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Early in March 2020 we had the following reactions to the
escalating Coronavirus threat.
“U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he was not concerned
about being exposed to the coronavirus after dining last week with Brazilian President Jair
Bolsonaro, whose press aide tested positive.
“Trump had dinner at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida,
last Saturday night. Bolsonaro's communications aide Fabio Wajngarten, who also met Trump
at Mar-a-Lago, tested positive for the virus, his communications office said in a statement.
" ‘ Let's put it this way: I'm not concerned,’
[Emphasis mine] Trump told reporters . . .” (Ref. 1)
“Academy Award-winning actor Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson have
tested positive for the coronavirus, Hanks revealed Wednesday.
- - -
“Hanks announced the couple’s diagnosis on social media accounts,
including Instagram and Twitter.
“ ‘Hello, folks. Rita and I are down here in Australia,’ he wrote.
‘We felt a bit tired, like we had colds, and some body aches. Rita had some chills that came
and went. Slight fevers too. To play things right, as is needed in the world right now,
we were tested for the Coronavirus, and were found to be positive.’
“ ‘Well, now. What to do next? The Medical Officials have protocols
that must be followed. We Hanks will be tested, observed, and isolated for as long
as public health and safety requires. [Emphasis mine] Not much more to it than a
one-day-at-a-time approach, no?’ “ (Ref. 2)
"I'm not concerned." Let’s see if I’ve got this right. The
President goes on television to tell us how serious is the Coronavirus threat, orders a
suspension of all travel from Europe to the U.S. by non-citizens and tells us to take
extraordinary precautions to prevent contracting the disease. Then he shrugs off his and
his wife’s exposure to the disease with a dismissive “I'm not concerned".
No testing for Coronavirus and no self-quarantine to protect others!
On the other hand, we have Tom Hanks and his wife who came down
with virus symptoms. They get tested for the Coronavirus and went into quarantine when the
test proves positive. Congratulations to the Hanks for taking responsible and
immediate action in the face of the declared pandemic!
Earlier, President Trump had downplayed the significance of the
Coronavirus threat. In the first week in March, Trump said "he didn't see any reason to be
tested for the coronavirus after three people he had contact with went into self-quarantine
after being exposed to an individual with the disease.
“ 'I don't think it is a big deal. [Emphasis mine]
I don't feel any reason, I feel extremely good. I feel very good,' he told reporters on
Capitol Hill after he met with Senate Republicans to discuss a package to combat the
economic effects of the disease.
- - -
“{Later, at} a press conference in the White House briefing
oom . . . the president refused to answer repeated questions on whether he had been
tested.
“{The} White House press secretary . . . announced later that
night he had not.
- - -
“However, that same evening Trump's new acting chief of staff . . .
announced he was exposed to the virus and was under self-quarantine.
- - -
“Trump has been exposed to at least three people who have gone
into self-quarantine as a precaution.
- - -
“{Vice President Mike Pence} and President Trump both attended
the Conservative Political Action Conference at the end of last month, where an attendee
tested positive for the disease.” (Ref. 3)
Why does a film star take the Coronavirus seriously while the
President of the United States doesn’t “think it is a big deal”? “At
the Pentagon, top military brass have begun ‘social distancing’ to avoid spreading disease.
At the Capitol, legislators have been encouraged to forgo hand shakes and flash the
‘Star Trek’ Vulcan greeting instead.
“But at the White House, President Donald Trump is flouting
his own government’s advice on how to stay safe. He continues to shake hands with
supporters and visitors, hold large events and minimize the threat posed by a coronavirus
outbreak that has infected more than 115,000 people and killed over 4,000 worldwide {as
of early March 2020}.
“Public health officials said Trump was sending the
wrong message with his behavior and potentially putting the public at risk by sowing
confusion and undermining efforts to keep people safe, especially if the situation
grows worse. [Emphasis mine]
- - -
“Trump has repeatedly played down the risk, both to the public
and himself, even as he claims that his administration is ‘taking this unbelievably
seriously.’
- - -
“. . . Trump has already had personal contact with several
individuals known to have been exposed to the virus. They include Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz,
who traveled aboard Air Force One with the president . . . and found out midflight that
he was among a handful of GOP lawmakers who were exposed to a person who tested positive
for the virus after last month’s Conservative Political Action Conference.
“Gaetz voluntarily quarantined himself, as have several other
legislators who had contact with the infected person at CPAC, including Trump’s incoming
chief of staff. {But not Donald Trump!}
- - -
“. . . At the Pentagon, Defense Department officials have been
sitting at least six feet apart, in line with health guidance. And on Tuesday, reporters’
chairs were spread out for a news briefing. On Capitol Hill, Democratic lawmakers were
barred from helping themselves to a breakfast buffet or touching serving utensils, and
told to avoid kissing, hugging and shaking hands.
“But not Trump [Emphasis mine] — a pattern
that . . . a professor of health policy at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, said appeared motivated by Trump’s desire
to protect the economy in an election year.
“ ‘Right or wrong, the president’s decided he wants to minimize
the economic impact of this pandemic. … He’s trying to do everything he can to protect the
economy by saying, ‘It will be over,’ ‘It’s not that bad,’ ‘Feel free to go places,’
{he} said. While much uncertainly remains, ‘if it turns out to be more serious,
the president’s contributing to people not protecting themselves.’
[Emphasis Mine]
“ ‘The president should be keeping us safe. He shouldn’t be
amplifying the risk,' added {a member} of Georgetown University.
“ ‘The message should be: Let’s have social distancing, let’s
avoid the usual cultural symbols of shaking hands, let’s separate from one another and
avoid either contracting or transmitting a very dangerous infection,’ {he} said. ‘And it’s
baffling to me that the president, who should be the model of good behavior, is
modeling exactly the opposite.' ” [Emphasis Mine] (Ref. 4)
Finally, after being repeatedly shamed for not being tested for
the Coronavirus more than a week after being exposed to several persons who had tested
positive to the virus, Trump reluctantly got tested with negative results. After weeks of
saying he didn’t need to be tested, he gave in, saying, “I decided I should, based on the
press conference yesterday.” (Ref. 5)
To further erode confidence in what the President is saying, we
take note of Trump’s misstatement, lack of understanding, or simply his penchant for
ignoring facts. On 19 March 2020, “Internet search giant Google has denied a
claim by US president Donald Trump that the company is working with the government to
develop a website that will allow the public to find out if they require a test for the
coronavirus (Covid-19). [Emphasis mine]
“Trump made the claim during a press conference about the
government’s emergency declaration on the coronavirus pandemic.
“ ‘Google is going to develop a website — it’s going to be very
quickly done, unlike websites of the past — to determine if a test is warranted and to
facilitate testing at a nearby convenient location,’ Trump said.
“ ‘We have many, many locations behind us, by the way. We cover
this country and large parts of the world, by the way. We’re not gonna be talking about
the world right now, but we cover very, very strongly our country. Stores in virtually
every location. Google has 1,700 engineers working on this right now. They have made
tremendous progress.’
“According to technology website The Verge, most of
that statement is untrue, and the rest is only partly true. [Emphasis mine]
“Google’s parent company, after a recent restructuring, is
Alphabet. Another small division is Verily Life sciences, which is indeed developing a
website, but not for the purposes stated.
“ ‘We are developing a tool to help triage individuals for
Covid-19 testing. Verily is in the early stages of development, and planning to roll
testing out in the Bay Area, with the hope of expanding more broadly over time,’ the
company said in a statement sent to The Verge.
“The triage website, the company explained, would only
be accessible to health care professionals, and only in a limited area around San
Francisco. [Emphasis mine]
- - -
“At the {President’s} press conference . . . the administration’s
coronavirus coordinator showed a flow-chart purporting to explain how the website would
function. . .
“However neither Google, Verily or Alphabet were invited to take
part in the press conference, although other companies were present.”
(Ref. 5) Maybe they weren’t invited because facts could only confuse
President Trump.
Ever since the world became aware of the Coronavirus threat, President
Trump has waffled on the subject, reversed himself, issued conflicting statements and spouted
incorrect information. Even at the end of March 2020, 3 months into the epidemic, President
Trump still continues to confuse the American public.
“For months, the president has downplayed the severity of the pandemic,
overstated the impact of his policies and potential treatments, blamed others and tried to
rewrite the history of his response.
“President Donald Trump has had distant relationship with facts
in his responses about the coronavirus pandemic.
“Hours after the United States became the nation with the largest
number of reported coronavirus cases on Thursday {26 March 2020}, President Trump appeared
on Fox News and
expressed doubt about shortages of medical supplies, boasted about the country’s testing
capacity, and criticized his predecessor’s response to an earlier outbreak of a different
disease.
“{As recently as the last week of March, we hear:} ‘I don’t believe
you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators,’ he said, alluding to a request by Gov. Andrew Cuomo
of New York. The president made the statement in spite of government reports predicting
shortages in a severe pandemic — and he reversed course on Friday morning, calling for urgent
steps to produce more ventilators.
- - -
“{With respect to his repeated misstatements:} These
falsehoods, like dozens of others from the president since January, demonstrate some core
tenets of how Mr. Trump has tried to spin his response to the coronavirus epidemic to his
advantage. . .
“When the first case of the virus was reported in the United
States in January, Mr. Trump dismissed it as one person coming in from China. He said the
situation was under control 'and it’s going to be just fine’ — despite a top official from
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention telling the public to ‘expect more cases.’
- - -
“The president has also dispensed a steady stream of optimism when
discussing countermeasures against the virus.
“From later February to early March, Mr. Trump repeatedly promised
that a vaccine would be available ‘relatively soon’ despite being told by public health
officials and pharmaceutical executives that the process would take 12 to 18 months. Later,
he promoted treatments that were still unproven against the virus, and suggested that they
were ‘approved’ and available though they were not.” (Ref. 7)
Facts and Donald Trump continue to be total strangers to each other.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
References:
- Trump says not concerned he was exposed to coronavirus by Brazilian official,
Steve Holland, Yahoo!News,
12 March 2020.
- Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson test positive for coronavirus, Sarah Whitten,
CNBC, 12 March 2020.
- I've got NO reason to be tested and 'I feel extremely good' says Donald Trump after
his chief of staff goes into quarantine after possible exposure at CPAC,
Emily Goodin, Daily Mail, 10 March 2020.
- As Americans take virus precautions, Trump flouts advice, Jill Colvin,
The Seattle Times, 10 March 2020.
- Trump says he was tested for coronavirus, is awaiting results, David Boyer,
The Washington Times,
14 March 2020.
- Coronavirus: Google denies developing self-diagnosis website, Alan Hope,
The Brussels Times, 14 March 2020.
- Analyzing the Patterns in Trump’s Falsehoods About Coronavirus, Linda Qiu,
The New York Times,
27 March 2020.
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