senate committee on Thursday..."
Thought he was to found to be illegally in the job?
Call security. really. What is going on?
9
It’s tragic that so many feeble minded people will believe the bile that spews from trumps mouth. And absolutely astonishing that the entire Republican Party is completely cowed by this mentally ill monster in the White House. How anyone can vote for any republican is unbelievable - Hillary would’ve been a better President then her husband but of course who could’ve voted for an intelligent woman after the gop, lead by their dear leader, were so diligent in annihilating her.
44
The hysteria of this Never-Trumper, who's husband worked for the failed Warren campaign, is incredible. Let's blame Trump for the virus! 25,000 Americans died from flu already this season yet the medial is sowing panic due to a virus that has caused less than 20 deaths thus far in the US.
Only 45% of Americans bothered to get the flu shot this year.
The Democrats and liberal pundits like Goldberg cannot contain their anger at Trump since the day he was elected. What have the Dems in Congress been doing about anything, other than Russia, impeachment, Kavanough, etc.?
They just politicize everything and just play the blame game.
It is really sad that such hyperbole can be called an Op Ed piece. Every one of Goldberg's essays since the day she was hired has been just another anti-Trump diatribe.
Whatever happened to a modicum of objectivity???
6
I've never seen such an completely incompetent, utterly worthless human being as I've seen in Trump. It's not just how he's proudly stupid and makes a catastrophe out of everything he touches, it's that he demands everyone around him lie constantly and cover for him.
47
REMEMBER IN November!
33
Donald "I've Got a Hunch" Trump, MD.
Every time you think he has said the stupidest thing imaginable, he surpasses his own ignorance.
54
Please, please stop blaming the leader under the current situation. Please, please!!!
1
This is one mega mistake that neither Barr, McConnell or any of Trumps other sychophants can weasel him out of and it will be the capstone metaphor for his entire deplorable regime.
23
The administrations response to the virus is sad. Mike would have known what to do. Mike doesn’t bumble. The administration has refused to throw paper towels. It’s pathetic, anti positive drivel and negatively affecting moral. There is no leadership. Greta Thunberg? Winning.
7
no matter what Trump does, this writer will find ways to make snarky comments. It is what it is. Trump is far from perfect, but so is the writer.
4
Love the photo and his classic petulant expression.
13
The hapless Mike Pence has been set up to fail. Trump knew exactly what he was doing when he put that dolt in charge of the Coronavirus "task force".
In a few months he will be thrown under the bus and a more exciting running mate will be chosen for Trump's 2020 election bid.
It's a show and Trump realizes part 2 needs some new cast members if it's not to be cancelled.
26
Trump's response: keep grandparents away.
8
Trump's mental capacity gets worse daily.
Today he cross-referenced his quid pro quo attempt in Ukraine when lying about the availability of virus test kit in the USA.
22
Trump has no idea about management. He's a game show host who licenses his name to plaster on buildings he doesn't build or own. Trump is a con artist who is completely overwhelmed by a job he never even wanted! Vote Democrat!
26
Tedros Ghebreyesus, director of WHO Tuesday said that the virus could be contained better than influenza, while, two days later, a Swiss virologist Marcel Salathé declared that “probably the virus cannot be contained and sooner or later everyone will be ‘in touch” by it (infected)” That “scientific” opinion came when the COVID-19 cases were 113.
The Swiss media Ticinoline/20 Minutes, progressive media, titled the Salathé speculation “Coronavirus: everyone will be infected”. How would you react if a US virologist had come out with such speculation, a doomsday scenario that contrasted with Ghebreyesus’ positive assessment?
Salathé assertion sounded (other than a sentence) more like an attempt to justify the Swiss failure in containing the virus (economic/political reasons?). Now, the Swiss goal is to slow down virus and not to stop it.
Closing the border with Italy for few weeks, would have sure helped containing the virus, or at least slowing down its spread. Last Saturday we had 15 cases, six days later we have 214 case trailing US with only 8.5 million people, and the worst has yet to come.
Today WHO director said it again, "the virus can be contained, it is not the time to surrender or finding excuses", I think he was referring to Switzerland and Europe.
more than 6000 infected in the three countries bordering switzerland.
So Michelle Goldberg or anyone at NYT, lets trade places, I assure you, I and my family would feel much safer in US than in my own country.
3
Oh please! Final story will likely show that there was little any nation could do other than perhaps China. The virus has evidently been here for weeks before anyone filed a single story. Get a grip, follow the guidelines the CDC provided and get on with your life. Or you can live in a cave for 18 months which is how long it will be until the vaccine is ready. We have millions of people that drink and drive, smoke tobacco or text and drive. Yet this flu variation has people cowering at home. Spare me. I guess the pioneer stock is long gone from our gene pool. No wonder we need immigrants.
5
From your article: "If things get really bad, maybe he’ll toss us a few rolls of paper towels." Don't you mean he should throw us toilet paper, that seems to be what people are buying in large amounts & hording!
As for the rest of the opinion, well, I guess all that we can say is we got what THEY voted for & if there is any type of justice trump would be the one to pay for this but doesn't he have the nickname "Teflon don"? You know nothing sticks to him. One of these days something will have to & maybe this will be it I mean viruses don't care who they infect.
It would be nice if this just went away but I'm afraid we will have to suffer the consequences of tiptoeing around the thin skinned so-called commander in chief.
Oh by the way the picture that accompanies this article is priceless, trump 'looks' like he understands but you can just read his mind saying, "let me outa here I need to go play golf."
12
"If things get really bad, maybe..."
There's always hope, Michelle.
3
Oh look, they built a model to explain the virus to the child president. Love it!
15
You can blame Trump all you want but every state and every city is it’s own entity . If tests kits are slow do what Cuomo is doing and send test to local test centers. If things get too bad, the Governor and mayor will start massive quarantines, close schools etc, this is a once in a lifetime emergency , and everyone has to now do their best, this is like world war 3 in which everybody must pitch in, the New York Times can do it’s best by offering good information, and doing a better job monitoring its message boards, there is too much fear mongering, could be from Russian bots trying to spread panic. By all accounts and actual totals are coming from across the world, people 30 and under have little worry about, the worry meter goes up the older and sicker you are, just like the flu.Think positive, negative energy is bad for your health. This could blow over as much as it could get bad. With the whole world involved and super computers maybe we will find a way to fight and Rush through a vaccine in record time. I know they say it takes a year , but maybe it can be done quicker. Flu usually fades in the warmer more humid months. This is the fight of our lives, throw away the cigarettes and the donuts and get healthy. Worrying and panic lowers your immune system, watch your favy TV shows and play games with your kids and stay in as much as possible. Positive energy is important
3
And Melania tweeted she is building a tennis court during this crisis! She should be on tv telling the truth about the virus, visiting hospitals. FLOTUS & POTUS show No sympathy for people in trouble: thousands have died in natural disasters during Trump’s presidency. And all he will propose now is to give tax relief to large corporations, to try to prop up the stock market.
19
Feel sorry for Mike Pence. He will be blamed. Mike should pray for a very light bus.
13
limbaugh's comments should be enough to rescind the Medal of Freedom
mad king don's delusions and rantings should be enough to invoke the 25th Ammendment
but the GOP has no idea how to hold power without lies and fealty to Dear Leader.
15
Bolsanaro visiting Mar y Lago this weekend to see if the OAS will protect his right wing administration now that LuLu has effectively been freed ...tick toc .LuLu has the support of 85 % of the people !
3
As with so many items that have crossed the Great-would-be-Dictator’s desk since he has been skulking about the Oval Office the Grand Oracle thinks he knows better than anyone else about a situation dangerous to the entire world. His hubris will be his undoing. He and his clique have made a fine mess of your country and this November he needs to be shown the door by all the good people of the US.
19
Trump’s serial lying is going to catch up with him. Even the most devoted Fox News aficionados will eventually realize that they have fallen for the con when the coronavirus impacts their daily lives and they still hear Trump on tv and Twitter claiming that he has defeated the disease with his ridiculous wall on the southern border and his stupid hunches.
15
To Donald Trump, his Administration, the Republican Party and his loyal base, ignorance is bliss.
11
It appears that Trump has his eyes closed in the accompanying photo. How apt.
7
I cannot believe the comments from your right wingers. They are absolutely bizarre!. The flu is preventable by a readily available cheap vaccine available in pharmacies. That means even with no or garbage trump medical plans people can access the vaccine and even if they develop influenza will reduce their chances of severe illness or death. Vaccine refusers, it is on your own head. There is currently no such option for COVID19.
8
I am not a Trump supporter. I am a virologist.
With these caveats let me say that I find the media coverage of this viral infection absolutely shameful. It seems that there is no limit to the fear-mongering and using (abusing) this situation for political ends. Please stop being party to it NYT. You can do better than yellow journalism - I still hope, somewhat.
10
I’m thankful it’s this and not plague or Ebola...but, I’m also concerned...the next one?
1
Mr. Trump Nov. 4, 2020 news conference.
"It was the virus thing that cost me this election!"
"It was Obama not having enough test kits and cutting money from my Center for Disease Control!"
"If my wall was built in time then our country would have safe!"
"It sure wasn't anything I did, I haven't touched my face in six months."
12
MAGA Country: Got Healthcare?
16
The issue is not his ego, but rather his virility. Or rather his sense of it.
3
It appears that a novel corona virus epidemic may be the antidote to an already rampant Narcissistic Personality Disorder epidemic.
12
At a meeting to protest a uranium mine 13 mi. from the south Rim of the Grand Canyon, a uranium mining engineer at mine tailings to show us how harmless uranium was.
I suggest that Trump stop washing his hands and touch his face at least every 20 seconds.
2
Love the photo, "Sparkly!"
4
According to the Times and the Post, Obama’s CDC badly underestimated the dangers of Ebola, allowing those who had been exposed to freely use public transportation, recklessly exposing hundreds.
2
This morning on CNN’s New Day. They featured a Trump supporter telling a stunned reporter :
“I don’t trust the Democrats and the virus is a hoax.”
So it seems Mr Trump’s messages has reached his ardent followers .
To this Trump Supporter . I say, I hope you don’t get sick and if you do. I suppose there’s always thoughts and prayers.
15
Trump claimed that the Democrats would politicize the coronavirus. Ms Goldberg poo-poos that notion and then she politicizes the whole matter, just as Trump predicted. What Ms. Goldberg says and what she does have nothing in common.
2
This has nothing to do with democracy. It is due to lack of responsibility and accountability. South Korea tested 160000 patients and USA TESTED 1500 !.
Their population is 10% of US.
When the President at the onset of this epidemic called it “another hoax” we now know why we do not have enough Coronavirus test kits.
10
Take a good look at the pic that heads this column. Do an honest assessment of what you think might be coursing through Mr. Trump's neural pathways....and vote accordingly this November. Please, for the sake of America.
13
Trump will lie...people will die.
14
Trump is not responsible for this virus. I don’t see any other country doing better arresting its spread.
What Trump is clearly trying to do is halt the ‘extraordinary popular delusion and the madness of crowds’. The reality is most people will not contract the virus and the overwhelming majority of those that do will have such mild symptoms that many won’t even be aware they are infected. Yes, some people will die but in the vast majority of cases these people had underlying health problems. Who knows if they might have died if they contracted the flu (which kills tens of thousands of people a year).
The overreaction of the American people is to be expected - many Americans overdo practically everything (eat, drink, smoke, complain, blame others, etc). The far greater threat to Americans is the knee jerk reaction by those who suggest we close schools, make people work from home, and generally disrupt life. The liberal media doesn’t help when they fan the flames of panic.
The irony is the article quotes someone saying the issue shouldn’t be politicized but then the writer goes ahead and blames Trump.
153
@Matt Williams Good god. No one is blaming Donnie for the virus. Science indicates it was caused in an open market in China when the virus was transferred from a bat to an anteater type animal and then ingested by humans. But the response to the virus, like Xi, has been poor, to put it politely. And yes, the buck stops in the oval office, regardless of who is sitting in it. Comes with the job.
1253
@Matt Williams He may not have created this virus, but, as our chief executive, he most certainly is responsible for addressing it, and woe unto him for failing to do so and casting the blame elsewhere.
555
@Matt Williams No. What Trump is clearly trying to do is protect his re-election odds from a falling stock market and faltering economy due to the virus - while haltingly and in his usual monotone reading voice read the scripts he's given to try to sound like he cares about the virus itself and the impact on the American public. He lies constantly about it, and I remind you, called IT a hoax too. Man, he really could shoot someone on Fifth Ave. and not lose one of his supporters. He got that right.
419
The uncomprehending, ignorant look on his face is just terrifying. But I guess if it's all going to blow away at the end of the month, like a miracle, just gone, "poof!", we've got nothing to worry about. Absolutely nothing at all. /s
112
Grading on a curve, looks like China merits an F in health safety for its unregulated wild animal markets; however, they should get an A for addressing the coronavirus once the outbreak was detected (ok, an A- because it took the death of a doctor who warned about it in Wuhan, but on the other hand they stood up a brand new hospital in 10 days and Xi was ubiquitously in view leading their defence).
In contrast the US had plenty of advance notice given that we could observe China, and still we continue to stumble. Not to mention Trump’s dismantling of our preventive health architecture, and trying to take a cue from Xi by visiting the CDC - only with his MAGA hat on! So we’re the laughing stock of the world now, worthy of an F.
14
Thought bubble above trumps head in the picture.
That looks like the Game of jacks we played as kids, bouncing the ball and picking them up, except its more colorful and more bigly than I remember, I’m the president I want it.
7
In this case as in others, the evidence is overwhelming that Trump knows nothing and lies/misinforms constantly. His incompetence and dishonesty endear him to his supporters, who also know nothing and lie to themselves constantly.
19
This President is amoral, incompetent and stupid. Till now, the public gave him the benefit of the doubt. No longer.
If S Korea has already tested 100,000 people for this virus, why have we only tested a few hundred so far? Trump's incompetence and wishful thinking.
How do we account for cuts in the budget for NIH and CDC over the past 3 years when defense spending and tax cuts for the wealthy were increased by a trillion dollars? Trump's stupidity and amorality.
Will we learn anything for this shameful display of bullying experts and lying constantly to the public? I hope some of us do and enough of us speak in November.
16
DT May be versed in how to cheat someone in a real estate deal but he obviously knows nothing nor has any empathy for public health. He probably sees this as an opportunity to buy on the cheap as the economy struggles under the weight of this. He really is a horrible president and a worse man.
17
This is Trump's 9/11, and he is an abject failure.
His first and only concerns were the stock market as it related to his re-election. Everything about Trump and his team has been lies, denial, delusion, fantasy, deflection, and endless blame of others, even ludicrous (again) blaming Obama.
So too has been the Federal Reserve, purely for their weak crumbling and caving in to Trump's insistence that they drop rates as a response. Their only words should have been "rate drops are not appropriate vs a virus." And they have nothing left to work with after foolishly cutting rates on other non-crisis.
Of course markets tanked after that.
Meanwhile, Trump and his team continues to lie, lie, and remain delusional. Trump is the danger to the nation, not the virus. People will die, suffer, and lives will be ruined from Trump and his endless failures, his insane beliefe he can pretend and lie away the virus.
The only good news is every other western nation is reacting better, smarter, and provides a role model and stability.
This was first brought to public USA attention nearly 7 weeks ago when news (and markets) reacted to the clear coming issue. Trump and all his people have willfully ignored this, pretending, lying it would not matter. If there is a wrong decision to make, Trump, Pence, Kudlow, Mnuchin, and others on the virus response team will choose that "worst idea," then lie some more.
12
@Sports Medicine Let's start with a dictionary. Let's look up the word 'idiocy.' Then let's listen to Trump's words and observe his actions... So, now we can talk more about his presidency.
12
This is precisely the kind of emergency that a psychopathic narcissist is totally unequipped to deal with effectively.
No compassion; in fact, Trump thinks compassion is for chumps.
No competence; competence allows too many opportunities for his own incompetence to be highlighted.
No conscience: nothing bad is his fault, so without compassion there is no impulse to avoid the bad, and without competence there is no ability to do so.
Donald Trump is not an American President. He is a racist criminal occupying the position of President in America. The GOP leaders think they can mitigate the worst damages from Trump's "reign" while they reap the benefits, and are prepared to spin any failures of that strategy back on Democrats. That it is at the expense of American lives, economically and even literally, and they're okay with that, is the most reprehensible thing I have directly witnessed in my life. I've read about these things happening elsewhere and elsewhen, but to see them unfold right in front of me and affect me directly is chilling.
18
You just know that while Trump is looking at that model of the virus he is thinking, "I don't want to be here when this guy finishes putting that virus together. I don't want it to contaminate me."
8
Seeing the video of Trump blaming a non-existent Obama regulation was truly mind-boggling (and another dog whistle). I'm sure media in the room would have gone, hey, what did he just say?
But the mind-bending lies keep pouring out so this one would've been impossible to fact-check in real time.
Shame as it' would've been great for a journo to ask the question: "exactly what Obama administration rule?"
10
Anyone who thinks this administration would not purposely sabotage the production and timely roll out of Coronavirus test kits to keep us in the dark and protect this pathetic excuse for a leader has not been paying attention the last three years. We need brave whistleblowers like never before.
15
I don't understand what all the complaining is about. People's health and well being are not as important as this president's ego, and if you are silly enough to think otherwise, then "you're fired!"
10
The Hans Christian Andersen story " The Emperor's New Clothes" is a beautiful story about a foppish, narcissistic ruler who spends his country's money on all the new fashions, and maybe even golden toilets. Two weavers tell the Emperor they can weave some clothing that only the worthy will be able to see, but invisible to those who are unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent. In reality the weavers make no clothes at all. And No One dares admit they see no clothes.
And that is a brief but spectacular description of our current President and his Administration.
18
The irony is that the existential threat posed by the coranavirus could be for Trump what 9/11 was for Giuliani, i.e. a defining moment in his presidency where he takes ownership of the problem and becomes a calming, assuring, comforting presence in this time of great fear. He could probably go on to win his re-election in a landslide. But he is a small, mean, stupid man who only knows how to lie, cheat and bully his way through life. God help us all.
10
Before Trump was Limbaugh, Coulter, Ailes, and a host of others in the alt-right, all gleefully creating chaos. Who needs Putin with these folks killing our democracy from the inside. Civil war anyone?
10
This situation will only get worse if the public listens to the lying administration. His naive supporters will rue the day that they caved to con-artist trump and his cohorts. Just pay attention to the Doctors and the scientists because they won't lie. This is very serious and not to be taken lightly regardless of trumps ego and his idiotic hunches. A hunch will not make the Coronavirus go away.
8
Good article, Michelle, and now that our seemingly best options for his majesty's replacement have quit the race, we wonder what comes next.
1
Trump and cronies think more about natural resources extractions than medical injections.
5
A competent White House with competent agency directors would have been planning for Covid-19 months ago. Instead, we have the bumbling, moronic, anti-science Trump with his ineffectual sycophants spinning in circles. Truth and facts matter, especially when there is a new virus to contend with. But obviously, that's not the case in this White House.
10
April 15th $$ tax day, is on a Wednesday this year. I invite you to wear red on April 15th.
Why? To protest that you report and pay your taxes each year and TRUMP doesn't. Do your best to encourage the Democrats and other ordinary Americans to raise this issue to demand that Trump's business, state, local, and personal taxes be released. What are you hiding Donny. Afraid?
Great article by the way. Truly a glimpse into his distorted spin world where he massages in half-truths and lies from time to time. Scary thought... what if he believes all this stuff and it is his world!
5
Maybe it's just me but I have a mental image of Trump as the villain in a Bruce Willis movie menacingly saying, "You have no idea what I'm incapable of."
8
Even a 5 year old could see this Trump hoax. Shame on Mitch and his subservient subjects.
7
Next the clown car pundits of shame will preach that wearing paper towels across your face instead of N95 rated masks (that are impossible to find), are better and cheaper than masks.
5
Ignorance is bliss, a career and a philosophy for many Republicans and News Corp. employees.
7
Is there a vaccine for lying and obstruction yet?
10
Simple description for those simple minded followers of the radical right:
No Leadership
Leadership Failure
Get over it
Change is coming
4
The only medical condition that would merit the attention of President Trump is Bone Spurs. Everything else is fake.
9
Why is it called COVID-19?
Because "covfefe" was already taken.
7
To Trump supporters: What would Trump not do to protect his presidency his vanity and his ego? If your answer is 'nothing,' you are not only correct but you are also probably not one of Trump's favorite group of the under educated.
4
Mike Pence in Seattle yesterday: “the risk to Americans remains low.”
?????????
Does Pence mean the risk of contracting Covid-19 for the next 24 hours? What about the risk of catching it over the next 4-6 months? (assuming we all want to live that long)
Some back of the envelope calculations using numbers I’ve seen in the NYT and other reputable publications.........
327,000,000 (US population) x 1% (conservative death rate) x 50% (mid-range number of people some scientist are predicting to be infected in the next year)=
1,635,000 covid-19 DEATHS (vs 60k flu deaths in the US during a bad flu season).
This seems like ALREADY a very serious risk to Americans.
5
The best thing that could happen to Americans is that one of Trump's favorite Fox commentators gets COVID-19. Given that this is where his information and policy instruction comes from, an illness on Fox would move the needle.
9
Talk about politicizing -no mention of others who also initially downplayed the impact, such as the Mayor of NYC and the governor of California. And no discussion of the irony that the NIH, who are our government funded experts, along with Denmark, are not the ones we are looking to for development of new drugs. And of course we have the “non-political” nonsense - based literally on Dark Ages medicine- that the Times has published arguing against travel restrictions and quarantines, when one clear fact remains that humans are certainly a vector. At a time when cool heads and facts about the virus are needed, count on the Times to make this entirely political.
It is this bad of a public health crisis and the Republican Party and Fox defend and protect this impeached president.
How bad does it have to get?
6
Trump's biggest weakness is that he can never acknowledge his own limitations. He believes that if he is not 100% competent on any subject, just pretend you are. Start talking extemporaneously punctuate speech with "many people are saying, or I have heard" but above all never admit that you have no idea what you are talking about. The reason he has just pedestrian knowledge on most subjects is that they are of no interest to him, if they are not explicitly about him he gets easily bored. So how to pull off this charade ? Surround yourself with sycophants and yes- people and label anyone who questions your nonsense as 'fake news ' all the while proclaiming yourself the victim. Then turn on Fox and bask in the adulation. Repeat ad nauseam
11
Is it for the top of the Christmas tree?
2
The emperor has no clothes.
4
The incompetence of this administration is beyond belief. His visit to the CDC left the officials mystified as he interwove tales of his perfectly transcribed phone conversation with the Ukrainian president and the abundance of COVID-19 tests available to the nation.
I'm waiting for him to suggest that there is no shortage of masks for nurses as women need only cut their bras in half to produce their own supply of intimate medical apparel.
8
The bright light of the coronavirus is exposing Trump's incompetence. Were it not so serious a matter it might be laughable.
Remember it was hardly a week ago at his preferred venue, a MAGA rally, in which he manically declare "it's a Democrat hoax".
Please have him go golfing and leave the CDC to manage this crisis. I 'have a hunch' that the buffoon will only make matters worse.
9
The least the president can do with reference to COVID-19 is not share his "hunches" and stop spreading fake information.
The president is not a scientist, he does not understand how science works, and must leave this to the experts for the safety of our country this time.
And, everyone please help vote this person and his party out of office!
8
Trump's handling of this health crisis, and the enabling by his toadies is not a surprise. Trump himself won't outrun his own health concerns as Dementia takes over. Sooner or later, Trump will face some Truth.
5
What do you expect? His biggest concern is that the stock market will tank!
7
The Trump Slump is the new Hurricane Katrina.
4
Our government’s current job is to protect our snowflake President from bad publicity, not to protect our citizens from Covid-19. In other words, we are being asked to die for trump, and that’s not OK with me.
11
"Who knew that heath care could be so complicated"? - this from the mouth of the man who didn't know that India and China share a border or what happened at Pearl Harbor in 1940.
The staggering ignorance and incompetence of King Donald the Corrupt is now on full display, the virus will override his regime's machine propaganda apparatus for all to see.
8
25th amendment
8
The Republic of Vietnam has promulgated simple, straight-forward, apolitical advice, in song format.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eWmKQmMoFk
The former Republic of the United States has promulgate blame and platitude, disinformation, and outright lies, in talking head format.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFXTC2rjQtg
What a bunch of maroons!
2
He's thinking, "How come this one isn't glowing like they one they showed me in Saudi Arabia.."
6
When liberals are in charge, costs go up.
When conservatives are in charge, people die.
4
we call it the trump virus now
6
Welcome to trumpCare
6
I would like the shake Donald Trump's hand and thank him for his leadership in this crisis. Then I would tell him I took his advice and went to work to keep the economy and stock market humming so he could be reelected. I would not mention to him that my coronovirus appears to be in remission. Even if he caught it not to worry about it because it would be no worse than catching the flu.
28
@Joseph B
As has also been stated about Putin, after you shake his hand, count your fingers.
But then, Trump doesn't touch his constituents. He's a germophobe.
I just can't help but wonder what COVFEFE really meant.
1
Where’s Rudy Guliani? In Ukraine on business?
22
Trump tweets while America burns.
25
So you’re saying Trump is a total Nero? I love your wit.
One thing for certain besides death and taxes is that everything Trump does and says first runs through a filter of what's best for Trump.
29
As much as I detest Trump, I have no doubt that the utterly negligent US "response" would be the same under any other 'president.' The arrogance, hubris, and contempt for the lives of working people by the US rulers and their government will ensure maximum suffering among working people. There is no preparation, there is no sick leave, there is no organization, there are no resources as we live under a system where all social resources are cut to the bone. Coronavirus will be Katrina 2.0, an unnatural social disaster.
7
Every year we endure the flu. There is a flu vaccine, of some efficacy.
Thousands die every year, including healthy adults and school age children.
Schools remain open. People go on cruises.
Right now, the problem most people have, Trump is President.
468
@Mike
You may want to check the difference in mortality rates before being dismissive of this most recent public health crisis.
483
@Mike
Well, the mortality rate for COVID-19 appears to be at least an order of magnitude greater than that of the seasonal flu and the government has not yet provided a vaccine, so it's a bit premature for the president to be giving himself pats on the back.
498
@mike
Mike. The mortality rate of the corona virus appears to be at least 10 times that of the flu- more like 50 times. Was China overreacting also? There are some simple facts out there that you seem to be ignoring. This is a rather dangerous disease, not on the scale of Ebola but still enough to be considerably more concerning than the flu. Believe it or not- Seeing trump deposed is not on the minds of the Italians or the Chinese.
471
My grandparents survived a genocide. The only thing that frightened them were ignorant people. The only thing that frightens me more than this virus is a president who is ignorant, heartless and a liar.
42
Bonnie,
I hope President Trump is re-elected in November. A Biden or Bernie presidency would be a disaster. I shudder at the thought.
1
The bottom line is, the president is spreading misinformation about this disease. His tax policies cut funding for the agencies and infrastructure that is supposed to deal with these kinds of problems.
42
"Nevertheless, D.H.S. official Ken Cuccinelli told a Senate committee on Thursday that the ship off California can’t be evacuated because American health care facilities lack the capacity to quarantine its passengers."
Maybe the administration could convert some of those cages they've been using to hold brown-skinned children who aren't infected.
19
The president has a "hunch" that he knows more about the coronavirus than the World Health Organization. So he puts the vice president in charge of censoring facts about the pandemic so he can continue to tweet about important matters like Biden's son and Bloomberg's height. Welcome to 1984.
23
@Christy Trump is delusionally convinced that he knows everything and all the things he does are "perfect."
1
@Christy He put Pence in charge as a human shield for when all this goes South.
2
I have a "hunch," although I have no medical training, am pathologically scared of disease, am not curious about anything except my golf swing, only hire the "best" lackeys and sycophants, and actually know better, intuitively, about things than just about anyone - because I'm a self defined "genius," that this Democratic Party disease is just propaganda to stop me from winning so BIGGLY. Like I won in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and NK.
But let's get my next update after my three day golfing vacation in Florida...
19
One of the clearest signs of ignorance is the inability to learn from previous mistakes.
The facts that the Diamond Princess could have reduced exposure by 80% by quick evacuation and Trump's "D.H.S. official Ken Cuccinelli told a Senate committee on Thursday that the ship off California can’t be evacuated because American health care facilities lack the capacity to quarantine its passengers", shows how this administration is incapable of learning.
The Diamond Princess experiment is being repeated in the U.S. So sad for those people. I pray for them.
8
Can you imagine what Trumps legacy will look like?
What Gulianni was recently asked what will his legacy look like? He said "Who cares, I will be dead" I am quite sure this same thinking is pervasive with Trump!
7
Try to imagine the "life and leadership" lessons being learned from Trump by the impressionable children and young adults whose far-right homes watch FOX "news."
8
Trump's going to solve this the way he solves all his problems......he's going to sue the coronavirus.
9
Great photo at the top of the article. Dr. Fauci's expression begs a thought cloud. I would think that a thought cloud for the other individual pictured is not necessary.
7
When this virus is epidemic in the U.S., Trump will blame doctors.
When this virus closes businesses, Trump will blame the Fed.
When this virus closes schools, Trump will blame teachers.
When this virus hits Puerto Rico, Trump will blame the governor.
When this virus closes Trump hotels, he'll blame his illegal help.
If Trump contracts the virus, he'll fire Pence.
15
" ... Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus combines the worst features of autocracy and of democracy, mixing opacity and propaganda with leaderless inefficiency. ..."
This is the key to Donald Trump's leadership in everything - climate change, immigration, his emoluments, personal tax avoidances, and on and on. Pure bluster and blather, lies and incompetence.
12
With his fingers crossed, Trump has probably already ordered
a study to quantify how many who contract the coronavirus are
Republicans, and how many are Democrats.
5
Well said Michelle,
Maybe trump will toss some bottles of hand sanitizers and masks and disinfectant wipes to all of us and especially to
the people stranded on the cruise ship.
Too little - and very late.
And he is off to Mar-A-Lago for the weekend.
Shame on him.
13
Trump axed the White House’s pandemic response team and gutted the country’s infectious disease defense infrastructure in 2018 to save money (Snopes). This in addition to the witless actions of he and his minions’ described by Michelle Goldberg. Trump can’t be blamed for letting the virus in. Halting incoming flights from China was a wise, albeit obvious no-brainer move. But will likely record that this president let the virus destroy lives, livelihoods, businesses and our economy.
2
Michelle writes: "If things get really bad, maybe he’ll toss us a few rolls of paper towels." I would hope that Trump would toss out a box of kleenex (preferably one with lotion). Paper towels would be too scratchy.
2
Cannot take it anymore. Which flu/virus was worse? Who will die? Etc.
The problem is Trump only cares about how anything will impact him and assuage his ego.
6
I think why Trump showed no worry about the outbreak of coronavirus just because Washington, California, and New York are all blue states.
8
"At least half the country distrusts him, and he’s ensured that a good part of the other half distrusts actual experts."
This! Yes, this!
Sadly, this sentence could work in so many articles about #ThatGuyFromTheApprentice. .
5
The panic pandemic over nano sized corona virus is indeed calamitous for those invested in the stock market with a desire to make a quick buck, but will not work for those yearning to see a change in the white house.
2
Like too many issues, why is so much of the discussion, energy and focus re: the corona virus centered around Trump's needs and wants? Administrators/GOP shelving critical thinking and using their energy to ensure the narrative does not contradict Trump's ill-informed pronouncements is pure stupidity which may translate to lives lost.
I'm not a shrink, but Trump has managed to replicate with his supporters much the same relationship we know he's had with his father et al...moneybags to buy him out of his failures, thugs to do his dirty work, and lapdogs to coddle his fragile ego.
NO ONE knows where this epidemic will go or how many will die. Being cavalier about the numbers, if low, is no comfort to families who have lost loved ones.
We all see that Trump has no clue what he's doing. He must be kept out of the equation altogether. Going forward, let's not forget this time —he's failing like always, but we must not enable or indulge him as so many have.
2
At least Melania’s tennis court is coming along. Hard hats in the open air, and all.
3
population of south korea approx. 51.3 million.
amount of people tested in south korea for coronavirus as of 3/06/2020 - 140,000 people.
population of united states of america approx 330 million.
amount of people tested in united states of america for coronavirus as of 3/6/2020 - 1895 people.
if this sounds acceptable to you, that south korea has tested .0027% of it's population while our presidential genius has managed a whopping .00000574 % testing percentage of our population, then keep him in office. keep in mind that we are testing 1 in every 174,150 people - approximately. that's like testing 7.75 out of 1,345,047 people in dallas, texas - or 33 out of 5,717,000 people in philadelphia, pennsylvania - or the new york metropolitan area which hold approximately 20,100,000 people, we are testing and determining the possible coronavirus infection ratio using the results from 115 and 1/3 people. november 2020. keep it in mind.
8
I'm starting to wonder how long it'll be until all of us who criticize are put on trial for subverting the chosen one. I won't be too shocked if armed police knock at our doors with warrants in hands and have televised show trials for the public. Public execution time anyone?
5
“ Within the administration, there’s strong pressure not to contradict Trump’s line.” Michelle has obviously never worked in a real business where the boss says, “We can, we will and now go out there and get it done.” And anyone that is not onboard with the message is overboard. To expect anything different is naive. Mr. Trump is a business man, he is not a politician.
1
Trump has been pardoning wealthy felons, chasing after Ukraine conspiracy theories, and playing $100+ million of golf, all with our money, when he should’ve been serving our country. Now, coronavirus, climate change, and global economic catastrophes are spinning out of control. As a lifelong Republican, even I no longer see any reason to support Trump/GOP. Where do I check the box for Biden?
12
Trump's incompetence has been relatively inconsequential until Coronavirus. Trump's impeachment is irrelevant now. It will have no impact on his reelection. Coronavirus and its recession will.
Families will be affected in every way imaginable and everyone will have their own take on Trump's failures. They used to be excusable because everything was copacetic. No more.
My hope is every one of our leaders no matter which party or what stripe their tie will live through this pandemic to be up for bid on election day.
4
We need Elizabeth Warren on the ballot as a third party candidate. I'm tired of listening to old men run for the presidency. Actually I'm tired of these ridiculous two yearlong elections. IT'S ACTUALLY JUST ABOUT MONEY. If it takes that long for you decide who you want to vote for you probably don't have the where with all to vote. Almost all of the men who were elected since I have been voting just made things worse. Please all the women voters vote for Elizabeth Warren. She can save our democracy.
3
despite trump's assertions to the contrary, the administration's response has resulted in an epic failure. This epidemic is certain to become far worse than what is being currently encountered. Response so far is similar to W's katrina response when noted recovery experts "great job, Brownie" and "don't blame me" Kristjen Nielsen headed the project. In fact, Nielsen so impressed trump that he had her running homeland security for a couple of years. She mismanaged that agency as well. Cuccinelli, Trump, Pence Azar, and a host of additional incompetents, what could possibly go wrong?
3
" So far, Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus combines the worst features of autocracy and of democracy, mixing opacity and propaganda with leaderless inefficiency."
Add to that barely contained contempt for 'the other' and people less fortunate than himself and you get a sense of what is happening with fighting the near-pandemic and what happened with the relief efforts in Puerto Rico. He has no genuine sense of empathy, he only feigns empathy on television for political purposes. And, of course, he is incompetent as he has demonstrated all his adult life.
5
Trumpites, trumpeters, trumpkins or whatever you call them don't see the irony: an administration known for smearing its opponents with imaginary scandal itself brings scandal to unprecedented depths.
It may seem a small thing, but to me it's a major scandal that trump disputes basic facts supplied by reputable expert organizations, the latest being the WHO number for coronavirus fatality rates. When the United States, rightly, pays its share of good money to support the WHO, why do we tolerate at the head of our country an egotistical dunce who rejects its data?
He and his administration are corrupt from the core to its periphery and beyond, into the halls of Congress where hois enablers control the Senate. It is beyond belief that any decent, minimally educated American will vote to give Republican Party the slightest whiff of power again until it purges itself of its moral, ethical and intellectual bankruptcy.
17:05 EST, 3/06
7
You need scare quotes, thusly, around "Deep State." It's not a real thing. It's the civil service, for God's sake, not a conspiracy, no matter what the Trump minions want to believe.
4
Michelle discusses all the things that have been bothering me about Trump's response to coronavirus. Let me just add one thing:
This morning I was watching CNN and they were talking to Trump supporters about the virus. They interviewed a woman who said she believes President Trump that it's just a "Democrat hoax." When the interviewer asked 'what about all the people who have died in Washington State?' the woman replied "I don't believe anything Democrats say."
This is disturbing on so many levels. The woman doesn't believe there is a virus, so she takes no precautions. She compliantly takes everything Trump says literally. She's been led to believe Democrats are evil and whatever it takes for her side to win, no matter what, is okay.
13
While you're holed up for the duration, may I recommend reading The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis? The 'fifth risk' of the title is project management.
Trump never learned history, or science. He doesn't read, and surrounds himself with GOP yes men.
Think about the Hurricane Katrina magnified exponentially. This could get a whole lot worse--and Donald Trump is in charge. God help us.
4
The same fraudulent reputation that has been announced by a federal judge regarding the handling of the Mueller Report by Ag Wm. Barr---he and his DOJ cannot be trusted--has plagued Donald Trump. He has told over 1700 lies and distortions. Who is going to trust him with a life or death dilemma posed by his emasculating the remedies that Obama had established to handle such crises. Trump's ego prompts most of these horrors but it also makes his every flaw more pronounced and vulnerable. His deplorables may cling to him even when they experience an infection and death, but many are already withdrawing and his rallies should be treated just like Austen's South by Southwest.
5
Given his many DOJ-ignored crimes and misdemeanors in
office, and breakdown of the impeachment trial into a farce
acquittal, Trump must surely believe he's immune not only
to the law and justice, but also to the coronavirus.
7
Which one will come first? The coronavirus vaccine or the Trump vaccine? Answer in November...
3
When we have competent leadership, please alert the American people.
We would really appreciate it.
🇺🇸NOVEMBER 3, 2020🇺🇸
Cuccinelli et al are terrified of a mean girls tweet from Trump.
It is sadly frightening that these people care more about appeasing Trump than honestly doing their jobs and doing right by the American people.
His (undeserved) outsize and fragile ego should not be more important to them than our safety and disseminating accurate information.
Listen to the experts and scientists.. Not Trump.
8
Trump isn’t responsible for Covid-19. And many die from the flu, gunshots, cars, heart disease, opioids, and cancer.
But for any in that list, I don’t see Trump trivializing the death rate (except for guns). Notice that only guns and Covid-19 personally impact his image and ego.
Guns are an old problem, Covid-19 is new, it is also chaos that he didn’t inflict. Covid-19 is creating chaos for Trump, and he doesn’t know what to do. So, he contradicts experts, blames others, and trivializes.
Covid-19 has a huge potential for damage, and our adept early response could diminish it. But Trump’s ego, personal confusion, and incompetence creates a vacuum to be filled by misinformation and worse. This is precisely the worst outcome our government could create - and that is Trump’s fault. He owns it, bigly.
6
By Dec 30 2019 any careful observer of China - and most conspicuously any number of our intelligence agencies - would know that a new SARS like coronavirus was spreading in Wuhan.
This is not spy stuff - that was when it was known in China.
This was known more than 3 months ago. 5 Million people left Wuhan from Jan 1 until the city was put on quarantine on Jan 20. Where did they go? Who did they infect? Where did those people go? We don’t know.
This is America and we don't know.
This is all moving really fast with new information coming out daily, how the virus is transmitted, how long active on surfaces, is it mutating (that report may be in dispute).
All the lies and misinformation are not helping at all.
I don't give a rats ankle about the election. This is a humanitarian crisis on a monumental scale.
Yet so much of what drives the talk is the elections then to the stock market and then back to the elections.
4
We know that Trump has a phobia about germs. We also know that if his lips are moving, he's probably lying. Actions speak louder than words. As the coronavirus cases mount, I wonder if we will see less of this president in public? Maybe inside an acrylic box during his rallies? In a hazmat suit everywhere else? Or maybe he'll just take up permanent residence at Mar a Largo and build another beautiful wall to keep everyone else out? Stay posted.
5
Does it help that the Clown in the White House SLASHED the budgets of Federal Agencies that deal with medical emergencies such as this? We need to make SURE that Trump is removed from office for the sake of the nation and the world!
9
These are the sour grapes of a presidency where science is regarded with disdain and expertise is eschewed. More is to come.
4
I fully believe that Trump’s response to the coronavirus will also be calamitous for him.
5
It is legitimate to call on the Administration and its leaders to account. It is also high time to amend the Constitution on presidential immunity to end the slippery slope of abuse of power and reflect the 21st century's modernity.
In the meantime, no one should let trapped tourists suffer and be exposed to preventable deaths. States Cabinets and legislators, as well as neighbors with a track record of altruism and compassion, such as Canada and Mexico, can neither sit on the fence nor turn a blind eye to the impending rerun of the Diamon-Princess' humanitarian crisis, witnessed off the coast of Japan .
Let us learn from the the Franco-German experience of SOS Mediterranée and Doctors without Borders (MSF) to provide a safe quarantine to the Grand-Princess' passengers. We must act now to avert more preventable deaths.
When Matteo Salvini closed Italian ports to boats rescuing refugees and migrants, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau saw it as their “duty to help avoid a humanitarian catastrophe and offer a safe port to these people, to comply with [their] human rights obligations.”
Let's not wait for the passing of passengers to treat them with dignity.
3
All one has to do is read Trump's all-too-obvious facial expressions to realize how he feels about anything. He is an open dictionary of defensiveness, disdain, haughtiness, condescension, anger, fury, nastiness--all of these are at hand and readily displayed at a moment's notice.
One thing that is consistently missing is the look of joy and a truly genuine smile...
5
Trump was asked about Washington governor Jay Inslee and the outbreak in Washington state while visiting the CDC today. Pence had previously compliment Inslee for his response to the crisis. Trump's response: "I told Mike not to be complimentary to the governor, because that governor is a snake...'if you’re nice to him he will take advantage.'..."Let me just tell you, we have a lot of problems with the governor. … So, Mike may be happy with him, but I’m not."
Incompetent, deranged, unfit...words fail.
Where is the outrage? This is the president.
9
Despite Trump's bigger and bolder lies, people are panicking and prepping to hoard as this keeps spreading. New Jersey just got its first proven infections. My local CostCo was out of bottled water. Hand sanitizer is off the shelves everywhere--every bottle is bought. Toilet paper, rubbing alcohol, and tissues are all flying out the door as people prepare for a siege of this disease that we don't know much about.
They simply don't believe Trump now that they know the lives of their families and friends are truly at risk. They don't trust Trump's "hunch" that the WHO's newest fatality estimate is 'way off. They KNOW he said it was OK to go to work if you have the coronavirus while talking to Hannity, even though he furiously tweeted he never said what he said.
It's always been with Trump, as Chico Marx said to Margaret Dumont: "Who you gonna believe: Me, or your own eyes?"
But now it's Who do you trust your lives to: Trump, who always lies, or medical experts who are clearly terrified that this is getting out of hand. Trump CLAIMS to be the pre-eminent authority on everything. But we all know Dr. Anthony Fauci IS the foremost authority on infection diseases in the USA.
So do you trust your lives to Dr. Fauci, or Lying Donald Trump, about whom every issue is how is it good or bad for Donald Trump?
Only 2 GOP representatives and one GOP senator put their faith in Trump. All the rest, even the anti-science ones, put their faith in Science.
5
The Apprentice Trump would have fired President Trump already.
6
I'm tired of Michelle Goldberg being so hostile -- it really makes me want to vote for him because of her attitude. Basically the government is doing okay with a difficult situation. This is not Ebola, most people who will get Covid 19 will not become seriously ill. Moreover even if we had more testing equipment, we still don't have hoards of people who've come down sick with suspected Covid 19.
Undercutting the government at a time of stress is highly irresponsible and I'm getting very tired of and annoyed by reading "resistance" writers who overstate their concerns about minor public health problems just to attack Trump. It's not what Trump says, it's whether the government is doing a reasonable job. I believe they are and I believe our public health professionals and our society at large deserve more respect and consideration.
Chuck Schumer - are you listening?????
Thank God for Andrew Cuomo who is showing excellent leadership !!!!!!
Trump is looking at that model the same way a child looks at a Hoberman sphere.
4
Trump is much more concerned about the plunging stock market than he is about the spread of the Covid epidemic. His first priority is himself, and the second is getting reelected. Everything else is just background noise.
7
Since WWII, the majority of Nobel Prizes in medicine have been awarded to Americans. American medical science is unmatched the world over. And it is the state of our medical science, not the identity of our President, that will serve us best in limiting the spread of the coronavirus.
Ms. Goldberg probably blames Trump for the outbreak of coronavirus in Wuhan. And she probably thinks he’s conspiring with the Russians to make things worse.
1
Keep calling him out, Ms. Goldberg! Thank you.
5
"So far, Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus combines the worst features of autocracy and of democracy, mixing opacity and propaganda with leaderless inefficiency" I love this phrase ! DT IS the coronavirus, nature frequently shows a mirror back at humanity when it goes astray. The coronavirus is the most glaring example of Karma and as much as I feel empathy and compassion for those that are suffering, finally something has happened that has overwhelmed the relentless din of this monstrous character and is just beginning to show the world (and his followers what an imbecilic defecation he is to the world.
3
Coronavirus has a much higher death rate than the flu. Maybe this is a Donald Trump form of voter suppression?
2
Failing president failing market. When is Trump going to get the memo that no one believes him. Oh thats right he is a stable genius I forgot.
4
Trump's loyal lost souls seem so far gone they will believe whatever lies he tells, and the lies on top of those to cover previous lies. Trump the pathological liar as truth-teller.
How does a country come back from the edge of authoritarianism if a quarter of the electorate--and most of one national party--are ready to ignore their senses unless they point the way to self-interest and 'victory,' even when the consequences are catastrophic?
In a country with a relatively rational electorate, this would have been Trump's Katrina moment--where his inattention to the most basic principles of governance are exposed. But Russian interference, Ukranian extortion, child and family abuse on the border, fossil fuel policy as populist, etc., these all should have been Katrina moments, too.
All it took was a pseudopopulist sociopath, enabled by algorithms, plenty of financial backing from self-serving oligarchs not content to simply capture government, application of some tried, true and time-tested principles of mass persuasion (now on digital steroids), and a tiny minority class of predatory parasites, to expose the vulnerabilities of democracy in the 21st century.
5
The problem for Trump is that the virus is a fact. That’s something with which he has no familiarity. But fear not, he’ll gets his dupes to blame anyone but him. They’ll get sick like the rest of us but they will never get sick of him. For us the only cure is his departure.
3
Trump looks clueless and disinterested at best, in that photo, and more likely annoyed at having to deal with the coronavirus. The world’s “most powerful”, “greatest”, blah blah, man is helpless against a tiny organism. No amount of bravado, threats, lawyers, military, and certainly not Fake News, will help.
Only truth and, we hope, scientific and medical research, with proper government support. All of which the current GOP abhors.
4
‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself.’
The lesson I learned from the Northridge Quake back in ‘92 as I drove to my then-girlfriend’s house near the epicenter was that it’s highly unlikely the quake will hurt you. It’s the behavior of fear-filled, panic-stricken people impacted by the event that’ll take you out.
I realized that as I drove I-405 northbound towards Northridge and had to dodge two cars at high speed going south in the northbound lanes.
So, to my Democrat and ‘progressive’ fellow citizens, be prudent but chill out about this virus lest you do something stupid to hurt yourselves and/or others.
1
For those who protest that the liberal media are over reacting to disgrace trump - your protests are disgraceful.
When ANY new or novel virus or disease that is communicable erupts proceeding with extreme caution is a must. Until data about the disease is established no one knows the exact symptoms, morbidity, infectious rate, and specifics on the disease mutations. The virus could become more lethal or less. All the data needed to know is being gathered daily. Time will tell, in the meantime extreme caution is not unwarranted.
if you do not believe me read "The Great Influenza" by John Barry. It was only the flu and killed millions in three waves of epidemics each waves being different in severity.
Live with the inconvenience and uncertainty until all the data is analyzed. In the meantime wash your hands.
2
Science, once again is right, and Donald Trump, as usual is wrong.
3
Is anyone surprised that the Trump administration and Donald Trump himself are incapable of handling any crisis let alone one as complex and scary as the one we face with theCOVID 19 virus? Donald Trump's approach to even complex problems is simplistic and has been obvious to anyone who cares to pay attention: Tell people what they want to hear and say it in such a way that Donald Trump looks to be the hero. Well, we all want the virus to go away and Donald want to be the man who makes it go away. Presto, we can predict what nonsense he will utter next.
3
When are people going to realize and wake up the Federal Government is nothing more than a tax collector? Assuming Trump or any President would have a real response should just remember 9-11. The government's preparedness was based upon the Beirut Barracks, OK City, scenarios etc... The government is not preparing for a pandemic nor ready for it. After SARS what did you expect? SMH
I was wondering how long it would take for the fevered imaginations of the Left to realise that the crisis is in fact Trump's fault. Thank goodness the truth has been revealed.
2
President Trump's inability to comprehend the nature and scope of the real - as opposed to "hoax" - corronavirus pandemic effectively makes him a public health hazard, willfully misinforming the American people about how to expect miracles to cure everything from the common cold to the stock market ....
2
8 billion people in the world and 100000 have contracted the virus - thats 1 in 80000! Everyone, especially the media, need to calm down. Wash your hands regularly especially when out and about and get on with life.
Let’s see, at least we’ve sequenced the genome - yet experts, and, worse, “experts” still have no real idea on vector.
Human victims release aerosols that land on surfaces, and the virus remains viable for 14 days?
And enters the body how?
“Don’t touch your face”.
Why? If a dried aerosol, usually dehydration kills viruses, is passed when picked up, it shouldn’t have to get near the head.
Any skin surface (or do you mean break in the skin?) should admit the virus.
A dried droplet cannot migrate from cheek to lungs.
Maybe nobody wants to say “stop picking your teeth or nose” - which is it?
As for funding, I suggest we halt building border fences and flooding “sanctuary cities” with ICE cops working 24/7 to catch healthy immigrants at work or home, and devote the money to answering these basic questions.
Otherwise, we’re just raising the debt again while the economy crumbles.
Aid the tourist industry?
How about guaranteed sick time to take the test and paid sick leave for anyone testing positive - with a guarantee of a job to return to if one survives.
Incidentally, the number of asymptomatic or trivial symptom cases must be huge for the “spontaneous” isolated outbreaks we’re seeing.
Which means we are still dealing with a stealthy infection with a very low mortality rate compared to flu.
Avoid mass transit and ratchet up air pollution which cab worsen respiratory cases? I think gloves and masks for the at-risk population and “wasting” a lot of standard anti-virals.
He, his policies with cuts to these crisis agencies, and his (lack of) administration, grave misinformation are responsible for the spread and deaths. How to explain South Korea having more kits when the virus hit there versus this nation? It is not like he did not have warning. He was listening to Hannity instead. And Pence? From his time in Indiana he knows nothing about viruses.
To think we have some of the best scientists and personnel in the world with NO leadership. VOTE NOV 2020.
1
What we warned about is now on clear display. Li and Trump have had almost identical responses to the crisis - play it down, suppress other voices, dither and hope for the best,
They're two peas in the same authoritarian pod - LiTrump.
1
Trump will need a Sharpie for all future press conferences.
4
When will the American people see that the emperor has no clothes?
2
I had been planning to attend a conference in Nairobi at the end of the month.
Just today, however, the Government of Kenya has, "with immediate effect, banned all meetings, conferences and events of an international nature in Kenya’.
http://www.health.go.ke/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/COVID-19-Press-Release-6th-March-2020.pdf
For a country so deeply dependent on business travel and tourism, this is an incredibly brave step.
Would that our own government were even half so responsible.
1
The key question is how many people could die from covid-19. We don't hide from the flu because the rate of death in relation to those who get it is small, about 1/10 of 1%. At this time, the WHO estimates the death rate for this coronavirus at 3.5%. DO THE MATH.
There is much more we don't know about this new virus than what we do know. It just jumped into the human population a few months ago. Because so much is unknown, because deaths appear to be very high in relation to other known diseases, because we did not know at the start how it spread and because we are still learning about how easily and rapidly it can spread, we have to take it very seriously. This is a logical chain. Everyone who thinks the reactions are too severe should see if they can follow the chain of logic. Not too difficult.
It could very well be that the rate of death to those infected could turn out to be significantly lower than the current estimate. Still, as Dr. Anthony Fauci warned, even if the death rate is much lower, it would still be far higher than the seasonal flu and therefore a very serious threat.
We can't wait for perfect information. We can't wait till later to take protective actions against a disease that, left unchecked, could potentially kill a million or more people around the world.
8
Actually the response has been quite effective, with few cases serious enough to warrant medical intervention. The death rate is minimal, treatment has been quite effective for everybody without significant pre-existing medical conditions and aside from sporadic single digit cases it appears to have been contained.
So what is the beef?
2
@J. Harrod - We don’t know the actual extent of infection because there aren’t enough test kits to make available and the criteria for testing is so restrictive that many showing symptoms consistent with COVID-19 are refused tests.
The spread of the corona virus in other countries tells us that the US is just at the beginning of the infection spread. Now is already past the time to take action to minimize it. They didn’t do that in China because the government tried to suppress information about the disease just as Trump is doing in the US. Very quickly it became obvious in China that the disease was spreading rapidly and drastic measures like shutting down cities with eight million people had to be taken, plus infrastructure and medical personnel to treat the sick.
The truth will too soon be upon American citizens.
20
Let Mulvaney believe the Coronavirus is just another means by Democrats to "bring the President down."
What Mulvaney doesn't appear to realize, is not only are the Democrats not trying to politicize the Coronavirus; they don't have to. Trump is working on bringing himself down, twofold. In a worst-case scenario, both the virus, and the effect it's having on Wall Street, will bring Trump down.
26
(1) Right in the beginning Trump stopped travel from China, which most of the people on the left, may be even the author of this article, called it and him racist. This bought valuable time for preparation. (2) A lot of cases are from people evacuated from Wuhan or taken in from the cruise, which was the right thing to do. (3) The California ship presently off of San Francisco went on its own to Mexico and then to Hawaii, and the authorities are doing their best to solve the problem. (4) The Washington cases are community spread cases, so it's hard to say how it could have been controlled considering the size of country and its population. (5) The professionals are working hard to contain and manage a problem that appears to be wily and mutating. One thing I wish Trump did was to ban all cruises, although it may be difficult considered most of them are foreign registered, but he could have (and should) find a stop the cruises by denying embarkation calls. As for the rest of the criticisms, since instead of letting everyone come together with a sense of common belonging and purpose, you take to criticizing the President, may be you should do some volunteering instead.
1
Robby, this did...not...happen.
Trump did...not..stop travel from China.
I honestly don’t know what else to tell you. Sorry.
When the ego driven nonsense bouncing around in Trump’s brain is cast against the cold hard equations of disease and natural forces, the differences between reality and “hunches” to protect his image become so significant, even those who want to be swayed by wishful thinking and fantasy are forced to see stark reality.. I’ll take the red pill thanks, and deal with reality.
7
Can you imagine how bad the government’s response would be if Pence had taken over as President?
Oh wait, Pence is coordinating the effort..
Pence will be treated like Sessions, and still begging for more...
14
No knock on the Coast Guard but ... VP Pence - just minutes ago - described CG's getting testing materials to the ship now having numerous infected crew and passengers, as a heroic job.
Better not to use words like heroic unless it really was. In which case, say what made it so. But if it was simply delivering the materials without incident, it detracts from genuinely heroic action. And sounds like Trumpian exaggeration.
15
I've seen Trump explain away the health and security vacancies in his administration as positions that can be quickly filled when needed. In the meanwhile, money is saved by keeping the positions empty.
Regarding the virus, after crippling the offices that address pandemics, it seems he thinks he can hire experts in a flash to take up the slack. Like dismantling fire depts. and hiring fire-fighters as needed?
However, how many experts are sitting around unemployed? Probably near none. Nor are those already working necessarily going to vacate their present positions to re-locate for a lower paying government position.
This is going on in so many facets of Trump's admin, not only the health care segments.
Departments that safeguard cyber-security, environmental protection, voting security, and general State Dept. diplomacy, are all understaffed or vacant.
Trump's ad hoc response to the coronavirus is his standard method as a science adverse, self-proclaimed genius, who uses his gut and hunches to push his uninformed agenda above what the experts advise. We have watched him nearly start a war with Iran, wreak havoc at the border, skyrocket the deficit, decimate USA farming and abandon our Kurdish allies, so it is no surprise to see another calamity unfold under his watch, fueled by incompetence and ignorance.
18
Trump sees everything as a political problem.
Trump Country will suffer for it. We all will.
15
The picture captures much of the story. Someone is using a model of coronavirus to try to tell the president how it works. This person probably knows the history of how Trump pretends to be following briefings, but does not code anything. Meanwhile Anthony Fauci stands in the background, possibly thinking "I understand not only how Corona works, but what to do about pandemics" "Maybe he could just defer to me". In defense of Trump, being totally ignorant is not necessarily a problem, unless one feels the urge to take charge, blowing off all those poorly informed generals and medical professionals. Pandemics are probably a good model to understand the importance of who is in charge. We all know the history of minor military adventures we have had with Trump in charge, but it is so easy to deflect blame in warfare.
5
We have a president who lies about everything, just says whatever he thinks makes him look good regardless of the actual facts. This is intolerable at a time of crisis.
And we have a president who is impulsive and chaotic, whose White House has been a circus of incompetence and indictments. Again not good when what is needed is competence and steadiness followed by quick action.
I had hoped that the pros at the CDC would be able to steer us through this, but it turns out the the White House matters too.
Look, it doesn't matter whether you believe that a border wall is just what we need or a trumped up distraction from real problems; it doesn't matter whether you think Medicare for All would be great or terrible; it doesn't matter whether you believe a highly-armed citizenry is a good thing or a bad thing. Politics aside, we all need honesty, competence, and good judgment to get us through this. And we are not going to get any of this from Donald J. Trump. It's just not part of the Trump Show. The greatest hoax on earth.
17
Once again Trump shows us that “it’s all about him”. This time he’s withholding vital information and testing kits to hold the number of those infected low because he thinks that is how to help his re-election bid.
It’s only a matter of time until before there is mass testing for COVID 19 and the numbers of those infected explode.
One can only hope that the explosion opens the eyes of his faithful followers and he goes down in a massive defeat in November.
7
trump cancelled his trip to the CDC from fear that someone there might test positive for COVID-19, then showed up only after the test was negative. Mr. chicken walked through a lab, volunteering that he would make people remain on a ship hostage after scientists stated that an earlier such incident caused an eight times greater infection rate than had they been taken off the ship. trump further stated that anyone who wants to be tested could get tested, while at the same time his VP pence said it would be weeks before a sufficient number of tests would even be available.
And, after this performance, coupled with a brief visit to Tennessee to toss paper towel-like platitudes at tornado victims, trump headed to his place in Fl for a golf weekend.
Vote like your life matters in November.
43
@say what
Judging from the accompanying photo, Trump is WAAAY out of his depth...
1
Suggestion: read the Vancouver Sun periodically. You can stay abreast of the virus in both BC and the rest of Canada. It gives everyone a bit of a reality check on the scope of this and it may be less politicized than our US situation.
11
Any attempt to be fair would point out that the initial assessment of this was that it had originated in China, was initially found in China, and keeping people out who might have been infected in China, would be sufficient. Accordingly, in bound flights from China were curtailed quite quickly. As additional countries that hadn't cut themselves off from China, like Italy and Iran, developed their own outbreaks, they, too, were cordoned off.
When the first few cases in Washington popped up and these had no apparent connection to China, epidemiologists began to realize that the virus had been in this country, especially in Washington, for some time BEFORE it was thought to have been introduced here. It may very well have come here from China BEFORE the Chinese themselves even knew about it.
So, we are playing catch up with a much more multi dimensional problem than was initially recognized -- by anyone.
A fair criticism: Trump and his inner circle have not been keeping abreast of the situation and always seem to be operating on yesterday's interpretation of events.
It sure doesn't take long for the arm chair quarterbacks to come out and describe where they would have thrown that pass so it wouldn't have been intercepted!!
3
Is it possible that Trump can be convinced that the Coronavirus is not a reality show?
14
Trump just assured us that there is a "beautiful" test for anyone who wants one. This on the same day that Pence assures us that there is still a shortage of tests. Unbelievable.
The presidency of Trump reminds me of the adage, "it's all good fun until somebody loses an eye." Or, in this case, a life.
32
In Trump's denial of the virus, and his "it will get better soon" wishful thinking advice, he did not take the China outbreak as a call to action. By this time, the United States should have an abundance of test kits. Our government not having prepared because of the denials of a germophobe, our president, is criminal. Each clinic and hospital should have the ability to test, and many tests that they will be able to administer to those with the flu to rule out coronavirus. Rich people will be able to avoid this virus, and fly to their secluded cabins, but the rest of us do not have that luxury.
20
The corona virus isn't even remotely close to causing an extinction event, as we are. At what point do we panic about that? When we finally realize we're on the list?
6
I think of great leaders in times of adversity and crisis. They were voices of sober realism and hope.
Imagining Trump in their places is alarming. He can’t think beyond himself, ever, not for a moment. He takes no responsibility for anything, ever. He’s delusional and peddles his delusions to cult followers and soulless allies.
“Vote blue no matter who” is no longer a turn of phrase; it’s a national imperative for our and our loved ones’ futures.
40
Trump has said repeatedly that they're "working hard to keep the numbers down".
The way they're doing that is by refusing to test people unless they have symptoms that are severe enough to require hospitalization, preventing the CDC from publishing up to date information, limiting the amount of test kits available to labs, sending out faulty test kits, etc.
Obviously it's all about preventing the public from knowing the truth about the scale of the outbreak and keeping the stock market from crashing due to the panic that would ensue if we all knew the truth.
Trump doesn't care how many people get sick or die as long as the stock market stays afloat long enough to get him re-elected.
21
I always feared that when Trump got in the White House with the nuclear codes, we were in grave danger. Now, the coronavirus can readily be perceived as an attack on our American existence.
But instead of launching a preemptive attack against the contagion, Trump continues to decry the science and spout nonsense about going to work with a cough — while major U.S. cultural and entertainment events are being cancelled by the hour.
As I write this, VP Pence continues to spin the facts about test kits, precautions, vaccine research, ad nauseum. All the while congratulating Trump and their GOP friends. 
We’ve got a real crisis of failed leadership. The alarm is blasting now, and the time to act is in November — too late for the hundreds, maybe thousands who will perish due to Trump’s hubris.
31
One of the frustrating parts of this, is that no one is telling us what symptoms distinguish this virus from others. People get colds and flu all the time. How do we know, especially if we have a mild version, to have ourselves tested?
7
@Chelle This is entirely anecdotal, but Atlantic Health System ins NJ sent out an email conveying CDC's "wash hands -- don't touch face -- avoid the infected" recommendations and encouraging their customers to call their PCPs to describe their systems before showing up. It's a start.
4
There is NO difference in the symptoms. Is you are mildly ill, stay at home until you fever or symptoms have gone away x 24 hrs. Practice good local hygiene at home and with family members as if you had flu or hepatitis.
You don’t care what type of cold you have year after year, you don’t go in to be tested unless it’s severe. Who cares whether your mild illness is Coronavirus. If you follow basic infection control steps at home, absolutely nobody cares.
Since the truth is never going to come out of Trump's mouth, if we want to keep up to date with the coronavirus pandemic, I would suggest that we monitor the news from other countries. Italy, the UK, Germany, etc. Relying on this administration for news, help, advice or action is and always has been a waste of time.
Climate change could kill us all before Trump looks up from Fox News and his Twitter account. Coronavirus may do the same, but faster.
When the Senate failed to convict him in the impeachment trial, we all shuddered to think of what damage he could do between now and November. Be afraid, be very afraid.
36
Does anyone know if you show symptoms and get the high fever should you use aspirin or Tylenol or Advil to lower the temp or does the high temp help fight the virus? The other question is if you have high blood pressure, and since somehow this disease raises your blood pressure to very high limits, would taking an ACE inhibitor type blood pressure med mediate the risks of permanent lung or heart damage? If I have flu meds, decongestants, vitamin C and D and cough suppressants do I need to go to a hospital as long as I am breathing ok? All things people need to know.
8
Scroll down and read the comment of Matt Williams of NYC. It illustrates the heart of the problem of trying to control an outbreak of a dangerous disease that threatens to cause an epidemic -- or worse.
Not only does Williams fail to understand the problem, but he condemns the victims for responding appropriately to the advice of knowledgeable, experienced professionals who invoke proven methods for interdicting the threat.
Disgraceful. and dangerous.
16
Mulvaney’s covering comments about the virus reflect the president’s false stoicism and his narcissistic behavior with regard to testing and identifying the spread of the virus.
Trump stands stone-faced behind Dr. Fauci at White House news conferences, as though he did not want to be in the same room with a man of science that tells the public the current limitations of the government’s response to the virus and the need for people to be more careful in public places and in interactions with others.
And then the president says something that alarms health officials: that the virus will soon be over and that it’s no big deal. Look how few people have it and have died from it. And people should not cancel travel plans or attendance at mass audience events. It’s all just a Democratic Party overblown “fake” story to alarm us.
Unfortunately for the president and others in his administration and for us, the virus is amoral, apolitical, and without boundaries (build a wall Mr. President). The need for millions of test kits to determine the spread and extent of the virus in the general population is evident; no amount of Trump’s blather can get around that. Still, there are people who don’t believe there is a virus and will only accept what the president says.
16
Won’t last much longer.
I wouldn't shake Trump's hand, whether he'd sanitized it or not.
42
Do to the slow responses and misinformation by several parties (China and US and others), I suspect we are far beyond our ability to contain the spread of this virus at this point. The result will be a 1-3% cull in our global population - roughly 10-30 times higher than influenza unless scientists can quickly develop, mass produce, and distribute a vaccination.
Oh wait - perhaps we should just use a good "solid" influenza vaccine - that oughta work.
9
Nothing will convince the American people that the nation is suffering from poverty of leadership by the Trump
administration, if the mishandling of the rapidly escalating pandemic does not. The coronavirus now represents a crisis in the United States. Many medical professions are projecting that infections will probably slow down with the arrival of spring and summer. However, it can be reasonably expected that the virus will return with reckless abandonment next autumn, only to get worse during the winter.
The Trump administration clearly does not possess the positive attributes of a learning organization. If this is not corrected, we can expect federal handling of the pandemic to transition from a crisis into a disaster next winter.
17
I disagree that the Trump supporters will not be convinced of his incompetence if this does not do it. They surely can turn on him. It just means that this may not be enough to do it. But something big enough will be. I just shudder to imagine what that might be.
1
"A whole-of-government mobilization to protect the president’s ego."
That describes a series of High Crimes. POTUS is not authorized by the Constitution to mobilize government resources to protect his ego, instead of We the People.
The President is supposed to execute the Will of the People, not substitute his whims.
Trump does photo ops next to his pile of High Crimes on Fifth Avenue, so the Democrats tried to impeach him on one little needle at the bottom of the stack.
The candidates need to promise to do good things.
The rest of us need to explain why Trump is a danger to the Constitution and the Republic.
19
I have an international trip planned for mid-April and am of course considering the alternatives on a daily basis. What worries me the most? It is getting infected and passing it on to others. But where is my greatest risk of infection, is it the US airport, the airplane or the foreign destination? I've come to the conclusion that both JFK and Newark Airports carry the highest risk.
The TSA and Customs officers are massively understaffed and overworked and I doubt that they are receiving any training related to Covid-19. Most of the airport workers live on subsistence wages and have no health insurance - would they report an illness that they cannot afford or be treated for, I doubt it. I feel safer on the foreign airline.
The Executive Branch of our Government is responsible for the safety of our citizens. I see no evidence that it cares about anything else than getting re-elected and enriching itself. Just look at how FEMA has helped Puerto Rico and dread what will happen on the Mainland when the virus spreads.
12
@Asterix The GOP and Trump operate under the mantra of Reagan that "government is always the problem, never the solution."
9
The last line stating we may get tossed a few rolls of paper towels was hilarious!
Well done.
26
There are too many gutless individuals who won't say it as it is. It's the inevitable fall out from being immersed in a culture of fear headed up by Trump. Having myself been within a government organisation that used fear to hold everything together I can tell anybody who wants to listen that in that situation it's far better to resign and go somewhere where truth matters.
25
This is what happens when you present a problem to a person and that problem is out of their scope of knowledge, so rather than admitting ignorance and asking someone familiar with the situation, they just shoot from the hip. This is especially dangerous when, for some reason, smarter people don't say anything about it for fear of upsetting the boss.
If anyone needs an opinion on brain surgery, just ask me. I have opinions.
30
From afar, I see the problem as "Only I can fix the problem." Trump has waged a relentless campaign against the spread of knowledge, against experts- whatever their field. And now many Americans, bolstered by FOX toadies, place their trust in a corrupt reality-show host.
36
@Mark Paskal As others have noted, Trump's attempt to "lead" the US resembles his approach to driving the family business into a huge bankruptcy.
21
The first thing out of the mouth of every single expert the government parades out: Trump and the administration have done an excellent job in this COVID-19 crisis. That is laughable, as we can see. A cruise ship held off the coast because there is no place, or means to quarantine the people on board except leave them there until... what exactly? Not nearly enough testing kits, even though the virus has been heading here for 2 months. And of course, Trump not able to admit any errors in judgment. When we should have been ramping up, he was busy killing an Iranian, which resulted in ballistic missiles sent to the base in Iraq, and more than a hundred soldiers with head injuries. Trump still spews pablum meant to calm fears that a real country, with confidence in its leader, wouldn't have.
26
Brilliant subtitle- "A whole-of-government mobilization to protect the president's ego." All the king's horses and all the king's men...
28
"Don’t politicize the communications." Oh, geez, we're screwed. Trump's first instinct is to find someone else to blame, and if that can be Obama, Biden, the Dems or the deep state, so much the better.
20
The drama that occurs in families roiled by a member with a severe personality disorder is now playing out, desperately and for real, in the USA. Half the country defends the raging, increasingly out-of -control member, and the other half mutters soto voci and retreats into their rooms, slamming the door. All of us, all of us focussed on Trump and no one else, unendingly, day in and day out.
It would be so satisfying to do what Trump's family chose to do with his behavior decades back--pack him off to reform (military) school. Hard to do with a 70's something President, though. On the other hand, we could grow up and wake up collectively. If we can't go into the streets for fear of contagion, at least we can quit our displacement activities and get very loud with our representatives. Clearly, November is too late.
21
To the Trump defenders: Do not elect a bumbling codger because of his crass nature and unlikability and then act surprised and offended when most people (even ones who voted for him) don't like him. Trump took or refrained from taking specific actions and policies that have led to a lack of preparation for this epidemic. No matter how 'mild' the repercussions are there is empirical or historical data to support the opinion that it could have been better if not for Trump, his administration, and his cronies.
35
What about critical drugs that will be in short supply because they are made in China? Antibiotics, pain medicine, mental health, insulin drugs......not a peep from the administration. In addition to the virus, its gonna be really, really rough for some folks.
22
@Nellie Sunbeam
Well, the stuff coming in will be more expensive, thanks to Trump tariffs.
3
“You really need credible communicators who people believe.” Trump is the opposite of that. At least half the country distrusts him, and he’s ensured that a good part of the other half distrusts actual experts.
A good part of the other half distrusts experts and believe the lies.
18
Trump's poor leadership in the early stages has caused more death and sickness than we should be seeing. It is Trump's lack of leadership that is the problem.
18
Sadly there is no cure for ignorance or incompetence. The Trump administration has forced out so many skilled and knowledgeable career workers that it is largely left with Trump loyalists who care more about maintaining their relationship with him than with protecting the country.
39
It is legitimate to call on the Administration and its leaders to account. It is also high time to amend the Constitution on presidential immunity to end the slippery slope of abuse of power and reflect the 21st century modernity.
In the meantime, no one should let trapped tourists suffer and be exposed to preventable deaths. States cabinets and legislators, as well as neighbors with a track record in generosity, such as Canada and Mexico, can neither sit on the fence nor turn a blind eye to the humanitarian crisis.
Let us learn from the the Franco-German experience of SOS Mediterranée and Doctors without Borders (MSF) to provide a safe quarantine to the Grand Princess passengersn. We must act now to avert more preventable deaths.
When Matteo Salvini closed Italian ports to boats rescuing refugees and migrants, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau saw it as their “duty to help avoid a humanitarian catastrophe and offer a safe port to these people, to comply with [their] human rights obligations.” Let's not wait for the passengers' death to treat them with dignity.
8
Here's the Trumpublican MO:
1. Personalize - project abhorrent behavior onto others, then be offended while whining and calling foul when it boomerangs
2. Weaponize - use information against perceived enemies to gaslight them
3. Privatize - get cronies a piece of the action for "business opportunities" no matter the human cost
4. Monetize - go big or go home for corporate and business interests
5. Politicize - use social media to infect minds with conspiracy theories
6. Evangelize - use faith and religion as a cudgel to enroll voters
This process has been effective in getting Republicans elected for years. Trump has manipulated this approach for decades in business and in legal confrontations. This is a marriage made in alt-heaven. To them, U.S. taxpayers are mere consumers and statistics to be exploited for profit. Why would they stop now when they're in power?
27
@Sophistia . Well said. All of the points you listed are out of the Fascist playbook. Madeleine Albright mentions them in her book, Fascism: A Warning. Trump has his own chapter in this book.
1
As it pertains to the 2020 election, we should all thank trump for being quintessentially trump during this period. If the guy can't even get this right, he is sunk.
There would be an enormous opportunity for the the orange baby king to demonstrate leadership on the run up to the election. If the outbreak were handled right he could ride a wave of positivity into November. Thankfully, and predictably, he has merely demonstrated his and his administration's quotidian ineptitude.
15
I saw a video clip of Kellyanne Conway telling reporters today that the Coronavirus is being contained. Contained? How is it being contained when there are new cases every day in the US, and when people who should be tested are not being tested. She is still living in her alternative universe with her alternative facts.
44
@ME
Kellyanne and Trump have praised the concept of "truthful hyperbole." It means they can say anything, and we are supposed to believe it.
3
@ME
"Mexico will pay for the Wall."
"The lying press."
"Democrats are traitors."
"Putin issued a very strong denial. I believe him."
"I never said that (5 min. after he said that)."
"I (a draft dodger) know more than the Generals."
Just another day in House of Trump. Home of THE BIG LIE and All The Best People who lie for him as well.
4
"Don't contradict the boss" and "make the boss look good" is such an ingrained part of corporate culture. We know how many businesses Trump has bankrupted while calling himself a great businessman and stiffing his creditors. He's never been fit to serve the public interest - because he has no interest in the public good.
34
@Ellen B Trump is NOT the boss of American citizens. He is our employee, and he's doing a very unsatisfactory job.
1
The lack of a truthful, compassion-less response to the present US Covid19 crisis is consistent with having an authoritarian leader with a narcissistic worldview. November cannot get here fast enough. My heart goes out to all those who have died or affected by this virus. I know the skies have no borders but within its national boundaries, China bears responsibility for this outbreak revealing its own weak food safety standards. China's initial, lax authoritarian response to squelch the news and the Trump's misrepresentations of the virus and his efforts to control the message reveals the US/China response to Covid19 that is not so different from one another indicating at least so far... similar outcomes.
13
The author states "after a former passenger who had disembarked died of Covid-19, the disease that this coronavirus causes."
Splitting hairs here but the above statement is misleading. This new coronavirus that began in China in late Dec. (the are other kinds of coronaviruses) has now been named Covid-19. Covid-19 is a coronavirus with its own unique RNA. The last part of the above sentence is not necessary. The person died of Covid-19, period.
3
Hey! A few rolls of paper towels would be nice. Costco is sold out.
9
In the confusing exchange between Mr. Trump and the Pharma reps. he was basically wheedling them to get them to say that a virus would soon be ready to use. Such a statement would be politically useful to him. Reminds me of his pressure on Ukraine: you don't actually have to do an investigation of Biden, you just have to announce it for it to do the desired damage.
13
Trump signed an $8.3 spending billion bill to fight the coronavirus outbreak, funding efforts to develop a vaccine, and help local and state governments respond to the threat. He also extended travel restrictions.
On March 4, the World Health Organization estimated that about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died. By comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far less than 1% of those infected. But estimated fatality rates usually decline as estimates of the number infected grows more accurate. For example, the estimated fatality rates of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)—which was also a coronavirus—dropped from a high of about 10 percent to about 2.3 percent, before it was contained.
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates 34,200 of the 35.5 million Americans sickened by influenza during the 2018-2019 season died. Since the precautions for protection against COVIDS-19 also guards against season flu, the net result of the COVID-19 alarm could still turn out to be a decrease in the number of deaths. It is too early to tell.
2
1. Yes, he graciously signed that Bill. After initially asking for one-seventh as much money, lying a lot, amd telling his rally audiemces that the whole thing’s “a hoax.”
2. You have no scientific basis for the notion that this virus will attenuate as it replicates in the human population. It might, it moght stay about the same, and it might get much worse. You do not know.
3. It is indeed too early to tell. However, we can certainly say that a) markets hate this kind of uncertainty, and b) REALLY hate government that behave as this one behaves.
2
What bold leadership we have, letting us know that just being infected with Covid-19 -- and even feeling mildly sick -- should not necessarily bar workers from duty.
Indeed, the White House should lead the way with this visionary policy, requiring its infected staff to report to work, as usual.
16
Seems like #45 is using the same tested strategy he has used for everything else: steadfastly linger in total ignorance about a problem, lie through his teeth about everything, silence anyone and everyone who would say anything different than his line, scream fake news at the media that is telling the actual story, and then— the best part— having his GOP drones and especially his Fox drones screaming his lines at the top of their lungs, thus ensuring that nearly 50% of the American populace never hear or believe anything except what he says. For #45 the issue is not what the coronavirus outbreak will actually do or how many people get sick or die, the issue is what people hear about it— i.e., his alternative facts— that matter. And the people he is pandering to will only hear his voice. Why s anyone surprised that he would suddenly follow any other strategy, especially a strategy in which he tells the truth?
21
Recall when the Iranians shot down one of their own airliners by mistake...
Now, imagine if somebody shot down their country's whole airline industry by mistake...
As much as he'd love to go into the election with interest rates at zero, and printing stimulus checks for everybody...
Have a sinking feeling that's not going to turn out well...
18
Now that Trump and his cronies have 8.2 billion of our taxpayer money allocated where will it go? and to whom? I don’t trust trump and his rich friends or his family to be skimming and siphoning off millions for themselves. They must be giddy to have their hands on 8.2 B what a bonanza! Congress must make strict mandatory accounting where every dollar is spent and who is getting what. Why? Because Trump his family and his rich pals can’t be trusted to be transparent. There’s too much history of them skimming, laundering, grift and coverups is why.
26
The request for that money came from my Washington State delegation. We are facing real problems here and our leaders are taking logical actions. Employees and university students are being asked to work and take classes at home. My church services are now being only online at the advice of our denominations conference minister. I am a person in the high risk category and am staying in my home as advised. I am hoping that the money will be used properly and that one use will be to boost support for the scientist working on vaccine development.
13
@Pat Destination: Cayman Islands, Trump's beloved Border Wall funding.
@Pat
Trump asked for 2.5 billion. The Democrats insisted he take 8.2 billion in order for it to look like he didn't know enough to ask for sufficient funds. Pat, you are ignorant of the facts, but that never stops a Trump-hater from making them up. Maybe we should call it 'fake commentary'.
Trump throwing the paper towels should be shown every time we need to be reminded of his lack of humanity.
27
How many people have died of corona virus in the US?
How many Americans have died of gun violence so far in 2020?
Is the official response and commitment of dollars commensurate with the actual risk to Americans?
2
Great contrast / point!
MAGA is about profits over people, clearly you are not thinking about this the right way...
Strangely enough, I don't expect this to play out any differently than any other Trump crisis. I realize he didn't cause this one, but I know he will lie, stammer, and blame his way through it. He will accuse others of incompetence, mention Obama numerous times, and brag about his fictional accomplishments.
In the end, people will die, the virus will dissipate, and Trump will claim some kind of victory, which mainly exists in his head. Trump's greatest skill is his ability to actually believe the lies he tells, and the reality that exists in his head.
Trump and his army will then demonize the democratic challenger. He'll either hang a communist emblem on Sanders, or keep Hunter Biden and Ukraine in the news every day. (The DOJ will cooperate with an investigation too.)
Trump will continue to lie, mostly unchecked, and grandstand his way through another year, just like the past year, and the one before that. The election will be close, but he'll probably win again.
Things just keep looking worse. I am really worried about our country.
25
The foolishness of your Electoral College is proving to be a cancer for the United States.
43
GREAT JOB, BROWNIE !
What is it with Republican Presidents and disasters preparedness?
37
@mountainweaver The GOP does not like it if government does anything useful for people. That could interfere with their firm belief that the most important thing is to cut taxes for the rich.
9
Ok, let’s not forget Obama’s foot-dragging during the first two weeks of the Gulf oil spill. 168,000 gallons/day and he said “It’s BP’s problem.” Then he awoke for some on the job training. Just saying, it’s not just a Republican feature.
It seems many people on the mainland were ok with Puerto Ricans dying. Now it’s everyone else’s turn.
16
@Michael:
You are so correct. But one thing: change "people" to "POTUS supporters."
His supporters don't care about anyone else, just themselves. When things hit them directly, then they care.
The public will have a chance in November to tell Trump what they think of his approach to the coronavirus - payback time approaches.
506
@Evelyn G
Too late for those who lose their lives or loved ones.
Where is the Congress? Where are the Republicans
who should be demanding reliable reporting from
the experts instead of the loyalists? Who is really
coordinating the medical community's response?
68
@Evelyn G Trump will lose like he lost in 2016.
2
@Evelyn G ... Yes, but let me suggest that to make the lesson really sink in and be etched large in history, the same fate that Trump meets should also be suffered by his amoral, decerebrate enablers in the House and the Senate.
14
Sadly, the next 4-5 weeks are going to change everything about his presidency, this election, and our civil society. let's hear Trump explain away why that schools was never shhut down in time, why there isn't any Tylenol or Clorox left at the local supermarket, or how those test kits still aren't available. The silver lining is that this crisis will probably end him politically unless he goes for the martial law option. Unlike all his other follies this is not some set of hazy numbers and acheivements he can boast or blame about. This will hit people in their communities, in their homes, and in their bodies. Trump was clever as always to shove this off on Pence whose real purpose for three years of sitting quietly behind the President was to be thrown under the train if something really big came along. But when the dying starts but no one will want to hear it. We'll just want the Tylenol.
10
@Erich Richter I agree with everything except the martial law comment. Martial law? To consolidate his own power? That will not stand. That would be akin to a military coup.
You underestimate Trump’s ruthlessness, lust for power and disdain for for constitutional rights.
I envision a scenario where November elections are canceled under the guise of pandemic avoidance or some alternative voting scheme introduced which is subject to suppression, hacking and foreign intervention.
6
I'm surprised Trump hasn't sued COVID-19 for damages. At least he should be able to get it to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement, right? And if it refuses, he can always just have it deported. I know he'd see to it personally, but those bone spurs have really been acting up lately!
29
My son, an army corporal, is being sent to Korea for a year this weekend. Does anyone think the army would take any steps to cast doubt on that decision? Just look to Esper for your answer.
21
@Bob Jones
Good lord. This is the scariest comment in all the Covid-19 media I've seen today.
If thoughts can help, your son certainly has mine today.
Mussolini didn't "make the trains run on time." He just jailed anyone who said they didn't.
39
FoxNews promoted trump’s interview and supported his lies on air.
Doesn’t the broadcast act of 1934 make networks public fiduciaries- in other words- to act in the public interest?
Isn’t broadcasting lies that endanger the general public and national security a violation?
Why is there no enforcement?
If we can’t silence the president, can’t we at least prevent broadcasters from spreading and even promoting his dangerous lies?
17
@Steve Ell
You are absolutely right. I could never understand why Fox News is allowed to lie with impunity.
So much for truth in broadcasting.
We are facing three major crises: This pandemic, the decimation of the working class, and the climate crisis. After Warren's departure, only ONE candidate offers concrete solutions: single-payer health care, expansion of the social safety net, and the Green New Deal. That's Bernie. I was a Warren supporter, but I stand with Bernie now. More than ever we need somebody who is NOT beholden to monied interests, who actually stands FOR something courageous and good. As for his being "too" left, geez louise! Only those who have literally never looked at Europe or Canada would think his policies are "too extreme."
5
I stand with whoever is running against Trump. Anyone who doesn't is letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Such uncompromising ideology simply supports Trump and works against any progressive ideologies one may have.
19
I have the flu as I write this. I saw my doctor earlier this week. She was very particular asking where I had been travelling. She also told me that there was no way she could actually test for COVID 19 (not that I thought I actually had it). Let that sink in. Here I am with a fever, coughing, sneezing and sore throat and she could not test. Her take on this was that COVID 19 is much more lethal than published reports indicate. I live in a state that has no reported cases yet. It was a sobering conversation. This is no time to whitewash the seriousness of this outbreak when people are dying.
34
I live on the central coast of California. When I went to the doctor this week with cough, fever and chest pain, here is what happened: No sign of infection control at the front desk. Patients using the same pens to sign in. The nurse who took my vitals did not use even standard precautions (gloves) as she took my blood pressure and pulse oxygen with reusable equipment. She then put these items back in her pocket with no infection control used. The doc came in and shook my hand. He decided that I had a sinus infection (which I don't), didn't mention covid19, and prescribed antibiotics. Now, that is scary - this will probably be worse than we imagined. Medical professionals need to utilize precautions at all times, never more than now.
37
@TenToes
Switch doctors!
Who are all the all the people here insisting that the coronavirus has a much higher mortality rate than the seasonal flu? Where are they getting their info?
The morality rate is not yet known with any degree of certainty. The only rates I have seen from authoritative sources indicate that it's between X and Y, maybe no greater than severe flu season, maybe greater than that. It will be a while before we know, and we may never know for this particular outbreak, because many cases have been so mild they've been unreported.
A friend of mine just back from Italy notified her county health department, worried that she had brought it back with her. They told her that the virus has been in the community for some time and many cases have gone unreported because the persons who had it didn't realize they'd had anything other than a mild case of the flu.
Corona appears to more contagious than seasonal flu, but not necessarily more fatal. Calm down and carry on.
4
@2REP
The World Health Organization reported that, of the March 3rd, their best estimate of the Corvid 19 mortality rate was 3.4%. This was up from their earlier estimate of 2%. It about three times the rate of the flu (1%).
10
@2REP The best estimates by epidemiologist are that nCOR-19 is seven to thirty-four times more frequently fatal than a typical flu. The death rate in a typical flu season is about 0.1% of infections in the US according to the CDC. Unlike the flu for which an accurate sample is taken each year, the number of nCOR-19 cases that are not bad enough to be reported is poorly known. However, after taking this under-reporting of mild cases into account, the lower bound on the estimate so far is a mortality of 0.7%, and the current best estimate for currently diagnosed cases by WHO is 3.4%. The only big bright spot is that children tend not to get very sick from nCOR-19.
3
@2REP The actual case fatality rate is not yet known because screening of the whole population is hampered by lack of equipment. If it turns out there are lots of infected people with mild or no symptoms, then eventually the case fatality rate will be revised. It sounds as though the case fatality will vary by age and preexisting medical conditions also, but more data are needed.
2
This is what happens when anti-science politicians get elevated to prominence. The theocratic strain in the Trump administration is becoming ever more apparent. Pence praying for a cure. Trump promising a miracle. At a time when science is more advanced than ever, it may be less potent than ever because the reins of power are held by medieval literalist believers. You've written about Christian nationalism and Dominionism. We're seeing it in the highest office of the land. And we're seeing their supporters disregard health experts. It's frightening.
24
Other democracies are doing the right thing by being transparent and aggressively testing. South Korea has tested 140,000 people and has a fatality rate of 0.6%. We have tested 1,500 people here in the US, implying a fatality rate of 5%. Clearly, different democracies react differently to the same virus...
8
As someone who at least have a PhD in genetics, it's cute to simply take the number of positives at face value when there are so few who have taken the tests so far.
You might as well not test anyone and say that the US has zero cases (as in Indonesia).
13
@Chris
I know somebody who has a doctorate in poetry. But I haven't asked them for their hot take on the coronavirus because I understand that degrees in areas other than the one in question - epidemiology - don't magically grant one insight into the issue at hand.
8
I don’t view Donald Trump’s reaction to this crisis as sinister, China’s response is another thing. However, I do think Trump’s response is foolish and potentially harmful. Good businesses, good universities and good governments value institutional memory and the politicization of government agencies is fraught with peril. Like most highly developed countries, the United States
Is blessed with vast human resources , doctors, scientists, emergency response teams and public policy experts. Some of the expertise has been squandered by purging the administration of Obama era experts and others who are suspected of being cool to Trump’s ideology.
If he’s staying out of people’s way, that’s progress. If he isn’t, it should cost him his job. Crises don’t build character, they expose it. There’s nothing unfair about that yardstick.
9
Epidemics like the coronavirus and others to come make the strongest case for Medicare for All.
Our current health care system with its dysfunctional private insurances keeps patients from seeking healthcare when they really need it. That spreads infection.
Medicare for All gives everybody access to healthcare, thus limiting epidemics and protecting us all.
15
Point of clarification. Coronavirus is a family of viruses not the name of a specific one. There are other coronaviruses that were previously known and do not cause severe disease. Covid-19 is the name given to this particular strain of coronavirus, not the disease it causes.
20
Evidently, telling the truth is political? Facts are facts. Interpretations can be political. Telling the truth and explaining the facts in an unbiased manner is not political.
29
@Judy in Portland: In kiss up kick down pecking orders like Trump's family business, the truth is whatever your boss says it is.
1
Normally, I would be grateful to see a president become more educated on what the NIH and the CDC actually do, as well as the implications of a pandemic. But the image in the opinion piece, where the scientists are resorting to displaying a “toy” model of the corona virus to help Trump understand the problem and Trump stands stone-faced (presumably trying to look presidential) speaks volumes. Surely Trump has more important duties during this crisis than taking a “tour.” If it helps him understand that budget cuts in these areas do matter, then I guess that is a plus?
21
@Kman
I think he looks bored and a bit irritated he has to be seen putting up with all those ‘little people’
1
The two biggest issues to me:
1. Trump has spent 3 years telling his followers that those in charge (in science, in academia, in diplomacy) aren't credible. And his followers have completely bought in on this...making them doubt any proclamations.
2. At the same time, Trump isn't careful with his language...he spouts whatever he wants...listening to his interview with Fox, he's right that he didn't say to go to work if you have the virus but he also gave the impression that thousands are going to work and it's no big deal. He doesn't have the discipline to understand that he needs to know what he's talking about before he speaks.
50
@Southern Hope
The people that are most impressed with scientists are newspaper reporters, and Mothers of scientists.
The rest of us have no reason to be impressed.
4
@Larry Thiel So, no need for those pesky scientists who develop cancer, heart, and diabetes treatments that afflict millions of Americans? Since science is so little value to you, we'll assume that you'll give up your place in line for testing. Thanks for letting us know.
28
Yes he doesn't have the discipline but even worse than that he doesn't know why he should have the discipline in the first place. I'm sure people have tried to go there over the past 3 years but would have been met with the Trumpian eyes glazing over.
5
What are the odds Trump is devoting more of his personal energy to figuring out to use this to delay/win the election than he is to addressing the problem?
30
Bs -- And what are the odds Trump will cite the coronavirus as just one more terrible, not good, bad cop strategy in the Democrats' "witch hunt"?
6
@Ken Trump minions originally suggested that China had engineered the virus to make Trump look bad. Then they decided Democrats must have helped.
In other words, we can pretend we live in a democracy all we like, but the virus will show us how true this actually is.
14
To be clear, the problem is not that Trump has politicized the coronavirus from Day 1, or that Democrats have done the same - the problem is that the US Government was woefully unprepared and continues to this day (two months after the outbreak in China) to struggle to respond to the predictable challenges. It's not political; it's plain ol' planning, execution, and leadership. We have big data analytics that are well tested that predict how pandemics evolve.
17
@Q
That's all well and good, but precisely *why* is the gov't woefully unprepared?
Hint: it wasn't Obama.
12
Correction, it is political because we have s dysfunctional administration that doesn’t know how to query professionals and doesn’t know or care to plan and execute
Another way of looking at Trump's response to the coronavirus -- he has convinced the Fed to cut rates by 50 points and perhaps more, he's talking about a tax break for the hospitality industry and the airlines, and each time he makes such a move the stock market goes up for a brief period. And, he's blaming the Democrats. Before it's over he will have endeared himself to the oligarchs who run big businesses and talked his voters into believing this was all a democratic hoax. So for him things look pretty peachy keen. I wonder, though, if he'll have Bolsonaro tested before they have dinner at Mar a Lago.
12
@Eero Are his hotels part of the hospitality industry? Will the Trump Organization make money from COVID-9?
1
Socialism for the corporate class only
An authoritarian's mission is to maintain his authority. Trump's insistence on sycophants in the media and in government is rational and matches up to how other authoritarians rule.
The man is a danger to the republic. That it has taken a lethal bug from China to demonstrate this does not say much for those who support him.
31
The answer is simple, trump only cares about himself and his re-election, he doesn’t care if it costs lives.
26
@Paulie One wonders why his voters don't consider that possibility.
On February 28--one week ago today--DJT stated, "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."
As of today--March 6--the U.S. has 250 confirmed cases of COVID-19.
In COVID-19, DJT has met his match.
27
Give your "Orange Man Bad" routine a rest, Goldberg. Trump did the most important thing very early on, banning flights from China, and liberals including Joe Biden, accused Trump of racism. The President's vocabulary is not great so he does tend to generalize and tread water with his remarks. But the initial paucity of testing kits was not his fault, nor was the resulting decision of CDC of a too-restrictive testing requirements. All that is getting fixed, even as the increase in reported cases is so small that would not even be reported if it was not in a way to blame Trump. (Compare coverage of Obama during a much bigger and more threatening outbreak.)
2
@SonomaEastSide He may have banned flights from China, but travelers originating from there have still made it into the country with little to no screening upon arrival and little to no follow-up afterwards.
9
@SonomaEastSide
He only banned foreign nationals from traveling from China to the US. US nationals can still travel back and forth, carrying the disease. He also hasn't banned any travel from the hot zones of Italy or South Korea.
Also, the scarcity of resources is wholly Trump's fault. After the potential ebola outbreak, Obama put in place an outbreak management task force meant handle situations like this (along with biological weapons attacks). Trump fired that staff and failed to replace them. When Corvid-19 came to our shores, the team built specifically to confront such a crisis was nothing but a bunch of empty offices.
16
@SonomaEastSide BuT Trump has continued to lie to the public about the time frame for a vaccine and the seriousness of the virus.
2
Is China being on the up and up with us about their coronavirus situation in their country. A Chinese doctor was ignored in the beginning of this illness as to the severity and was the first to die from the disease. The Chinese people are very upset with the facts they have been receiving. Has there been accountability by the communist regime? We really do not know all the facts about this. We may find out later that they were not completely honest in their reporting of the outbreak. They may be hiding important information from the rest of the world. Let’s not forget that this dreaded disease started here.
1
And this has what to do with the ideas in the editorial?
2
As a former RN, I've been frustrated as days and weeks were lost while Trump massaged his ego and refused to listen to medical advice and the world-class epidemiologists and medical authorities who fought Ebola and SARS. Here is his first world class crisis and he punts and pontificates.
He cares nothing for the people of the USA. He's delusional to the point that he tries to distract, soothe with platitudes, and if anyone listens to him tell people to go to work, the have a fool for a doctor. He swore to serve and protect the people of the US but one again he serves himself alone and protects his tail section.
1012
@Tulipano He cares a little about the voters in the Red States, let's give him credit for that. Whatever assures they will vote for him again, he's for. Everybody else is on their own.
5
The response to be expected from a calamitous presidency.
19
Indeed, the public needs to be educated about this outbreak.
Panic is setting in. Apparently, there are now reports that the cleaning staff in the New York Hospitals have been observed
pocketing some of the Purell dispenser refills ! Such behavior is irrational and fueled by fear. The governor of New York needs to educate the public since the POTUS
is out to lunch.
4
now that our modern day nero has been confronted with a problem of global proportions that he is both incapable of comprehending or dealing with effectively, his solution is to sideline those who dare contradict his omnipotence, takeoff for a 3 day golf weekend with his brazilian alter ego and fret about his re election chances as the economy tanks from an unnecessary self inflicted crisis. some leadership.
16
Everyone, including the millions of uninsured folks in this Country (a travesty in itself)- should have access to any equipment, supplies, medical testing/treatment with regards to this virus, period. In reality- everyone should have access to basic medical care. There is money in this Country for this. It's increasingly bizarre that we do not have this.
10
There should be a correction made about President Trump not visiting the CDC. He IS DEFINITELY GOING to visit after he goes to Tennessee to visit the destruction caused by the tornado which killed many.
There have been many critical comments about his staying away. This is positively not true. He will visit.
1
@KMW Trump already met with Dr Fauci, but didn't really listen to him. Fauci explained more than once why it could easily take 12-18 months to have a safe and effective vaccine available. Trump kept asking why can't it be faster. He didn't seem to understand that careful clinical trials are essential to confirm both effectiveness and safety of a vaccine. Trump's timeline seems to have had more to due with the November election than with what's best for the country.
27
Whatever he does, or doesn’t, do, it will be because of political expedience; not concern for any affected Americans.
No one matters to him but himself.
5
@KMW. He changed his mind and decided to go after the possible case of coronavirus at CDC proved to be negative. So, Bonespurs can safely go. The bigger issue was his incredibly irresponsible statement on HANNITY. First, he called it “corona flu” and only later said “corona virus,” which evinced his intent to downplay the potential seriousness of the situation. Second, in a positive, encouraging tone of voice, he said it was so mild that many people get better “just by sitting around, you know, and even going to work.” He thus tacitly encouraged people to carry on with no regard to their fellow citizens. Indeed, after his NC rally, many attendees interviewed believed that the coronavirus itself is a hoax.
3
Wonder how long before all those Republican voters and elected officials grasp how self absorbed and indifferent to his responsibilities as President Trump happens to be? My bet is that they will need to suffer and not be able to accept Trump's refusals to accept responsibilities for poor outcomes.
10
@Casual Observer
Correct. Only when members of his "base" see family members and friends become ill and some die from resulting complications will they realise the error of their ways. When what they are seeing with their own eyes totally contradicts what fox news and their "president..." is telling them, they will hopefully chuck this buffoon from office.
I don't like/want/appreciate/respect Trump, however, he is not responsible for the CDC's ineptitude in bringing out test kits, nor did he bring virus to our shores. His second news conference was not poor, and Spence is doing an ok job as coordinating things. In fact, Newsome in California, who always wants to be known as Mr. Accepting when it comes to immigrants, refuses to make arrangements for quarantine in his state. I happen to think we (the world ) are absurdly overreacting. Human beings are homo sapiens at their core, and our limbic system is thousands of years older than our cerebral cortex. We are functioning at 90% emotion and 19% logic. I get it. But here is some data for you- South Korea has done the most extensive testing and has about 6200 cases, with about 43 deaths. That is a mortality rate at .7%. And given that they have the best data that is the rate we should use at this point in time, until/unless better data comes forth. Deep breath.
2
@boji3 Trump does bear a lot of responsibility for unfunding the pandemic preparedness unit at CDC. He had decided it was a waste of money. If he had not shut it down, the US would have been able to respond to the conornavius more quickly. He is doing similar downsizing in other agencies that work on safety issues.
36
@boji3
Defunding agencies that deal with things such as these doesn’t help either...
1
@Bonnie Trump did NOT shut down the CDC unit. Washington Post had a big headline to that effect a few days ago. And the dems appropriated more money anyway. So your conjecture is false.
The buck always stops at the top, leaders are ultimately responsible for everything full stop. In this administration they have never once taken responsibility for any of their missteps not once. Trump is incapable of leadership and incapable of admitting mistakes or pivoting to correct them and move forward to implement a real plan and mobilize a national effort. Unfortunately for America we’re seeing it play out in real time hour by hour, day by day. The good news is, his presidency will fail because of this crisis. The bad news is lives will be lost, the economy will suffer and life will be interrupted for millions.
15
@tiredofwaiting
Trump is always eager to take credit for good things that happen, even if he had nothing to do with them. The economy was adding jobs steadily since 2008, but Trump thinks its improvement was all about him being inaugurated in 2017. However, he seems unable to grasp Harry Truman's famous statement:
"If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."
8
I live in the panhandle of Idaho where only 300 miles away the epicenter of the US Covid19 outbreak is taking place. Yet only 6 people have been in the entire state. Hardly a sampling for surveillance. People who want to make excuses for Trump lying to the public is astonishing. Science, medical surveillance is not political. The US has not had an adequate response. Without testing we don't have any data about the extent of the virus in our communities and the actions that would normally take place when known carriers of a novel virus are detected. A novel virus is not the same as seasonal influenza. We have a WHO, a CDC, and an active Public Health Department that should be leading the response and science of this very real epidemic.
12
You can't lead a response as an agency when your funding has been cut and you have no test kits the begin with! What are they supposed to do, conjure budget out of the air?
Trump cut their funding 2 years ago
For those of you who think this is not significant, I just read this about Italy: Of the 3,858 coronavirus cases, 1,790 people are in hospital and 351 in intensive care. That strikes me as a really high proportion in hospital. They have the second oldest population in the world, so that may be a factor.
7
Had Trump not gutted the budgets and dismissed the pandemic preparedness programs, "I don't like people who sit around and do nothing all day", we would be prepared for this. Unfortunately we are playing catch up, with a leader who does not believe in science.
40
i had the opportunity to meet Anthony Fauci once when he took his personal time to attend an event about HIV reduction in Washington DC. He spoke eloquently about helping people avoid infection and beating disease. He didn't have to be there -- he took his personal time to attend -- but he wanted to inspire the community to help some of its most disadvantaged residents. Seeing him standing behind Mango Unchained in this time of crisis is truly disheartening. May all those dedicated public servants helping us avoid Covid19 stay at their jobs and receive our utmost support!
36
Bloomberg said they were all fired! There’s no one there to handle this! I guess that was a lie.
An answer would be appreciated. Where does a US Coronavirus victim turn to if they do not have health insurance?
12
A country with a functioning healthcare system.
9
@Jeremy They should call their state's public health department. Some states are helping the uninsured.
5
That’s why we’re cancelling our annual visit to the USA,and staying in Australia. The international perspective on the States is that it is not a very safe place at the moment.
3
Trump closed the border (figuratively) with China weeks before we had even heard the word coronavirus.
The stock market took notice, and had its first down day because of the virus on 2/21. Trump had announced the ban on any foreign national who had been to China the previews 2 weeks on January 31st.
Can anyone take a guess why nobody was paying attention to this back then? Impeachment.
Democrats and their media cohorts couldnt concentrate on anything else the week prior and after, and consumed all of their time and effort on impeachment. While you folks in the media were so infatuated with impeachment, Trump was doing his job, protecting the country.
Had he not did that, we would have thousands more cases here.
Admit it, would any liberal Democrat been so quick to close the border?
4
@Sports Medicine Experts would tell you that the virus was already here when those steps were taken. That's not Trump's fault. He did what experts recommended and what China had essentially done. I give him no extra credit for that. What he has botched has been every other thing.
20
You are absolutely correct, it’s the Democrats fault. The level of self delusion is astounding. The best way to begin to deal with the crisis is to quarantine Trump and Pence.
10
@Sports Medicine
As I recall it, during that period Trump was on Twitter non-stop, and his Nit-Twits told me that he was watching FOX and commenting blow by blow based on thier entertainment schedules that day....
Evaluating the virus is PART OF HIS JOB.
Instead of twittering and blithering about how "unfairly" he was being treated, and making fun of people, and assigning demeaning names to anyone who was critical of him, he should have been resurrecting the CDC's full ability to cope.
The CDC that Trump's man Bolton ( who Trump didn't really know that well) gutted in 2018.
I assume he can do more than thing at a time?
I hope it's not too late to treat moronovirus, a virulent strain that affects narcissists the most.
PS: Is Pence still the VP? I heard Trump didn't really know him well when he chose him in 2016..
19
According to the CDC the death rate from all causes for age>85 is 13.5%, for age 75-84 is 4.4% and so on. The death rate from CV is 1-2 % or even less. Trump would argue : why bother, you will die of something anyway !
2
Funny, a long two weeks ago I wrote a comment about Trump tossing paper towels, Part II, with this coronavirus. The comment didn't pass the Times' censors. I knew weeks ago that Trump was spewing poisonous disinformation, downplaying, self-congratulating and blaming -- all seemingly in the same breath. Americans are now in panic mode, no matter what 45 spews. Because they, too, no matter their political stripe, don't believe the president. Hundreds, maybe thousands of Americans are doomed; yet, Trump will take a victory lap and maybe toss Kleenex this time.
10
Anyone who trusts Donald Trump or his lackeys’ word on this is insane.
28
testing.... 1,2,3.....
is this thing on?
4
Trump's childishly inept management of the U.S. coronavirus epidemic is the only Hoax here.
13
Well he's off to Mar-a whereever to fund raise. He cancelled his trip to the CDC when he thought he might risk infection--now it's back on again now that the risk has passed, so he can make a huge to-do about the $8billion that Democrats forced him to spend on the virus threat. We know what his priorities are. We remain woefully unprepared for a surge of hospital cases, and inadequately protected health care workers.
9
The president is not a clinician or epidemiologist or researcher, so it doesn’t surprise me how much he does not understand. That’s ok—but for a leader to shackle the professionals who do understand communicable diseases, surveillance, containment and treatment, and hinder their ability to respond and execute on plans is unconscionable.
I know this is no different from his woeful response to Puerto Rico after Maria, and that we cannot expect any better from this man.
But don’t we want better for OURSELVES?
19
Trump and Pence. You could not have two more unqualified ignorant people at the helm. Zero credibility with the international and domestic organizations needed to combat this virus. Zero credibility with state and local governments. Zero credibility with the media. You get the picture.
Response? Start lying and keep lying. Attempt to make it a political issue rather than public safety. Whine about sick people not going to work just to target the president and make him look bad. Walk out of meetings designed to reassure all Americans. Or simply make things up that are not only inaccurate but dangerous.
Communicate? All they've communicated so far is their complete and total incompetence combined with absolutely no interest in sick people. And their followers agree. Just as ignorant and stupid as the man they worship. More so.
24
Might I suggest he toss a few hand sanitizers instead of paper towels this time?
11
I think Russian Trolls are complimenting Trump's response to the virus.
11
The secretive Chinese dictatorship’s coverup of the coronavirus problem made the situation worse.
Trump: ‘Hold my beer”.
5
@Grove
Errr; Trump doesn't drink. He is a teetotaler.
1
We have learned that Trump speaks "Trump Truth." It is public relations fodder that he makes up to help him, politically or personally. He repeats it endlessly, and it is echoed by Fox, which also repeats it endlessly. Many of his followers get their news exclusively from Fox, so they believe the Trump Truth that they hear. Of course, it usually has no connection to reality.
Here, Trump Truth is going collide with a nationwide epidemic that is going to scare the bejesus out of Trump's followers.
8
@JoeBftsplk
Hopefully it will do more than just scare them.
1
Uh, if the virus is a hoax perpetrated by the Dems, why are we spending $8B on it?
21
@Hootin Annie
Are there Dems in China, Japan,N.Korea, Iran,Italy, Germany, Belgium etc?
2
Trump is doing jus fine. It is you people on the left who hate anything he does.
Trump 2020
5
Please explain the facts on your definition of “just fine”? The stock market spiral? Bond market collapse? Increasing deaths? Shortage of testing with no plans? Spread of misinformation saying we will have zero cases when in fact cases were increasing? If this is “just fine” I’d dread to see what “terrible” looks like. Give us a few weeks though, then we will.
25
@Nycdweller over 16,000 lies to the public since january 2017; over $100,000,000 spent on Air Force One trips to Trump golf courses (more than Obama spent on golf over 8 years), no help for Puerto Rico, outrageous conditions in the ICE border camps, handing over public land to energy companies, removing protection for endangered species, denying climate change, huge tax cut for the rich, nothing for ordinary people, claiming he is responsible for jobs improving before he ever was president, believing Putin over US intelligence agencies, asking a foreign country to help smear the Bidens, pretending he knows more about viruses than the CDC or WHO, Where is the good in any of this? I hate Trump's incompetence and arrogance and failure as a president.
4
@Nycdweller An example, please, of what you define as "jus fine."
1
Republican strategist Rick Wilson wrote the book “Everything Trump Touches Dies”. Well, Trump seems to be touching more of us everyday. Vote like your life depends on it!
21
Trump: “Covid-19? No, I’m sure it’s no more than Covid-6 or 7...”
9
Ignore everything Donald Trump says. Period.
19
Trump is a doppelgänger for the ChiCom response to the virus. Denial and deflection.
6
What else would expect from the worst President ever!!! Everything is about Trump. Time to impeach. We cannot stand anymore of his incompetence.
15
@Hugh McIsaac He was already impeached, and that didn't work out very well. Plan B is to vote him out of office in November.
@Hugh McIsaac W.e did impeach but the GOP didn't care, and let Trump off the hook.
2
The POTUS is not a leader. He's a rabble rouser
10
If Trump showed as much interest in actual facts, and paid less attention to his approval ratings, his appearance, his need for revenge, his need for supremacy, and his all-consuming narcissistic tweets - maybe he could prove himself to be trustworthy and someone we can turn to in today's chaotic world.
But he can't, or won't, change - sees no need to change - and thus, he will NEVER be trustworthy to more than half the population of our once great nation. We need someone we can trust to guide and protect us. We need someone who doesn't lie to us on a daily basis, deliberately and cruelly, and who ridicules experts, facts, and the truth.
14
Jane Scholz,
Yes, Jane. I have travelled outside the United States extensively. I have been to Europe many times, visited Peru, Canada and Russia when it was a communist country. I absolutely adore travel but I also appreciate and love my country. We have freedoms others can dream about. If we are such a unpleasant country, why are people coming here legally and illegally? Can you answer that for me.
3
I am here because my husband's expertise was needed not because I think it's the greatest country in the world. When he retires we will be high- tailing back from whence we came: to the greatest country in the world where a lot of Americans and foreigners also live.
1
Sue,
And which country is that? Please inform us of this utopia.
I have done a lot of traveling and cannot wait to return. This is the best country on the planet. Why do so many risk their lives to come here?
1
@KMW People come to the US because it has always been seen as a bastion of freedom and with unlimited opportunities for success and safety. People are drawn to the US because they have no possibility of pulling themselves out of poverty in their countries which may have no public services, a corrupt government and widespread violence. The "American Dream" is still possible here, but not likely. We are an unpleasant country in many ways: we are racist. We have a very large gun-promoting segment of our population who will actively keep opposing efforts to limit gun violence, resulting in thousands of lost lives in public mass shootings. Our schools are not safe. Our capitalistic economic system conflates wealth with worth. We are poorly ranked in terms of healthcare and education, just to name a couple. It is becoming increasingly difficult for someone living in poverty here to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps." I am American and love my country but we would be foolish not to see our very real deficits and address them.
9
Studies show that the best way to limit spread of the coronavirus is not to touch your face and to cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze. And to state the obvious, democracy or dictatorship doesn’t affect this in the least. The Economist confuses correlation with causation. Lots of people in democratic countries touch their faces And dictatorships are about the same.
2
Dictatorships, and bad leaders in general, hide and deny the problem, thus making it much worse.
Read about Iran’s bumbling of the outbreak in that country.
Behavior of leaders makes a very big difference.
6
@michjas
But dictatorships restrict vital medical information that they deem unflattering to their “perfect” rule, just as China reprimanded and silence the Chinese physician who first recognized the seriousness of the virus in Wuhan. Meantime, the Chinese leadership quickly down played his clinically based concerns. And the virus spread.
Congratulations on missing the point so spectacularly.
All developed countries with Corona virus outbreaks are screening foreign passengers at major airports except for - you guessed it - the United States. The combination of an iron grip on the GOP that is clumsy, corrupt and inept is truly dangerous.
7
They don’t care about controlling public health, only what happens inside a woman’s uterus or in a same-sex couple’s bedroom.
The germ-phoebe refuses to go into the CDC, no doubt actual story. Remember all his puffery about it, his supposedly protecting the country, his great performance re covid 19, is about he, himself in every way including personally first, politically, close second. The worst leader we could possible have especially now. And as it ramps up everyday he will ignore what he said the day before and even deny. He is actually a danger to every one of us citizens because he is protecting valid important information unless its vetted from the public.
7
Will Trump cancel his rallies or run the risk of infecting thousands of supporters? Perhaps more important, will Trump supporters attend those rallies?
It will interesting to see whether Trump and his supporters believe science. Could be a life and death choice.
12
@Pat Choate
Exactly. Will the “Germaphobe in Chief” take the risk? Imagine a MAGA rally where someone directly behind Trump sneezes or coughs? Will he run out of there? Will Secret Service grab him and rush him out? Will Mike Pence step in for him?
1
Coronavirus lays bare the almost total lack of public healthcare and hospitals in the u s. Essential to tackle it. If it spreads-God forbid-the richest country in the world will be in the same league as the poorest in Africa in preparedness and infrastructure. Not to mention the frightening cost for those without insurance.
Yet,Nyt and m S media have the gall to attack sanders’ healthcare for all which exactly addresses the prob.
3
With a little luck the corona virus will be a distant memory on Election Day. Like the "Impeachment" we went through. Almost forgotten already. The giant efforts of the media and Democrats to fan the panic will be all for nothing. Sorry to say, it won't be Trump' "Katrina moment" like so many on the left hope. One would think a potential crisis like this would bring people together, but the left isn't going to waste this crisis. We deserve better from the left but nobody is surprised they are weaponizing this.
3
@Tim Fitzgerald
And now, folks, we don't have to bother tuning in to Fox News today: our buddy Tim here has recapped its coverage superbly, don't you think?
5
@Tim Fitzgerald So your plan is luck.
3
@Tom Fitzgerald
Let’s just hope in the meantime the Coronavirus doesn’t hit Florida hard. If it does, can just imagine your unconcerned response? I hope this proves to be a far less troublesome disease, but do you really feel comfortable and confident with a “bumbling” President in charge?
2
Not only is there no federal plan for coronavirus, but it should be noted once again that Trump and the GOP still have no plan to insure the millions uninsured, including those they would throw off Obamacare. There is so little mention of this because the Democratic establishment news media is too busy talking about the dread of the communist-socialist Sanders taking away our beloved private health insurers.
And you thought McCarthyism was dead. Ha!
4
I watched Stephen Fry talk about the ability of computers to win at chess and Go and realize why Coronavirus is so frightening. Coronavirus works at speeds we can understand while the markets responses are beyond speeds we comprehend.
Trump is a savant skilled in the sale of snake oil in a world he cannot understand.
When a computer "plays" chess it wins because it can create what seems a infinite number of scenarios. Epidemiologists rely on the very same computers to create scenarios and give us more possible scenarios than we can conceive.
The joy of the GOP in charge of America is they see a binary world of black or white.
I understand why the USA is not likely to survive.
This world is not kind to those who are mathematically illiterate like Trump, Pence , McConnell and the 18% who control the Senate and now the Supreme court.
I am supposedly a mathematical genius but a gig is far beyond anything I can understand. A gig is big.
I remember when the press tried to embarrass our Prime Minister on the definition of quantum computing only to find out there are an infinite number of numbers between zero and one.
Trump doesn't understand any thing beyond yes and no or good for Trump and bad for Trump.We need leadership that understands that is not the world we live in.
I had some hope the November election would offer a Warren, Yang, Steyer,Castro or Booker but as stupid greed and self centered as Trump, Biden's humanity, love and understanding is not what you need in 2020.
6
I wonder what will happen when tracer-agents track a COVID-19 case back to one of dear leader's pep rallies? Will they all self-isolate? Was the orange one on the dais in range of that sneeze? Do we have isolation units in the west wing? Is Trump's doctor still the one that wrote that goofy letter?
These are pressing issues for our times.
4
@Barbyr
Great questions!!
The people on board the Grand Princess must have heard the words spoken by D.H.S. Ken Cuccinelli (expertise in pandemics unknown) to the Senate that there is not enough bed space in U.S. hospitals to quarantine the passengers on board. They also probably watched as people repelled down ropes from helicopters. The people on board must feel abandoned. That's not a real confidence builder for ships at sea and a harbinger of what may come to us landlubbers.
7
Holy, cow, it's a blockbuster
Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror/Disaster/Plague film.
Who says 45's not a star?
8
The WHO reported a death rate of about 3.4%
The President, calling in to Fox, says "Well, I think the 3.4 percent is really a false number."
He said he just has a "hunch" that's it really about a fraction of 1%.
And still, millions will vote for this pathological liar.
20
I continue to hear from the conservative talking heads on Fox and even the POTUS that Corona is "just like a cold or the flu". Really!?
The facts. Last year approximately 43M people contracted the flu and of those about 63,000 died.
If 43M contracted Corona this year, we'd have approximately 800,000-1,200,000 deaths.
This is NOT like the typical flu or cold and it's dismissive reactions like those of the POTUS and his enablers that are fueling concerns of the public, as their lies, omissions and denials create a sense that the administration has no clue what they are doing.
12
Leave it to the media to continue to fear monger this and no surprise that Goldberg goes the extra mile to tie it to their political enemy. Let me be really clear on this, wash your hands, don't touch your face, and don't believe they hype.
1
@Mystery Lits
All helpful suggestions no doubt followed strictly by medical doctors, nurses and medical personnel who treat these patients. Yet, we know some of them have still contracted this virus and even died. How many children and adults follow this strict precautionary regimen? How many cover their mouths with Kleenex when they sneeze? How many wash their hands for 20 seconds and clean under their fingernails and dry them of with a clean towel? How many touch door knobs and light switches? How many sneeze riding in public transit? Once a person contracts this — on average they pass it on to 2 others. While the death rate is low 2 - 3 percent, it’s much higher than flu and apparently easily spreads. Still supremely confident of never getting this virus? Does having the “Bumbling in Chief” President at the helm boost your confidence?
2
"The Times reported that Defense Secretary Mark Esper has warned the military not to make decisions related to Coronavirus that might 'run afoul of President Trump’s messaging,' even as leaders have to make quick judgments about protecting troops stationed in countries with outbreaks. A Pentagon spokesperson took issue with the Times story, calling it a 'dishonest misrepresentation.'"
Even a low ranking officer has the right to put an area off limits to the troops under his/her command. If a commander at the Army base in Vicenza, Italy, for example, wanted to keep the troops on base because of the coronavirus, they could, at least they could until Esper's orders came out.
If the Times' report is correct, Secretary Esper is unfit to head defense and President Trump is unfit to be commander and chief of the armed forces.
13
Thanks to ALL of our rotten politicians we don't have real health care in this nation anymore
9
POTUS's response sound something like Iran's response. This is what the USA has become.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/opinion/coronavirus-iran.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage]
6
Coronation Virus
The electoral college was never enough
and few showed up to cheer
Hillary had won the popular vote
and Trump brought up the rear.
When the pink hats marched
to the beat of a different drum
there was no pageant for Trump
immediately he looked glum.
Now he says a flu has flown through
this windy windy world
and that by summer it will be through.
Yet this oyster has a pearl.
Shake the moths from all the carpets
steam clean every rug
let’s stage a coronation
for our presidential thug.
Reinforce the bridges
for the heavy tanks
it’s time for martial parades
to give our proper thanks.
Let skywriting planes compose
for Donnybrook the cruelest odes.
Fill each pitcher with lemonade
let trumpets blare out loud
unroll proclamatory scrolls
and this time count the crowd.
The streets and squares will be empty,
the avenues all bare
our population will be quarantined
there won’t be anyone there.
For he gutted the CDC,
pinned false hopes on a distant vaccine,
lied about the spread of the disease
and appointed Dr. Pence as a deus ex machina.
If you want to take a poll
just wander down the wards
they’ll be voting from their sickbeds
even Republicans in hoards
to oust this ignorant tyrant
to be convicted at last for crimes
to spend what’s left of his dotage
inside prison doing time.
11
Trump’s expression is revealing. He is Prince Prospero in “The Masque of the Red Death.”
5
Trump can always pull out his sharpie and scribble out all of the cases across the US.
12
I have a hunch the president doesn’t know how to handle this.
15
he is supposed to be at a cdc meeting on friday; he cancelled that to fundraise and golf. figures.
11
Perhaps a pandemic will finally teach us some humility and decency. It will also show to all the apologists and enablers of Trump what dishonest pimps of power they are and outright traitors of our democracy.
9
Trump cancelled his visit today to the CDC in Atlanta. Why? To go to Mara Logo and play golf after a flyover of Nashville. Do we need any further proof that he doesn't care and never will. Flying around on AF-One and luxuriating at one of his golf clubs is so much more relaxing than attending to a health emergency. Poor guy, he needs to be put in Mara Logo permanently. November, then January can't come soon enough.
12
@David Kannas Trump's flyover of Nashville can join GW Bush's flyover of New Orleans in the annals of bad presidents.
*I am not in any way offering medical advice*
1 Ms. Goldberg might have consulted Donald G. McNeil Jr.
who is a science reporter for NYT and has covered epidemics since 2002.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/sunday-review/coronavirus-quarantine.html
"The W.H.O.’s epidemic-modeling teams concluded that travel restrictions had slowed the spread of the virus outside China by two to three weeks.
For the United States, the delay [recommended by Trump's medical advisory team] was probably far greater. Air-traffic data shows that flights from China to the United States dropped much more than they did to Europe.
As of this writing, a single case not connected to any known transmission has turned up in California, but there are no indications of large outbreaks like those in Italy and Iran.
Harsh measures horrify civil libertarians, but they often save lives, especially when they are imposed in the early days."
2 "Dr. Marc Siegel [of NYU]: Coronavirus public health response has been handled well; we have right leaders at helm"
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/dr-marc-siegel-coronavirus-public-health-response-has-been-handled-well-we-have-right-leaders-at-helm
Dr. Siegel has written books about epidemics.
3 An Obama Holdover in an Obscure Government Arm Helped Cause the Country’s Coronavirus Crisis
Who really decided to bring infected people to the United States?
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/obama-holdover-obscure-government-arm-helped-cause-daniel-greenfield/
2
@David MD The US is basically an island so we enjoy a certain amount of isolation by default. But the bulwark is not holding.
2
@Erich Richter
* I am not offering medical advice *
NYT Science reporter McNeil who writes about epidemics wrote an article with sources praising Trump's intervention to shut down the airline flights and to implement quarantines.
Dr. Siegel who has written books about epidemics also praises Trump's approach.
It was an Obama holdover who went against Trump's wishes and brought infected people to the US.
The articles are brief and informative.
It is frustrating when Ms. Goldberg does not seek the knowledge of experts, even when it is an expert with her own newspaper and is quick to condemn Trump's response instead of getting the facts.
Unfortunately, journalists can't be sued for malpractice.
2
Trump calling this a corona flu is inexcusable. Can congress issue a gag order on Trump, silencing him on all things pandemic?
5
Can’t the talented editors at the New York Times find a way to lay the blame for trump’s response to the outbreak at the feet of Bernie Sanders and/or his supporters?
Try harder!
1
Time for attack politics, pitching into the opposition, first Trump now Sanders, who has become also the "bouc emissaire"of media &Dem. Party to be put aside and to "se serrer la coude,to work together to overcome the present crisis.Trump admin. has been forthright,performing adequately during the crisis, exemplified by diplomatic behavior of V.P. Pence, his willingness to allow experts to give us honest updates.OVERLOOKED is "prevoyance"of pres. in closing down the borders, w/o which crisis would be much worse."Je vous lance le defi,"Ms. Goldberg: DEFY YOUR CORPORATE SPONSORS, motivated by hatred , not only of Trump but also of Sanders. Respect Bernie for his derring do,willingness to soldier ON in face of corporate opposition. Reluctance to disclose relative's consultancy work for EW @last minute was inexcusable. Now u attack Bernie unfairly just as u attacked The Donald because that is what corporate heads expect!Years ago Clement Carrasco, OAS activist, former "agent de police"in Oranie, visited me in my apt. in NY.Met my 2 honies,"Spitfire," and Duke, bull terrier from Johnny Campo's stable @Aqueduct and as they ate their dinner, Carrrasco exclaimed,"Ils aiment la gamelle; ils aiment la gamelle!"He also confessed that he liked lost causes, to which I replied,"Moi aussi,"which explains why I support Sanders over Biden, darling of the corporate media!Sanders really speaks truth to power, a cliche that puts it all into focus!Time for author to step up as well!
I can't tell if it's better to have Trump blow off his meeting at the CDC, or worse. Never has his incompetence been more obvious, or more costly.
3
Compared to the Obama administration's 6 month delay in calling a National Emergency in response to the Swine Flu, where the it had already infected 20,000 people and killed 1000 here in the US, I would think you would be happy that he had closed the border with China with-in 3 weeks of knowing of the virus, as well as begin marshaling the full resources of the CDC and NIH.
Double standard much.
1
@philly
Full resources?
Of the decimated CDC?
Who decimated it?
Right.
2
When he is thrown out of office he will say it is a hoax
3
There was a discussion on the CNBC network last night that suggested we should all go out and get the disease so we can get rid of it in a few weeks. The idiocy and irresponsibility of this comment is just staggering. Right wing talk radio is joking about it and telling everyone it’s not a big deal- just like Castro or Putin would do. 
2
@Deirdre
Umm: where have you been? The CNBC network is not "right wing talk radio." Now, if you tried FOX network, whom everyone here excoriates, you would be on solid ground.
1
Trump and his enablers will be the death of us.
5
Trump is ignorant and inept. Not new info, but this virus is showing the real threat of the real Trump. Hard to hide in fake alternative facts when dead people are the real facts.
Sadly the victims of this disaster may be the sacrifice to end Trump's reign of terror on America. Trump is trying to get Pence to be the fall guy for the virus disaster. But Americans still believe the buck stops with the President, not the VP.
4
At this point, the bombastic incompetence of Trump should not be surprising. What I’m still confused about is why nobody is telling this emperor he has no clothes. Let him throw a tantrum. Let him fire everyone. But someone has to say it, because we all can see he’s standing there stark naked.
3
Donald Trump is a disaster.
9
This president is a selfish coward.
He minimizes the risks, makes the whole things up about the data and encourages people to go to work, to the mall and supermarkets.
Instead I want to see Trump shaking hands and standing in a crowd of random people in California or Washington.
Only then I would PROBABLY consider his suggestion that the Coronavirus is, after all, like a common cold.
4
The abysmal deficit of testing kits may have started out as incompetence, but it is now deliberate. The administration is trying to make the number of cases look as low as possible. More testing means more reported cases. No testing...well, that won't mean there are fewer sick people, but it will LOOK that way, and Trump has never cared about anything except how things look. That's why he lies about his wealth, the height of his buildings, the weather, his accomplishments everything.
So he's lying about this too -- not in an effort to calm fears, but to cover up the truth, and he's enlisting the government and conservative media in the cover-up. When he was yammering on Fox about "...thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work..." he was sending a clear message: don't worry if you feel sick. Just carry on with your day. And millions of Fox viewers will take that message to heart, and they'll feel sick and go to work and go to church and go to the supermarket and go to school just because their president told them it was okay. Heck, they'll do it out of sheer spite. Nothing makes a liberal cry like getting a face full of coronavirus sneezed on 'em, right?
7
If everyone outside of Trump & Friends is the Deep State, then Trump & Friends must be the Shallow State.
3
We get it Michele, you don't like Trump but the way you cherry pick facts is exactly what Trump does. The bottom-line is with the massive amount of inter-connections between China and the US it's amazing the infection rate is as low as it is in the US. Most of that was due to travel restrictions the administration put in place. Several NYT's articles portrayed that as racist at the time. The corner cases you are obsessing over miss the glaring facts right in front of you.
1
When compared to Obama's reaction to H1N1 back in 2009 Trump is doing a masterful job. It took nearly six months, millions of infections and over 1,000 deaths from H1N1 before Obama declared it a national emergency.
THe media is clearly doing its best to cast Trump in a bad light when reporting about his response to the current outbreak.
20
@It isn't working Are we really still repeating "fake news" stories without any attempt at verification? The original source of this bogus line has been flagged by Facebook in its effort to combat false news and misinformation. If you make no attempt to verify things before you repeat them in public forums--shame on you. If you don't care to--double shame on you.
14
@It isn't working Wrong. 20 cases and 2 months before it was declared a pandemic. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/world/27flu.html
11
@It isn't working The Obama administration declared swine flu, or H1N1, a public health emergency six weeks before H1N1 was declared a pandemic.
No H1N1 deaths had yet been recorded in the United States.
Six months after that initial declaration, when more than 1,000 deaths had occurred, Obama himself declared H1N1 a national emergency.
7
When my son was 8 and got the measles over the summer break, we had dozens of neighbors stopping by to let their kids share cards and candy and games with my son...all in an effort to get their kids sick with the measles during summer break.
A little sinister, which got me thinking about the fear and anxiety around this vs. taking it head on.
I'm strong..have strong genes..strong lungs...strong disposition..and will likely live until my 90's like my grandparents.
I'm not afraid of novel coronavirus and would rather meet it in a dark alley today then wait until I'm at a poolside bar in Cabo when it hits. Which..coincidentally...is when I got Hepatitis in Mexico...and found out about it in a not good way.
So...where can I get this bug so I can get it..get well..develop the antibodies and then offer up my serum (with all those antibodies) to others just as my fellow Americans did during the Polio epidemic.
1
@Erica Smythe
Ditto, my wife came from a large family (11) and her mother was a doctor. When one of the girls came down with the measles, she put them all together to get infected, and therefore be spared from getting infected later in life when pregnant.
1
As the ebola scare demonstrated, it's a big country and impossible to implement protocols in every single hospital and doctor's office.
Trump has responded quickly and done whatever experts have asked of him. Thank goodness we're not saddled with the bureaucracy and red tape of previous administrations.
4
@AACNY
That's hilarious.
And dismissing the World Health Organization's estimated death rate with his own "hunch?"
Does that comfort you, believing he knows better than scientists?
16
Yes Trump responded quickly-his first thoughts were about the stock market, the people not so much.
12
@Jules
The WHO rate is not our country's rate. Why would you ever combine the outcomes in China and Iran with the outcomes in Western countries?
3
His actions or lack of, reminds me of how the guy( I think it was Nero( played the fiddle while Rome burned. Things will get a lot worse before getting better, unfortunatly
7
@DenisLove
Completely wrong. Typical of the bad press Nero gets thanks to Christians and the anti-empire Senatorial historians whose noses were twisted out of joint. First, there were no fiddles in those days; but Nero was an avid lyre player. Secondly, Nero opened his estates to those affected by the fire in Rome.
Look to Justin; we'll take care of Donald.
2
@fFinbar
We sure ended up with a strange group running us. Both should be gone by next election, but I won't bet any money on it
Well, America got what it payed/voted for: The Corps and FilthyRich were given the treasury; The NIH, CDC were judged to be too dependent on "facts."
Really, did voting for TheMonster massage your greed sufficiently that you can ignore his systematic destruction of whatever's good in the government?
9
He looks a little leery of the model.
A first!
7
@Pia It scares him.
We only care about our own safety at this point. No one is thinking about you, Mr. President. Not everything is about you and your presidency.
10
“Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job!” - Bush
“We’re doing a great job!” - Trump
This is Trump’s Katrina, though much worse. The total incompetence of this administration is on full display, and will cost many lives.
16
Why should Trump suddenly start telling the truth now?
8
Trump speaks in the shrouded code of a Mafia boss. He never actually comes out with much definition, but those that lick his boots know what he means. That's why he wants people "loyal" to him, as he is assured that they will act on his innuendo, as they have the same mindset.
9
When the stable genius is convinced everything revolves around him, his presidency and his poll numbers then we can expect nothing less than self-aggrandizement commentary coupled by his sycophants espousing the same nonsensical drivel.
9
America is in a crisis and you're being political. Not the time.
4
Trump now set to announce at the CDC that windmills are the leading cause of spread.
10
@Charlie The crisis is a political one, made worse by the Trump/GOP's agenda of deconstructing federal government. Trump chose to cancel the CDC pandemic preparation team, and the result is a slower US reponse to coronavirus. He's been trying to blame Obama, but the breakup of the pandemic team was on Trump's watch. Just like his downsizing of EPA and his handing over public land to oil and coal companies. Government bad, never good, according to Trump and his friends.
3
Biology 101: You can’t bully a virus.
10
@Linda
Economcs 101: You can't bribe a virus, either.
Between biology and economics, our lil stable genius is left to bluster, and, even though that's worked in the past, that ain't going to do the trick this time.
Are you sure you have the proper protocols? Here in Nice, France, if you are showing signs and symptoms of the virus, you dial a special number (#15) and ambulance swings by and picks you up. None of this nonsense you have in the states, where you go to an emergency room, cough all over everyone else for several hours before you are seen.
14
Let's hope Dr. Fauci stays healthy and gets enough rest.
7
Trump's incompetence apparently has no bounds. November 3rd can't come soon enough. Hopefully thousands will not die in the interim.
13
A real, serious crisis could obviously not be apprehended as such, let alone addressed, by a Donald Trump.
If something could very well cancel a second term, that will be the conoravirus...
5
I'd like to see an analysis -and comparison to the current situation - of Obama's response to the swine flu pandemic in 2009.
3
Trump’s know-nothing lies about the reality of corona virus are revealing.
He is a liar and a menace, a delusional autocrat we’re stuck with for the time being (thanks, Senate Republicans!).
And his supporters like it that way since they have no interest in truth, only in validation of their fears and prejudices, leavened with a tasteless dose of reality tv entertainment and that old time religion.
As for the rest of us: how sick could Covid 19 make you, compared to how sick Trump makes everyone even without the intervention of germs?
5
Trump lies? What a surprise? When doesn't he lie? We just have to realize that under the fascism of the Trump regime, the federal government won't be any help.
4
It absolutely drives me nuts that no one close to the POTUS and the POTUS himself can communicate empathy or a measure of awareness for the folks who might die. Larry Kudlow just all smiles this morning saying "hey go to work, for 80% of the people it's not a problem". The other 20%? - well hey collateral damage and the market will be back up soon. Nor do they have any concept of how this coronavirus is a microcosm (no pun intended) of a bigger problem. They say "look at how the bad the flu is every year in comparison." Maybe the better comparison would be WHY is the flu that bad and what would lower those fatality rates. Perhaps insuring more people are staying home when sick, getting them flu shots and anti virals as part of universal healthcare.
6
@Pete In some years the flu is worse because it mutates more than expected and the vaccines don't match it as well as in other years. Also, the number of people refusing all vaccines has increased, which does not help as they can get infected and spread the flu.
This will ultimately be about the people and what they choose to believe about this unusual virus. If you're in one of the groups that are most threatened, you'll pay extraordinary attention to all the information available and the statistics.
The thought that this administration is trying to minimize the threat and is almost gaslighting our citizenry is unacceptable and abhorrent.
Now is not the time to massage the truth or outright lie. If we don't want a calamity of monumental proportions, we need to listen to scientists and doctors and get an accurate picture of what we need to do to survive this virus.
6
@Pamela L. I think Trump sees everything through his own special lens. He focuses on whatever helps or hurts him personally, the rest is not of interest. Right now he is aiming to create the impression that he is the great hero of the fight against the coronavirus. Because he does not like to take advice from experts, and because he lies anytime he thinks it will help him, his credibility is shot for all those who have ears to see and eyes to listen. Even after a meeting where experts tried to teach him some facts, he still lied about when a vaccine would be ready and how serious the virus may be. He does not care what is true or false.
1
The firewall between politics and science seems to be made of wet paper towels. Want to live and prosper- listen to scientists and medical doctors. This fad of "alternative facts" or lies and misinformation, has run its course.
8
There's no queestion that we should criticize President Trump for the unprecedented erosion of our insitutions and good government--but--hot takes like this piece take advantage of the emotional responses (fear and anger) that people are having in the moment. This is not a productive or insightful commentary that is being offered, but a reframing of legitimate Trump criticism onto an uncertain, novel and rapidly changing situation--one that requires a more serious and thoughtful approach. This is too easy. There are a lot of unknowns and to redirect uncertainty to catch reader's eyes (hey it worked im here--and im responding!!) is too pat.
2
@Aaron
Funny, I don't remember anyone twisting Trump's arm to run. Dude, this is what comes with the territory. It's called leadership.
4
90% of these comments, including those of the author merely represent strong opinions without facts or information. Many of the strong emotion about the availability of testing are a great example:
1. While testing is important, it is NOT a very significant way to stop the spread of this virus.
2. People love to use the issue to blame Trump, however, facts would show that during the Obama administration, the federal government executed another rule that forces all states to use only tests the federal government approves. Leading to a shortage.
3. People didn't blame Obama for that, nor should they blame Trump.
4. Testing a virus that has upto a 21day asymptomatic period is the same as being identify the horse as it gallops over the hill out of the barn.
1
@Kellymcgowan
I agree. President Trump has done a generally good job managing this effort and it is the D's who are "politicizing" the virus
Goldberg does not cite any actual misstatements by Trump and instead dishes up nasty partisan smears.
Foe example, Trump did not urge sick people to return to work (he pointed out that many ill people are unaware of their infection and showing few or no symptoms, and recovering quickly without isolation.
And it is simply false to blame Trump for the decision to hold the Princess off the California coast and quarantine passengers in place --- this was Gov. Newsom's decision, not Trump's:
“That cruise ship," Newsom explained, "was due to arrive this evening. We’ve requested that the arrival be delayed…to provide ample opportunity for the CDC in partnership with the Coast Guard and state health officials, to conduct tests.”
Facts matter. Goldberg should try harder to see past her hatred of Trump.
2
And your credentials/qualications?
I have seen and heard more effective and satisfactory expertise coming from healthcare professionals knowledgeable in infectious diseases, and actual plans and policies presented by some state governors than I hear from Trump or comments on these articles.
I think it's fair to criticize Trump for not showing more interest in the Coronavirus issues and support for Federal leadership and support with the states, so that citizens can feel less panicked and more participation in steps needed as the virus spreads. This administration is one of tweets and pronouncements, not expertice development, science, planning and action. We should not excuse ourselves or Trump in letting our nation throw away what made us great, the scientific method and work ethic. There is neither in tweeters.
2
@Kellymcgowan
Please look at the South Korean approach to the Covid-19 epidemic in their country.
1. testing (their population to determine the mortality and morbidity of the virus, an unknown entity for causing disease in people
2. test kit shortages are a production issue, not a governmental issue. can you imagine the number of hack tests being sold if there was no governmental oversight?
3. Preparing for a possible epidemic and pandemic is a serious governmental function. Trump dismantled the organized collective of scientist, epidemiologists and public health officials - started during Obama for the control of Ebola. Trump is continually erasing everything and anything that his predecessor touched without thinking of the consequence, that is what I personally blame him for.
4. The virus needs to be tested, during incubation, illness and recovery if we are to learn anything about new, emerging viruses that are "jumping" from animal hosts on to humans. There is going to be more of them.
5
The death rate is not the only indicator or the severity of this outbreak. If 20 per cent of those who contract the illness require hospitalization, which is a figure from a Canadian public health source, that is enough to totally overwhelm the system. That is enough to cause economic disruption on a grand scale. There is a place between minimization and panic, and that is fact and logic based. Trump’s hunches have no place.
11
Picture pretty much sums it up. A disinterested, intellectually challenged trust-funded game show host who became president of the United States, and so must now pretend to be a conscientious adult.
Guarantee his thoughts during that photo were far, far away from the matter at hand.
23
@James
Don't let them ask me any questions...
Chocolate cake tonight?
Really colorful.
Chocolate cake tonight?
5
@James
It looks like Trump was wrong when he said he could be "as presidential as Lincoln" whenever he wanted. One wonders why the GOP doesn't mind that Trump is only loosely connected to reality, facts, evidence, science etc.
2
France has 9 deaths and almost 577 cases of coronavirus as of today. Are people worried? Of course, but the messaging from the health authorities continues to be clear about the steps to take in order to avoid as much as possible coming into contact with the virus and what to do and who to contact if you think you are showing symptoms. The authorities have announced the strict enforcement of a maximum price for hand sanitizer gels to prevent profiteering, and are encouraging the cancellation of large gatherings. I’ve seen little panic buying at the grocery stores either- people seem watchful but not unduly alarmed.
When I contrast the ignorant, unfocused blathering from Trump since the beginning of the epidemic, with the scenes of Macron and his ministers conferring with, and especially, listening to, the medical authorities, epidemiologists, and front line personnel before they make any declarations, the contrast could not be more stark. The tone from the government here is solemn but reassuring. Of course it’s also much easier not to panic when you live in a country with universal healthcare and you know that if you do fall ill, you will not go bankrupt or lose your job.
25
@Susan Trump cares greatly whether he gets re-elected. Whether the rest of us live or die, not so much.
How many days have I had to wake up feeling irritated at the total incompetence of this “administration’s” failures to do even the basics of governing?
I’ve lost count.
15
I would be most interested in reading an article on what Mike Pence has done in his role as leader of the government response.
7
@SteveS Wouldn't we all.
Well, if people in the various branches of government and the military are so afraid to offend this human waste of space, perhaps they could do as I used to do with my late mother, whom I loved but whose advice wasn’t always good: say “yes mother” and quietly do what’s necessary or appropriate without telling her. Or, perhaps if everyone spoke truth to him, and I mean *everyone*, there’d be no way he could retaliate against them all. Or perhaps, even sillier and more impractical, the top people in all those agencies could resign en masse and there’d be very little he could do about it. I know—silly me!
7
And of course the liberal media is here to do what we all knew they would.
To be clear, the left's criticism of Trump was as inevitable as the right's criticism of Obama. Fortunately, these partisan pundits have come to be ignored by most folks, even those who consider themselves liberals or conservatives. These pundits demonstrate time and again how reflexive and shallow their thinking is. It is all attack, attack, attack, all the time and predictably so. Tedious and easily dismissed as the partisan drivel it is.
1
@Mike James and yet you fail to address the substance of the criticisms. You don't like it that people criticize Trump but the criticisms are apt!
As a Trumpist you are doing an excellent job of imitating your idol. Lots of words, no substance.
10
@Mike James There is no question that it was Trump who reduced CDC funding and staff, even though he has tried to blame Obama, who was out of office when that happened. There is also no question that Trump has carelessly lied to the public with his statements that the virus will go away soon and a vaccine will be ready to use in 2 or 3 months. He was told by CDC experts neither of these things is true, yet he said them to the public. People criticize Trump not only for political differences from him but also because he is careless, ignorant, incompetent, and delusionally sure he knows more than the experts. You don't have to be a Democrat to see those are bad traits in some who is supposed to lead in keeping the country safe.
3
I often wonder, if the worst case plays out with Coronavirus will the True Believers still exclaim, "Trump said it. I believe it. That settles it."?
Will they simply run off the cliff and like Wile E. Coyote and hold up a sign that says "Help" as they careen towards a jarring and catastrophic stop at the bottom?
It is such a perplexing thing to see so many surrender to the rhetoric of a narcissist over even doing what it takes to protect themselves, their families and their communities. Has a vast segment of American society gone absolutely locked ward crazy? (That was rhetorical, since it is regrettably and obviously true.)
The big weakness woven deeply in the fabric of the culture of America is a persistent blindness to the grift of the snake oil panderer, the carnival quack. And do you know why that it, and what it signifies?
It is the Jungian shadow of the American Dream, the dark thread that is unfurling the great tapestry of a Republic soon to be lost, and I have no idea how to stop it. It is almost a virus - virulent and lethal to all.
7
Yes, they will continue to believe it. How could anyone think they wouldn’t?
The majority of Americans have lost or just never developed the talent for critical thinking. Without this skill, they are easily led around by their masters, tugging at their nose rings. The dumbing down of primary education is responsible for lots of this, but the closed minded, puritanical, pseudo religious fundamentalism (any right wing religion is a problem, be it Islam or Christian; they are all the same just different window dressing) that exists in this country owns the other half of this problem.
2
Yet another reason, among too many to count, to vote this administration out of office in November.
8
American people are getting a taste of what it is like to live under a dictatorship as Trump tries to control events beyond his control by his usual technique of lying . Risking the health of Americans in order to enhance Trump's re-election chances is what a dictator would do as Trump seems to think he is the State and wants everyone to sign loyalty pledges of undying love for his rule. Trump's cult are buying whatever he sells and the rest of the country will finally have it confirmed the king has no clothes no matter what Hannity and other sycophants rant about the wonderfulness of Trump.
4
Regarding the cruise ship off the California coast, thousands of people confined in a restricted space is a recipe for spreading a contagious disease. Our inability to take the passengers and crew out of harm’s way is a leadership failure, the lack of testing kits is a leadership failure, and when the White House promotes disingenuous propaganda instead of facts, that is also a leadership failure.
5
Our first crisis as an authoritarian oligarchy.
Going pretty much as expected with propaganda in abundance and medical needs in short supply.
This is where Trump’s corruption and incompetence lands on the doorsteps of his base.
This is what happens when you vote to burn down the country.
7
One of the first things Trump did in 2017-2018 was cut the funding to the CDC and then cut the funding to the Pandemic research departments. These departments fought the HIV virus, H1N1 virus, Sars virus, Zika virus just to name a few. It’s no wonder we can’t get the things we need during this crisis.
we are in this mess due to:
1). defunding and decimating our medical and research institutes for years
2). basic science contradicts his base’s and evangelical’s beliefs
3). republicans, tea party and federalists believe government must be dismantled
4). other “inconvenient truths” get in the way of making republicans and their pals richer
5). Trumps ignorance and insatiable greed for power and money
9
May these recent utterances from DT accomplish the task of finally showing his "Base", who he is, and how little he is capable of, in the midst of world wide efforts being implemented in other countries, far and above what he thinks(?) is needed. He puts us all at risk...even his Base".
4
Did anyone really expect otherwise, especially the GOP?
5
Never-Trumpers like me have been praying for some event that widely demonstrates "the Great Divider" Trump's long self-evident incompetency in this election year, when it's hard to forget. I don't like this answer to my prayer, obviously because it hurts so many people, but maybe, if he loses the election, we conscientious citizens can erect a memorial to those who died of covid-19 so that America might live without our disgrace of a president.
3
"So far, Donald Trump’s response to coronavirus combines the worst features of autocracy and of democracy, mixing opacity and propaganda with leaderless inefficiency."
Michelle Goldberg is spot on.
9
It seems incredible that this country cannot arrange for the on-land quarantine of the passengers on the ship now moored off the coast of California. Perhaps we could issue temporary work visas to the Chinese crews who were able to build hospitals within 10 days as the crisis in Wuhan developed.
6
Do we still have any doubts about how everything...and I mean EVERYTHING is about Trump ?...It is all about him and his insatiable thirst for power, recognition and control?
3
As usual, Goldberg’s perspective and reality are in stark contrast. Never have I seen someone so able to spin the context of every single issue into anti-Trump terms. Climate change, stock market falls, racism, disease, forest fires, hurricanes, sexism, the weather, Global terrorism, rouge nations, Easter eggs. The list goes on and on. Every single item mentioned above has, at one time or another, been spun in a negative light by this wacky author to be negatively impacted by Donald Trump. Of course, what happens is that people begin to ignore her rantings because they are so predictably absurd.
1
In your picture, Trump is zoning out like a party boy in college. Don't know the answer? Make one up. Hey we have all BEEN there, briefly but this is Trump's world...zone out, lie, golf and ridicule.
Trump supposedly wanted John Kasich to take care of the "Presidential stuff" while Trump did the rallies. There are many things on which I disagree with Kasich but Kasich has a spine and better suited to handle a crisis than the current vice president who looks at Trump with such love and admiration even when vile and nonsense spills from his loved ones mouth.
3
Once again Michelle Goldberg and the liberal media are attacking Donald Trump's competency by using facts. Donald Trump did "prepare" America for the Coronavirus. In 2018, Donald Trump shrewdly fired the U.S. pandemic response team. More "brilliantly" Donald Trump's fiscal year 2021 budget proposal included a 16 percent reduction in CDC funding from the 2020 spending levels. In 2015, a new Public Policy Polling survey found 49 percent of Republicans don’t even believe in evolution, so the idea that science is going to solve this pandemic is an idea beyond most members of the GOP. True GOP believers are still taking to hart what Donald Trump said on July 25th of 2018, "What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening." The rest of America should remember all of this when we vote in November.
8
Trump shut down travel from Asia in early January. He was furious that people who were infected were brought to the mainland US rather than quarantined elsewhere. He asked Congress, weeks ago, for a huge increase in spending to fight the virus. House Democrats finally decided which of their special interests would be taken care of and passed a bill. The really bad thing is that the US may not suffer as much as other countries because of Trump’s caution. This could make the slow moving Democrats look bad.
In the meantime Russia, with China to the south and Europe to the East, seems managing the crisis pretty well with only 4 cases.
Trump should seek Putin’s advice on how he is managing it.
@Alain305 Trump is doing exactly what Putin wants, destroying the USA.
1
This will be the end of Trump : the deaths and the market crash will be undeniable. But so sad his incompetence needs to extract such a human cost to become apparent to his erstwhile supporters and the politically unengaged.
4
Trump already touted "his" government's response to the virus vs. Obama's response to SARS (or was it MERS?). It's just a matter of time before he blames Hillary. The king of blame strikes again.
5
Why doctor, I never realized the virus was actually that HUGE!
4
I wrote a comment a long time ago saying that Trump was going to get us all killed.
I was thinking he would get us killed by getting into wars with Iran and NK.
As time went on, I realized I could add the harm he has done with lying, incompetence, removal of professionals in the State Dept. and other depts.,climate change denial and the damage to the EPA and the reversal of environmental regulations- and so many more I cannot list all the ways he has done us physical, mental and emotional harm.
I can now add this total debacle of his handling of the Covid19 pandemic.
Trump is going to get us killed one way or the other.
Happy now Trump voters?
Anyway you look at it, Trump
6
He be a big big baby who needs constant monitoring. Next Fall we put him back in Pre school and clean up the mess he did.
1
Trump is either deliberately or through incompetence handling this crisis 100% wrong. Of course that's Trump, always on the wrong side of everything. It's really too bad the republicans in government have stopped doing their jobs and now only serve Trump's insane whims. This country could really be great, but Trump turns everything he touches to offal, and that is what he's doing to the US.
6
We cannot rid ourselves quick enough from these charlatans.
They are trying to ruin this country one issue at a time. First , Democracy and now our health.
3
Dear NYT:
This column is deeply irresponsible fear-mongering and demonstrates what President Trump meant when he referred to a new Democrat "hoax."
Trump did not muzzle Dr. Fauci, did not urge sick people to go back to work, and did not misstate the number of cases in America at the time.
Gov. Newsom -- not Trump -- gave the order to quarantine passengers onboard the Grand Princess, and it is misleading to blame Trump or Newsom for any specific epidemiological response.
Goldberg does not point to any actual falsehood by the President, who -- while expressing a too optimistic tone -- has generally been in command of the issue, and acted swiftly to ban travel from China and put together a top notch task force.
Compare President Obama's desultory record fighting the much more dangerous H1N1 pandemic.
President Obama dallied four months declaring an H1N1 national emergency. By that time, the disease had infected millions of Americans and more than 1,000 people had died in the U.S, according to CNN in October 2009.
The Obama administration similarly mishandled the ebola epidemic (remember the thousands of defective suiits?), not to mention .
Accusing Trump of "politcizing" the epidemic is an old trick, when it is Goldberg who is guilty of a partisan smear.
1
For openers, you’re repeating a right-wing lie about Obama’s response to H1N1.
It’s easily checkable: they responded in April, not October.
8
@Robert
Jorge repeats a lot of right-wing lies. Maybe it's some sort of gig economy-type job.
This country has a demonstrable capacity to put thousands of children in cages. Perhaps the same efficiencies can be applied to the quarantine of a few hundred cruise ship passengers.
2
The Republican Party infected this nation with the lethal plague of
Trumpitis. Now Americans pay an even heavier price as the Trump lesion blunders through the management of a major international health crisis. Anyone that supports Trump is saying they would rather die than remove the Trump infection and have a functional, moral and competent government which is the only cure for Trumpitis.
5
The real problem seems to be the spreading hysteria caused by a crisis of confidence in the medical institutions of the country. That crisis of confidence is exacerbated by the lack of scientific information that is usually available in these situations. The Trump administration is famous for fantasy speech aimed at social media and extremist political bases. This constant lack of truth in government communications has been normalized and the country and the economy have learned how to ignore it and move on. But this is a situation where lives are at risk and where established scientific procedures have been developed in the past to mitigate those risks. But the very institutions that we now turn to for information are the same that have been drastically defunded over the last three years. The people who should be leading the effort were fired years ago and the remaining agencies are crippled and understaffed. They have dropped the ball on testing, planning, and communication because the Trump administration has done the usual thing: appoint an idiot to head an agency as a way to take it apart. But now that lack of scientific expertise guarantees that this pandemic will be worse than it would have been and probably will be worse than in most other democratic countries. The realization of the damage that this government failure will cause the economy is what is tanking the stock market. The market is telling us that you cannot fix stupid and there are bad times ahead.
5
And ask the sick and the dead if the coronavirus is a hoax. The biggest true hoax is Trump as president and his endless string of lies, distortions, and minimization of truth because they might hurt his re-election chances. Another true hoax is how he has convinced Republicans that his distorted positions are right even though he is a thoroughly despicable individual. Assuming we allow responsible elected individuals to come to power in November, there will be so much in our country to repair assuming the coronavirus has not wiped out population. (Yes, that's a bit extreme, but so is this feeble excuse of a president.)
3
Trump's ace in the hole is he simply doesn't care how many Americans die, as long as he is re-elected.
Ultimately, he will just lie about the actual number, call it a hoax and fake news. Trump will decide the number of deaths he feels comfortable with and that will be how many people perished. The truth is what he decides it is.
Fox News and the Republicans will then go about gaslighting the rest of us. The cowardice on display is beyond revolting.
7
One can only hope that our germaphobic “Very Stable Genius” contracts the virus at his next rally! It will be interesting to see that as this virus spreads across the country whether his base continues to gather in large groups defying the medical expert opinion coming from the deep state. Make America Sick Again!
4
@Neil
Regardless of what happens at his rallies, I predict it will roar through the red states and hit his followers in particular.
Trump is afraid to shake hands with anyone. That is a fact. He wants all of us to believe he will protect us.
Remember that in 2016, Trump promised to turn the government upside down and help the average workers. He HAS turned the government upside down. As to helping the average workers, not so much. In fact, not anything. Just eliminate health care, eliminate Social Security, and hope the elderly die faster.
4
If I recall, members of the government rushed to protect Trump's ego, when he falsely claimed that a hurricane was going to hit Alabama. The National Weather Service said that was incorrect. Trump's minions (notably Wilbur Ross) became very pugnacious towards the scientists at the National Weather Service. So why must Trump's ego be protected from reality? What's really at stake here; truth or protecting an ego that appears to be enormous, but in reality is very fragile indeed.
4
The question that will remain to be seen is whether this "disaster" is really all that bad. It's certainly far less than flu this year in terms of infections, hospitalizations and deaths.
1
@David
The concern about the coronavirus stems from the fact that nobody has immunity and there is no treatment or vaccine. And while it is still poorly understood, the death rate appears to be around 2-3%. If millions of people get the virus (very possible without immunity), we could see deaths on the level of the Spanish Flu, which killed millions.
13
@David
Actually David, even though they have not printed my response yet I am amending it now with this quote from current article in Popular Science:
"The World Health Organization announced this week that COVID-19 kills an average of 3.4 percent of patients, representing a significant increase over the previously estimated death rate of around 2 percent.
"Globally, about 3.4 percent of reported COVID-19 cases have died," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. "By comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1 percent of those infected."
4
@David
Did you miss the part about how this is just the beginning?
3
What a reassuring approach - fact-based policy making and sharing the truth -- to protect the public instead of Trump.
2
Trump see this virus as a public relations crisis not a public health crisis.
22
@Lawrence
You say that like it's a bad thing....
Donald Trump and his sycophant administration clearly broadcast that the stupidity and ineptitude of their response to COVID 19 is generated by Trump's brain.
The best example of this is Trump's indecision about whether he will announce his signing of the bill to fund the battle against the nova coronavirus at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta. At first he was going to take advantage of this great press opportunity.. Then he reversed his decision because he heard that a CDC employee in the Atlanta office had contracted the disease. Then he reversed this decision because he heard that what he had heard earlier was false.
Our courageous POTUS is pri
arily concerned about his own health and secondarily about the political consequences of this pandemic. He seems to be unconcerned about the suffering of the victims of
COVID 19.
8
How pathetic it is that even in a time of an epidemic that is sweeping across the globe, American officials feel they have to tiptoe around the facts because the petulant President might get upset. Wake up folks, this is about the American people being more important than what Don the Con might think. No one can believe anything you say because you are associated with this pathological liar. That’s part of the crisis of confidence.
10
We've been relatively lucky on the natural disaster front since Trump became our whatever. His sycophants and supporters haven't really been confronted with anything impacting their daily lives. And this won't be the catalyst for their epiphany, if hundreds, or thousands, or tens of thousands, perish his supporters will defend him to their own deaths. When you're under the ether, you're under the ether.....this guy's con won't collapse even after exposure to daylight. What a nation of suckers.
8
@Lawrence Siegel
When you say "we," I presume you're excluding the American citizens in Puerto Rico, who have been experiencing the incompetence and malevolence of this maladministration firsthand for years.
3
Love the last line about Trump throwing us paper towels...hey, we could fold them in 1/2, add some duct tape, and poof...a homemade mask. That’ll work.
9
As we saw with crowd sizes and the infamous Sharpie hurricane warning, Trump is too weak to accept fact contrary to what he feels is in his ego’s immediate interests.
Worse, he surrounds himself with pathetic toadies even weaker than himself.
November can’t get here soon enough
15
That we have an ugly frog, nasty and cruel being his hobby, in the Oval Office, is not debatable anymore. That he is a disgrace to this country and an ever present danger to the world, indeed. But two things must be said. One, 'we' the people elected him in spite of knowing what a cheater he was, and is, and how monstrous his ignorance...hence, his arrogant stance in belittling those 'in the know'. Two, he is a narcissist, poor chap, unable to behave differently than what seems his lot in life, that of a narcissistic personality disorder, with an inflated sense of his own importance, a deep thirst for attention and applause, and a total lack of empathy for others. That he has the right to exist, indeed, but at the fringes of society, where the harm can be absorbed with ease. But as president, he is a royal disaster for this nation, and more dangerous now, unhinged from any limits of his ongoing abuse of power. This, with the complicit help of the republican party and the 'Fox Noise' disinformation propaganda Trump craves so much.
10
Hold on everyone.
We all know, and should clearly recognize, that the COVID-19 calamity isn't because of Trump (although we know it really is - wink, wink).
It is, as we should have expected, OBAMA's fault !!
Someone else's failings.....not mine !!
5
Had we closed our borders we would not be facing down this virus as we are today.
1
@Nature
Explain please.
4
@Nature
If we closed the borders to everyone (not just Mexicans), the economy would crash. Is that what you want?
2
@ReasonableSkeptic I was not specifically speaking about the southern border but rather all ports of entry.
The worst of all this will be the corruption. Trump is absolutely salivating over the billions being appropriated by Congress for dealing with the crisis. Plan on a big waste of the money. Plan on it going into the investment accounts of his big money supporters. Feeling sick? Drink oil.
3
Dude won't even throw us some paper towels. I thought that was his solution to things.
2
Pence has said that “4 million tests will be sent out next week.”
As in: ‘the check is in the mail...” ???
3
And Mexico is paying for those test kits.
Michelle - how many people die from car accidents each year? Your logic should blame that on Trump too! Those car deaths are completely avoidable!
1
A narcissist can bully old ladies and grown men but there's no way to bully a virus.
This is truly crisis territory for Trump's ego.
We are all in trouble.
5
"And this color is blue, and we've got green...." on the subject of green, no funding for the disease center, but we're building a beautiful wall that Mexico isn't paying for. Trump feels this will block the virus coming through south of the border. Genius...
4
Trump was overheard complaining to Mick Mulvaney that the whole Covfefe-19 thing was old news.
3
Q. How do you know when Donald Trump is lying?
A. His lips are moving.
Trump had zero believability before this virus. He has exceeded his Pinocchio expectations by a nose.
4
Maybe this lesson in stupidity and self interest delivered by President Bozo will make this a country that puts its faith in science instead of in hucksterism.
Maybe this lesson will make us realize that the federal agencies that have been ridiculed and defunded the past three years often stand between us and disaster.
Maybe we will rise up angry and demand a true democracy of by and for the people.
7
Trump obviously has a very tiny vocabulary . Whenever news comes up that makes him look bad, e chants "hoax, hoax, hoax". He had to get a more educated lackey in the Pentagon to expand it into "dishonest misrepresentation". Talking about impeachment, he said that it was a "hoax" and even a "phony hoax", not realizing that the statements contradicted rather than reinforced each other. He meant to say the accusations were a hoax; the impeachment process was perfectly real. What an idiot, and he's in charge of a potential crisis now.
4
Ms Goldberg, please tell me which global leader has any control over this virus and it’s spread? I’m waiting for your response. Crickets. Chirp chirp.
@PJ Global leaders have the power to fund (or defund, as the case may be) institutions like the CDC, whose sole purpose is to control viruses and their spread. They also have the ability (or inability) to provide timely, accurate, and factual information to their constituency.
Chirp chirp.
5
Trump just doesn't have what it takes. He lacks the smarts and has been coasting on lies, braggadocio, and threats his whole life, further enabled and by inherited money and now by political lowlifes of questionable intellect.
5
While the Trump Administration's incompetence is blatantly on display daily, Trump's supporters see (a la Fox lens) just the opposite. Trump is their savior not because he has made their lives better but because he brings to their self-perceived oppressed and victimized lives lives moments of joy by outraging, disgusting and infuriating Democrats, liberals, people with college educations, experts in fields of science, medicine, economics, and on and on.
You cannot humiliate Trump by exposing his lies, his lack of character, his baseness. Nor can you embarrass him by pointing out his incompetence. He lives in a world with and where those around him and those who support him across the country can't tolerate reality, but do get a thrill when reality is subjected to stupidity and resisters are punished.
3
Outbreak/Ship of Fools(advised by)/Conspiracy Theory
Trump observing the virus model.
Words fail me.
2
Inept, incompetent, mendacious. The motto of the Trump administration.
2
It must be excruciating to have to explain science to a President who has absolutely no desire to understand anything more complex than a crude sexual remark, or third grade name calling. Good luck to us.
3
Trump is a virtual reality, i.e. fake, president. He knows nothing, understands nothing, and tries to act a part for which he is totally unfit. As he could never learn to read, write, or spell, he can't even begin to understand a policy area. So his great natural genius for lying, cheating, and bullying are all he has in any situation. Poor America, it has a gang of malevolent and incompetent crooks in charge when confronted by crisis or disasters. Corona virus doesn't offer any obvious way for Trump to make money, so the whole subject is just a nuisance for him - a hoax, as he'd like to believe.
5
When you have a criminal as president you can expect nothing less. It’s all about him. “ Ask not what you can do for your country, but what you can do for me” type of leader.
Pathetic.
Jail would be appropriate for many in this administration- and they’ve got their private prisons ready to go.
3
The President wants to be applauded for the fact that the United States ONLY has X cases of Coronavirus and has had ONLY X deaths. What would those numbers be if we had adequate testing availability like every other western world country? We will never know. I live in a state where there are no confirmed cases with little to no available testing. To believe there is no Coronavirus in my state is idiotic.
659
@E "What would those numbers be if we had adequate testing availability like every other western world country? We will never know."
We do know; take a look at the western world countries and the numbers they have openly reported? As others have alluded to, the coronavirus is becoming more of a stage to express general disdain for the president than a discussion on the best way to handle it as a global effort.
4
@E
A really terrifying thought is that Trump and his protectors are limiting the number of tests deliberately, to avoid confirming cases of Coronavirus in the US. They'll call anything not tested the 'regular' flu. For sure, he doesn't care how many die if he, family and friends are safe. And he has to look good.
Lie, deny, cover up, then brag about how great the economy is: standard Trump response to everything.
73
@E Well, if people aren't dying in your state, it may not be much of a concern. The reaction to this vs. the flu is informative since the flu is so much worse this year: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm
3
our lack of testing capacity and planning to deal with a pandemic is Trump's fault—full stop.
Trump Has Sabotaged America’s Coronavirus Response
As it improvises its way through a public health crisis, the United States has never been less prepared for a pandemic.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/
8
You can smell the fear in the executive branch. One example: Department of State leadership has not provided clear Covid-19 guidance to its tens of thousands of employees overseas, presumably because the Washington climate does not allow decisive action. Similar threats in the past, such as SARS, led to prompt authorized departure of family members and non-essential employees over a broad geographic area. While taking very limited action (as in China) may be safer politically for Secy Pompeo, there exists a real danger that the quick-moving spread of infection will leave thousands of employees and family members needlessly stranded in areas with minimal public health infrastructure. Already several weeks have been lost.
7
Today the President signed an $8.5 billion bill to aid the Corona virus‘ control. No doubt a worthwhile expenditure, but where is that $8.5 billion coming from? More debt. The US debt is already $22 trillion. And at less than 1% return on 10 year treasuries whom do we expect to buy that debt? Maybe it’s time to review and reduce the military’s $900+ billion dollar budget and reset our priorities, right General Eisenhower?
7
When this is over, even Trump's fans need to acknowledge he's a real estate developer, nothing more. His expertise in science, whether global warming or infectious diseases, is zero.
In a situation like this, there is no reason to trust anything he says, even if it's what you like to hear. A lot of his lying is harmless, but this time, not so.
17
@JR As Mike Bloomberg said, Trump is not even a real estate developer, only a real estate promoter. All smoke and mirrors...
4
@JR,
"His expertise in science, whether global warming or infectious diseases, is zero." Same can be said about every past president, except Jimmy Carter, who was a nuclear engineer, and look at what he got us. Thank you.
@Southern Boy
You're right about that. Probably the only time I'll ever agree with you.
BUT other presidents have surrounded themselves with those who DID have the expertise in science. And listened to them.
Donald Trump thinks science is for chumps.
1
Where will we be at two months from now? Streaming past Uranus and headed for deep space? If people of normal intelligence were in positions of influence they would have started (many weeks ago) a growing detailed international collaborative examination of what had happened, how it had happened, and be making diligent efforts to draw ongoing conclusions to guide a worldwide response funded by the advanced countries, the US foremost among them. Making mistakes is one thing. Failing to learn from them (and engaging in the related coverup) is another.
Sadly, the Trump administration's mental bandwidth is mostly devoted to their traditional blame game. What's the cost of reactive sloth? Right now it's a growing death toll and trillions of dollars.
For anyone expressing fears of panic, I would have to respond that panic comes when the public feels that the emergency continues unabated and leadership fails to lead. It's at that point that the outlook of "every man for himself" swamps the preceding complacency and the stores are swept clean of essentials. That sounds like a description of where the world is headed right now.
There's a vacuum of intelligent leadership at the highest levels. Pence's contradictory remarks concerning coronavirus test kits underscore that fact. The man in charge says "get tested" then a few hours later admits that the number of test kits is completely inadequate for the foreseeable future. This crisis is a moving target and that target is you.
17
Trump and his feckless administration had over a month to prepare test kits for wide distribution, understand the implications of the Wuhan epidemic, prepare for the economic consequences. They learned nothing from the Chinese experience and simply followed Trump's time-tested formula: banning foreigners would be enough. This lays bare the whole incompetence of the present administration in a nutshell, and some Americans will pay with their lives.
19
Is it going to take thousands of American deaths to Covid-19 to get some of the Base to wake up to the disaster they support?
Or will Base members succumb with Fox news and right-wing propaganda braying in the background?
15
What You Need To Know:
1. The virus is spreading, the more it spreads, the more it spreads, this is called a pandemic. You can observe it
2. The pandemic can end in two ways, people can do the obvious, stay home, avoid social contact, or the virus can kill as many as it can until only people able to survive are left.
3. One of the problems we face is world wide panic that officials have only made worse by trying to avoid it by not keeping the public informed. Well, panic is coming, one of the ways we know this by going to a drugstore, drug stores are all out of the things you want.
4. Probably millions will die short of a miracle cure. When experts say don't shake hands it should alert you to the serious nature of the situation.
5. Do not listen to the president, besides being remarkably ignorant, and stupid, he lies about everything.
6. Nitrile gloves — Google them, the first thing you see is — in stock, ships today.
7. Our overlords putting money ahead of life will be the fuel that kills millions. Time to hit Antarctica except it is there too. Maybe book a flight with Elon Musk.
Welcome to the modern world. I went to a recently released movie last night. There were at most nine people attending and sitting as far apart as possible.
Are you happy now Republicans, or can you swallow this too?
As Trump would say; sad, very sad.
19
@The Iconoclast
"5. Do not listen to the president, besides being remarkably ignorant, and stupid, he lies about everything."
What has the world come to when somebody has to advise their fellow citizens of such a thing?
When the number of Americans confirmed to have the coronavirus explodes, Trump likely will claim it's the result of Democrats with the virus deliberately going out and infecting others just to make Trump look bad.
17
Ms. Goldberg writes:
“In February, when Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, warned that community spread of coronavirus in America was inevitable, the president was reportedly furious, and the director of the C.D.C. said she misspoke.”
I don’t get it? Who cares if Trump gets mad? I’m sick of hearing how administrative officials have to say they misspoke because Trump was furious. Let him stew.
The public needs the facts. Today reports and maps showed only 200 Americans have the virus. How can that be when there are 2700 people being watched in New York, and Gov Newsom announced that 8400 people were being watched in California ten days ago?
The truth: no testing equals under reporting.
And who’s to blame for that? The guy stewing in the White House.
What a mess!
20
Anything Trump doesn’t like is a “Hoax”. He persists in ascribing to others characteristics of himself. Simply put, he is the hoax and the pox on all of us.
18
"...on Friday morning...at the last minute [Trump] scrapped plans to visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, forgoing a chance to tour the nerve center of the government’s response to the health crisis."
he said he would only do it if he could wear a full bio-hazard jump suit and closed system respirator but Kellyanne said the optics would be "...so wrong..." Trump cancelled.
10
Ironically the Trump regime and his entire criminal enterprise are infinitely more pernicious than the coronavirus will ever be, yet we sit back and do nothing while he ravages the country and does his best to destroy America. Lucky us.
12
Poor Trump, the coronavirus is so unfair.
18
It’s pathetic that in a time of crisis we can’t trust our own government to tell the truth.
15
I gotta hand it to the opinion writers at the times. To immerse themselves in the minutiae of Trump's childlike behavior day after day must be exhausting. I know I'm sick of reading about it, it must be worse to have to write about it. I now simply know he's horrible, but predictable, I don't need the details. In fact I'm better off without them. We all knew how he would react to a crisis, any crisis.
7
The calamity is ongoing. DT is incompetent and incapable of leadership . He is like a snake oil salesman and has his underlings intimidated. He casts blame cunningly and thrives on chaos. Regime change is the only recourse. Bring United back to the United States.
12
I wonder if the White House is checking temperatures of employees and visitors and limiting who can get close to the President.
That would say a lot.
7
So let's just simplify this article. Trump is to blame for doing something to fight the spread of the virus? If Trump had done nothing this columinist would have complained. Trump does something and the columinist complains. Anti-Trump propaganda knows no bounds.
@Chris - What has Trump done? Congratulate himself, minimize the threat, discount experts, egregiously misunderstand how viruses and vaccines work. Get your head out in the light again, you look and sound foolish.
2
“President Trump” is an oxymoron. A real president would find a way to get all of the passengers on the Grand Princess off now, perhaps smart enough to house them at Disneyland.
4
1. The coronavirus disease is an invention by the Democrats to bring down Trump.
2. As in Iran, let's not talk about it.
3. As in Iran, prayer is the method to defeat it. And the right person for this is VP Pence.
7
"When are people going to stop being so selfish, and start thinking about me?!", said the President.
14
Facts are facts.
Trump closed the offices in the White House and at the NSC to deal with EXACTLY this kind of crisis.
He did so because they were created by the Obama administration during and after their involvement in the Ebola crisis.
Trump can have nothing positive or admired from the Obama era. It is like his Kryptonite.
Trump also had a huge cut in his budget for CDC and NIH this year and has been a consistent critic and fund cutter for scientific agencies and endeavors.
Perhaps most telling is that Trump has created a culture where he is always right, never wrong, about any subject whatsoever no matter if he is totally ignorant. He is still right, even when totally wrong, and others must bow to his supremacy.
The cherry on top? He has managed to surround himself with sycophants who follow along, right up to calling a real health crisis, which can and will get far worse, another 'hoax'.
Trumps has destroyed Truth and Facts amongst his followers and his cult will let him shoot someone on 5th Avenue, and also let him get away with many other absurd things.
This guy is utterly incompetent and has to go.
17
@Equilibrium there's a poster hanging in the oval office, The Rules. Rule one...the president is right. Rule 2...the president is always right. Rule 3...in case of disagreement, refer to Rule 2.
just once i would like to see someone stand up to him, publicly, in his presence, and refuse to back down. hpw satisfying it would be to watch him splutter.
3
@david
Pelosi had that wonderful moment when she smacked him down and wagged her finger at him in the Oval.
She told him to not tell her what she thinks or knows.
He was flabbergasted by it.
1
President Trump lies are now against a virus, tiny little thing, he can’t avoid it, “foxnews” it, blame Obama for everything, and call it a hoax, still, when people get sick, and can’t be tested, or treated, it is on him. There you have it, the emperor has no clothes moment, and on top if everything, this one that can be deadly....
9
In all this justifiable criticism of Trump's "handling" of this public health emergency, we have to remember that President Trump is an admitted "germophobe."
So Trump's manifest incompetence with corona virus issues is in part a result of his being scared to death of getting sick. He is seeking to reassure himself in his bizarre quasi-medical tweets and public statements.
But like Trump's intentional ignorance about global warming and environmental protection, in his emotionally crippled response to the corona virus emergency we can now all plainly see that life is NOT a reality show that Trump can control.
God grant that we get rid of President Trump before his emotional disabilities and policy incompetence gets rid of all that we value.
8
Trump never gets sick because that would be weak. He cannot stand weakness, sickness, or any disability.
I expect to see cruelty now. He loves cruelty, so he will find some person to be cruel to so he can feel strong again.
Right now he has that sinking feeling of weakness, and he is angry about it. Time to hurt some people.
7
I am waiting for Trump to say:
“Get over it. The Coronavirus kills people”
It would be a precious bookend to this sorry period in our lives.
7
Trump's supporters will stick with him until they PERSONALLY are negatively affected by his egotistical incompetence. They have had the pleasure of watching liberal "elites" writhing in frustration and disgust at Trump's outrageous, politically incorrect antics for three and a half years. However, if they or one of their family or friends catches the coronavirus and can't get tested because of the federal government's lack of preparedness, they won't find Trump's mugging and lying entertaining any more.
3
You would hope so. However, I am more sanguine about it. Trump supporters are more like zombies at this stage. Haven’t you noticed?
Reading history one thing comes through loud and clear: never give a dictator bad news.
And so its worth thinking about what happens when people give trump bad news
5
Morally bankrupt former game show host president with no prior political experience is responding to a pandemic by.
1...Telling Americans to be on guard and see a doctor when symptoms occur.
2...Wash your hands and keep the children inside
3...Go to work. People are getting better on their own at work.
Ding..ding. ding...The answer is 3.
He would rather Americans potentially spread the virus at work than stay at home and lower the GDP, which would look bad for him.
9
@dsmith Well, you really SHOULD wash your hands and try not to touch your face. And that's advice from actual medical professionals, not Trump
Michelle,
I hate to burst your anti-Trump bubble, but there is very little more than Trump or anyone else could have done. Actually, he immediately (January) tried to control flights from China and was even called a racist by Chuck Schumer.
And, if you recall the pandemic swine flu of 2009, Obama reacted only in October - 6 months after the first detected case in March 2009.
2
@RMM Wrong. Was firing the Pandemic Response team the right thing to do? Along with firing their chain of command and defunding the CDC and NIH, this anti-science administration has unilaterally positioned this country for the inadequate response we're seeing now.
ANY president could, and would, have preserved our first response team, and preparedness is obvious only in the situation we're in. Poor decisions are the mark of poor intellect and disorganization, and we have that in abundance.
1
@RMM
"And, if you recall the pandemic swine flu of 2009, Obama reacted only in October - 6 months after the first detected case in March 2009."
Sorry, that's totally untrue and has been thoroughly debunked.
Let me guess - you get your news from Facebook.
At a rally in North Carolina on Monday, several of Trump’s backers said they did not consider the coronavirus dangerous, with one telling an NBC News reporter she did not believe the virus existed. “It’s not that dangerous,” Deborah Cardwell, 63, of Iron Station, N.C., who attended Trump’s rally on Monday told The Washington Post. “I mean, the flu is a whole lot worse.” Cardwell said Trump’s leadership on the coronavirus was reminiscent of “George Washington or some of the early presidents.”
“He has handled it just fantastic,” said Tish Schultheiss, 68, of Greensboro, N.C. “Because he stopped it early, the flights coming in from countries that did have it. He has got a task force now that’s working on this. A vaccine will be made before long. I feel safe about that, too.”
It's sad that some folks have such ignorance.
12
When the US Surgeon General tweets anything related to COVID-19, he adds @realDonaldTrump and @VP to them so that Dear Leader and his public health menace sidekick see that he's following their propaganda and loyalty orders.
That alone should cause Americans to demand his resignation and his medical license to be revoked.
Do no harm to Trump has replaced, first, do no harm.
The blue states will probably weather this somewhat better than red states, because on the whole, they fund public health agencies more robustly, and they follow the science over coercive propaganda. But now that SWAT ICE is infiltrating sanctuary states/cities - also blue areas, expect the pursued to go to ground and spread, suffer and die of COVID-19 in exponentially higher numbers.
2
Trump & Co seem to be taking the Iranian approach to solving the problem.
4
He has lied so much and so often that nothing he says now can ever be considered the truth!
5
Why on earth would any expect competence from anyone in this administration?
7
What is the US postal service doing to prevent the spread of the coronavirus ?
If the mail person coughs or sneezes in his mail truck are all the envelopes /packages contaminated and for how long ?
https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/local-usps-employee-tests-positive-coronavirus/XLKCBEXO5FFJ3DRQSBHNACPW2M/
1
Why show him a model? Give him the real thing!
3
"Messaging" isn't leadership.
3
The cure for this epidemic and many other outrageous trump actions is, and has always been, the 25th Amendment!!!
2
Reagan won the White House by asking a simple question: are you better off today than you were four years ago? Trump can be defeated by this simple question: If your life depended on it, would you trust Donald Trump to tell the truth?
2
A picture is worth a thousand words.
Here are three: Bored, petulant, disinterested.
6
Will the coronavirus be the wake up moment for avid Trump supporters when they contract the virus. My goodness, our leader lied to us.
1
“So far, Donald Trump’s response to coronavirus combines the worst features of autocracy and of democracy, mixing opacity and propaganda with leaderless inefficiency.”
Couldn’t be better said, Ms. Goldberg. Lying through his teeth, Trump called the WHO’s data “a false number” and proposed his “hunch” that the data was much less severe, downplaying the seriousness of the epidemic, and touting his own patently false narrative as “truth”. So hunches are now gospel, eh President Bone Spur? It would be a hoot were it not so deadly serious. Just shows you Trump will say ANYTHING, no matter how preposterous. This man and his cadre of sycophants disgust me more than ever and they need to be shown the DOOR.
Vote Blue No Matter Who.
6
Let's play a game, for the moment let us assume that Obama is President and he did exactly the same exact things that Trump has done.
Tell me how you would feel if I told you there were 100,000 virus cases throughout the world and we had 159 of them.
Wouldn't you say that Obama did a good job??
We were always going to have to face a threat like this at some point. It couldn't come at a worse time.
Despite all Trump/GOP lies the Coronavirus proves Competence and Leadership Matter, Good Government Matters, Institutions Matter.
Trump and the GOP are utterly incapable of dealing with any health crisis, let alone one of this magnitude. They hate science and defunded our health protections. Trump just tried to cut over 1 billion dollars from the CDC, 300 million from infectious disease preparedness, and end a host of programs developing vaccines against pathogens.
Trump's plan was to pilfer 1-2 billion dollars, totally insufficient, from other essential medical programs. Fortunately Democrats, just passed an 8.3 billion dollar plan.
The Coronavirus is immune to Trump's bullying and lies. How many Americans must suffer greatly because fools elected a total incompetent as president?
Consider how Trump has dealt with this so far: He's stated it's nothing, will go away in warmer weather, is no worse than the Common Cold, he called it fake news, a Democratic conspiracy, and denied Congressional Democrats funding to battle it for over a month.
It wouldn't be surprising if Trump next blames The Deep State, Mexicans, George Soros and Disloyal Jews, and the Central Park Five.
This is why any sane American would always want someone like Obama, and never Trump, to be president.
Sadly, it wouldn't be surprising if at some point Trump tries to pardon the Coronavirus.
1
"I'm trying to put on my "intelligent, engaged" face."
4
And GOP as well.
All of current Republicans still want to investigate
1. Hillary's emails
2. Biden
3. Fire real civil servants
4. Sell America to highest bidders
5. Put their incompetent friends into power positions
.. list is too long - but you get the idea.
But don't want to do an iota of work to help my America and real Americans.
They're worse then traitors.
7
That picture sums it up: The person who should be engaged in the discussion looks like he is falling asleep, or thinking of his potential condos in North Korea, or how his hair looks. He has no interest in promoting health and safety. His only concern is himself.
Sure wish this 'hoax' of a virus would slow down, but he's not standing in the way.
7
At best we are still stuck with Trump for another 10 months. This just is not working. Unimaginable that this country is going to have to limp through this crisis with the worst, and most corrupt president at the helm, incapable of telling the truth.
His main focus now is his re-election. He sends juvenile tweets calling people stupid names while the country is in crisis. If this was an episode of the Apprentice, he would have been fired a long time ago. Epic failure.
3
Matt, sorry (actually not sorry) to burst your blind devotion to all things Donald Trump, but the Federal Government's response to the COVID 19 pandemic is a 100% reflection on Trump's management style (chaos, arrogance, incompetence, and narcissism) and the lack of qualified people Donald Trump put into cabinet positions and underneath in Cabinet lower echelons of government. Shoe shining and kowtowing aren't skills.
Our nation's government officials are a collection of sycophants, and their allegiance is to the modern day equivalent of Preacher Jim Jones. This is a recipe for calamity and disaster.
Our government ignores and squashing facts and eschews sound data collection and reporting - a fundamental management technique (clearly not done) - how do you manage a crisis? You can't! No matter what Trump tweets or the misinformation spread by Trump and Pence - two least qualified people to manage a crisis - it's clear COVID 19 doesn't listen to them.
You want to brush off this situation, Matt? Wait until the full repercussions of massive disruptions to the global supply chain are manifest. THIS EVENT IS COMING.
2 to 3% drop in stock market today will be a drop in the bucket when disruptions start layoffs, firms can't make their debt obligations, service sector slows. NOT DELUSION - it's cold hard reality of capitalism.
Life is about choices and decisions. Trump gutted CDC funding for pandemics. Instead he opted to build a border wall for $3.6B. Stupid. Incompetent.
2
There you go again, politicizing an epidemic.
1
Look at Trump's face in that photo. Does he look even remotely interested?
His only thought is, "how can I make this go away so I don't end up looking like a loser?"
5
Trump couldn't run a bath let alone a country ...the chickens have come home to roost ...it was only a matter of time and sadly many Americans will die as a result of poor planning and preparedness.
5