The novel coronavirus is ultimately an act of nature. It can, and will, be condoned as an act of God, with a bat or similar disease carrying species playing the conduit. It is said to have been a result of poorly managed butchering of unconventional cuisine in the province of Wuhan, China. Knowledge of the outbreak is said to have been suppressed with the intention of using it to upset the political and economic balance in the world. A single fact is in there somewhere. I don’t know, as I was not there. The subsequent facts are transparent enough however. China’s dictatorial government was able to cut the damage of the outbreak to a minimum. Its people are disciplined, having been the subjects of much governmental insurrection up to Tiananmen Square. The virus attached itself to a traveler and spread to other continents, other countries, all of which, with competent leaders and people with varying levels of discipline, had beaten “the curve” of the virus within four months of its introduction. February 2020 left options for America. It stands as a month when at least 36,000 initial deaths could have been averted. The wagging fingers of blame for those initial (and subsequent) deaths extend unequivocally to the current administration. The following are facts that led to those deaths. They also serve to keep the U.S. at the bottom of the list of countries who have beaten the COVID curve.1/13/17 the Obama-Trump transition runs pandemic preparedness exercises. Sometime after this the new administration is briefed on an Obama era National Security Council pandemic “playbook.” It chooses not to adopt this in its strategy.
Between March and May of 2017 Trump proposes cutting $277 million from pandemic preparedness funding.
5/11/17 the intelligence community warns of a major pandemic.
In September of 2017 the administration contracts with a company to make a prototype of a reusable mask rather than use the existing N95 mask.
It December of 2017 Trump bans the CDC from using terms like “science based.”
2/9/18 Trump signs a bill cutting 1.3 billion in funding for prevention and public health at the CDC.
These are only six of the numerous acts of ignorance or deliberate malfeasance and maliciousness which prove trumps guilt in the multiple COVID deaths beyond any doubt. The list is much longer. They are products of an ineffective leader, or simply a chronic narcissist who found none of them to be politically expedient to him and his intentions as president.A respiratory virus, coronavirus, was identified in 2019. It was classified as COVID-19, as in “coronaviral-disease-2019.” On January 19, 2020, a 35-year old man in Snohomish Ct., Washington went to urgent care with complaints of a cough and a fever. Four days earlier the man had returned to the US from visiting family in Wuhan, China. And so began the course of denial of science of the virus itself, of weaponizing a deadly virus, of the total lack of responsibility, which leads to today’s viral case load of over five million. It came in on the West coast from China, and soon after, on the east coast from Europe. The governors in New York and in Washington worked hard, in spite of little federal cooperation, and got the curves in their respective states flat. They were Democrats though. They relied on proven models, data, and science from experts like Fauci, and to a lesser degree, the government biased CDC. In mid-August, exactly seven month from the date COVID-19 was introduced to America, it remains to take as many as 100 lives per day. This is scarcely better than another coronavirus that plagued the world a century ago. The answer to why, after 102 years of technology, of medicine, of scientific knowledge, we have barely made a dent in stemming COVID lies in politics. It also lies in attitudes shaped by culture, a culture influenced by politics. Take Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp, a fine example of something that is amplifying COVID’s spread. His refusal to mandate mask wearing, to shelter-in-place, things he only considered after his state’s hospitals were overrun with cases, created a breeding ground for a pandemic. His is one of a handful of Republican governed states that have failed to see the grim reality of a pandemic. They discount its potential to infect and kill, and impart that mentality to the people they govern. Americans are, on average, undisciplined. Certainly more so than much of the world. Trump’s lack of leadership severely impairs reaching any livable state with COVID before a vaccine is discovered, without which a sustainable economy is not going to happen. But even without Trump, I have my doubt as to whether America could isolate COVID. There is always resistance in this country, if not from Democrats, most often doing something in the better interest of an oppressed race, than from fringe fanatics prone to let conspiracy theories intrude on their rational thought. Regardless of a Trump card, there would be the maskless martyrs protesting their god-given right to die, their freedom of choice, even if it infringes on the right to live for thousands of their fellow country men and women. It is no different in its nd than the coveted right to bear arms, to sell guns to people with no knowledge of their mental capacity. And those ill-fated decisions were being made long before Donald Trump. I blame COVID-19, and its continued pervasiveness in America, on many factors. They are, in order of importance; Trump, his administration, Republican governors (except in IL and MD), the media, undisciplined and irresponsible attitudes, and the general disregard and indifference effective pockets of America hold for each other. Trump, and the political irritants and malaise that led to him, has only served to worsen, if not validate the free attitudes for destructive behavior. It is a dysfunctional and limited democracy. It’s a selfish desire to enjoy the fought-for freedoms of America even if doing so can kill loved ones, strange ones, or even yourself. Europe, or maybe even more so, Asia has governments where a dichotomy like America has not shaped its people. They have not disgruntled their citizens to the lunacy level of not listening to the available science and callously letting thousands die in the name of a political point. If citizens are disgruntled, they either put their disgruntlement aside in the name of the pandemic, or the governments have never let its people be so free that they would not adhere to the law. America’s sense of its limited democracy leaves much room for human error. One of our most used freedoms is that of speech, of civil discourse. Democrats make good use of it, they find good trouble. In this case, Republicans have found bad trouble, potentially deadly trouble. Democrats protest for the better lives of all people, or the suppressed rights of some people. In this pandemic, we see Republicans protesting wearing masks, or not opening businesses, churches, or bars. The nation as a whole eventually suffers from such protests. It is bad trouble, and will not better the lives of anyone. The blame game will be spun. Dog whistles will alert to circle until wagging tails are won. But they will always return to their master, Trump. As far as COVID-19’s brief occupation of America, of its interminable duration, of his casual relationship to 170,000 deaths, all fingers will eventually land on Trump’s elevated nose. It’s a response that is, at a fundamental level, irritated by a cultural lack of discipline. That is a product of a broken government, a centuries-old exclusion of a race and the resulting resentment by a fraction of America that feels threatened. That dynamic though is fueled by Trump. The social environment for COVID to bounce around America, challenging healthcare workers and scientists to play whack-a-mole, was always in the air. Trump just exacerbated the situation on every level imaginable