Trump.45 diddled his way through January and then February holding rallies, playing golf, and otherwise pursuing all things personal and no things Presidential. As he diddled, the Virus came and cavorted without restriction from one corner of this country to the other.
Failure to Test. Failure to Prepare for Medical Emergency. Failure to Plan for Social Distancing in Pandemic. Failure to Mobilize Wartime Production Authority. Failure in Ways Large and Small. Failure to Lead. Failure to Defend US National & Economic Security. Failure to Carry Out His Oath of Office. Literally every single qualified public health medical official could see or hear the Roar of the Viral Wave Coming. Trump.45’s gut and hunch radars were broken or down for repairs.
The Big Lie is that this was unknowable or somehow inescapable. You can always make a serious situation worse, or even catastrophic, by leadership paralysis or plain dumb ignorance. Trump.45 is well lubricated with both.
So, here we are. Some would say well let’s let bygones be bygones. Give the Man a Mulligan. Maybe Two, And Don’t Sign the Scorecard. If we were playing in a social pick-up golf event with no money on the line, O.K. But this is the Big Show, the Championship Event. No Mulligans.
Worse, if the past were just the past, it would be over and done. But worse is yet to come in the next 60-90 days. Trump.45 is still nominally in charge, whatever that means, so he poses the high-odds probability of making things significantly worse. More people will get sick and die. Inept, incompetent, and Incoherent are not the ingredients for a successful navigation of this COVID-19 Pandemic. Here we are, and someone competent must take charge for the Public Good.
Trump.45 is Incapable. We don’t know about Pence, but he is so busy kissing Trump.45’s ass we’ll never find out in time to do any good. Our Best Bet is for the nation’s 50 Governors to step up and provide the missing resolve and competence. Several have already shown exemplary performance. Let us all hope the range of good to bad is narrow instead of broad.
Here is another snapshot scorecard of just how dismal the US response has been. So late to the game, so little preparation, so little urgency to protect us from a bold foreign invader. A mess brought to you and made worse by the Man With Perfect Border Sense.
Among the most detailed information tracking sources for COVID-19 spread is a frequently updated chart and database from Worldometer. I recommend you visit the website often and spend some time learning to interpret the statistics provided.
Here are daily shots from the last two days.
How is the US Doing Compared to Everyone Else?
As it happens, not so hot.
On the pure quantitative scale, the US has zoomed like a rocket into a solid World Number 3 Worst Position in just the space of 30 days since Trump.45 deigned to put the problem under his ‘scientific’ microscope for inspection and assessment.
The US is adding 10,000 cases per day; Italy only 5,000. Our lead will grow even more in the next several weeks. We are 14% of all COVID-19 cases ever diagnosed in the World. And since China’s 80,00 are old news, of the recent World’s diagnosed cases the US now accounts for at least 20%, depending on how far back (days) you want to start counting.
The US is just 4% of the World’s souls, but 20% of its sickness contributors from this scourge. We are punching 5 times above our weight in a very bad way.
But the absolute case numbers are misleading. In countries with a later stage of the epidemic curve there are thousands of patients who have recovered and can then reasonably safely return to work with appropriate precautions, as they will have acquired a practical immunity, at least for now. And there are also thousands who have died, and so no longer put strain on the Acute Health Care medical system which is the most at risk and vulnerable sector for countries with major outbreaks.
The critical metric of concern is the number of active cases. This excludes the patients who have recovered and those who have died. This is the group we must care for with our supply of hospital beds, limited number of ventilators, and nursing and doctor care.
Here the US zooms past everyone and takes place as the Absolute Supreme Number One in All the World. Just in the last 24 hours. Now Italy is fading in our Rear-View Mirror. The US has 63,000 active cases, more than a 5,000 patient lead over Italy. China has only 4,000 active cases, with 74,000 recovered. So, China is really ready to go back to work with careful monitoring and surveillance. Notice it has taken China 4 months to reach this state of recovery. The US is only 1 month into its ordeal.
At least 12 weeks to go, assuming no further major screwups on our part. Trump’s current Easter Fantasy wouldn’t even make a good children’s cartoon. And China has been living under a draconian military enforced lockdown to get to this place. Not something as weak as Trump.45’s xeroxed 15 Day Plan to Slow the Progress, if you feel like it.
But it gets worse. The US pandemic is still relatively young and immature. Despite our World class total case load, we have only had 393 patients reported recovered. That means that the others who haven’t died are still using our medical resources at a prodigious rate. Italy has 9,000 recovered patients; Spain 5,400; Iran 9,500.
This fact also has treatment and survival implications for the currently ill. One potentially hopeful medical intervention has been to authorize emergency use of plasma antibodies from recovered patients to help treat the most seriously ill. Sort of a Medical Pay It Forward scheme. But you can’t harvest plasma from recovered patients if you don’t have any. Italy has a potential human reservoir of 9,000 candidates to supply a potential life-saving treatment for other Italians. The US has less than 400 recovered candidates, with more patients in need of help than Italy.
Another unintended adverse consequence of Trump.45’s absolute dithering. He doesn’t get it. Wouldn’t understand it if you explained it to him several times in childlike terms. So many people will not get to benefit from a potentially valuable treatment. And our Doctors and Nurses will be further overwhelmed, and our medical facilities more deluged in work. If only widespread testing and surveillance had been ready and practiced early as best public health practices dictated. Dr. Fauci and others have been forced to run a MASH unit enterprise from the beginning, because the Brass didn’t want to hear about negative vibes. The leg bone connected to the thigh bone….
One other mention from Worldometer today. The US national average case rate per million is now at 200 per million and rising swiftly. Let’s break it down to a more manageable interpretive scheme. That is a rate of 2 per 10,000 people in the US.
Live in a small town? It is likely there are cases lurking and spreading among neighbors who flew on a plane in the last month, went on a cruise, visited Disneyland, took a child to college in a big city, went to Mardi Gras, attended a concert out of town, visited grandma in California, etc., etc.
Live in a medium size city of 200,000 like Baton Rouge? Count on it. There is no escaping to a rural idyll. There are no intrastate border checks on the Virus. Trump.45’s plea for visitors to New York to voluntarily self-quarantine for 2 weeks with no testing, no rules, and no assistance is pure humbuggery. There are scofflaws, arrogant self-important pricks, ignorant naïfs, and people trying to do the best they can with inadequate resources. Cheap Talk Won’t Work. The suggested Easter Resurrection Plan will Come Too Late to Help.
In a bitter Hobson’s Choice scenario, would you rather choose to have a two-week paycheck or a ventilator if you become seriously ill. What’s it worth to you?
We have not hit the top of the case rate personal risk estimator. Our national bad performance has already eclipsed China by a factor of 4. We are headed to 1 per 1,000. Italy, Spain, and Switzerland have all already achieved that nationwide average risk level.
Trump.45’s COVID-19 Leadership Verdict for late March 2020? Failure on a Global Scale and trending worse.
Somebody better wake up and try something more useful than issuing credit cards for the Economy and worrying about the Dow Jones Industrial Average as the most important index in life.
God Bless the Governors. May they all step up and heal the deadly defects at the top. Americans must count on them. If the above state by state graphs look like something of a patchwork to you, you would be forgiven. It’s not the Best We Can Do, but it’s all we’ve got right now. And it’s miles better than what is on offer from the Bumps in Charge in Washington.
A Wartime Crisis needs a Commanding General who is not in the Back Room playing with Toy Soldiers and Watching TV.