THREE MONTHS until the 2020 presidential election and amid the rising death toll and infected COVID-19 cases in the United States, we are bombarded with even more mixed messages on social media that confuse us more than answer our questions.
Unfortunately, there are people in power who capitalize on our despair as this pandemic has turned our world upside down for more than six months now, and sadly for many, even took the lives of their loved ones.
More than ever, we need to use our God-given critical thinking skills to make informed decisions to save our lives and our future from today’s America.
COVID-19 is not a hoax
The United States is now approaching 5 million positive coronavirus cases, with a death toll that has topped 160,000. The United States is the richest and most powerful nation in the world. But we are where we are right now because the president of the United States told the American public early on since January — even after he was already warned by our own intelligence agencies about the pandemic — that the coronavirus was a “hoax” fabricated by the Democrats to kick him out of office.
Trump posted on social media on Friday, August 7: “I called the politicization of the Chinese Virus by the Radical Left Democrats a Hoax, not the China Virus itself. Everybody knows this except for the Fake and very Corrupt Media!”
Trump pivots and rewrites his narrative that he did NOT call the virus a hoax? For God’s sake, we all have seen and heard him spew this lie out of his mouth many, many times and his supporters believed him! His fan base would not heed scientists’ and health officials’ reports because they contended that Trump said it was a hoax!
Now if you are among those who believed Trump and defended him for saying it was a hoax, would you also swallow this poison of a spin again from this reality show star-turned president with blood in his hands? Then you as enablers have blood in your hands as well! You are complicit to this Trump’s transgressions against humanity and the American people!
On the other hand, shouldn’t you take the construction of his statement at face value: “The POLITICIZATION of the [Corona] Virus By the radical left DEMOCRATS a HOAX. Yes! The “politicization of the Democrats is a HOAX” — meaning not true — because Trump was the one who politicized the pandemic instead of acting on it head-on in a timely manner to save lives. Facts are facts!
Testing does not cause coronavirus
From the beginning, Trump has been opposed to wide-scale testing as suggested by health officials and scientists, including the country’s top epidemiologist Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Trump refused to do this because he knew that if the testing reveals the escalating number of cases and deaths, then lockdown and business closures might have been warranted to mitigate the spread of the virus, which in turn, could affect the economy. Businesses could close, unemployment would go up, the stock market index would down, GDP would contract — all critical to his re-election bid.
When the pandemic finally caught up with his attempt to cover-up the medical emergency, he agreed to do testing but not in the level that officials said would be needed, with results not coming out as fast as they had to.
He would spew lies like, “We’re testing more people than many other countries” or “We have tested more than all countries put together!” But the truth is, the U.S. lags behind if you look at it not in absolute numbers but in proportion to the population.
Wide-scale testing is of paramount importance in determining who may be infected, even and especially if they do not have any symptoms, to isolate and treat them so that they would not spread the virus around. Testing also helps in contact tracing, so those people who were in contact with an infected person may also be tested and quarantined and isolated if the result is positive.
This was why Taiwan, with its proximity to China, was able to defeat the virus. It acted proactively, aggressively tested and tracked potential new infections through contact tracing. As CNBC reported, Taiwan with its 24 million population, has had only 451 cases and seven deaths.
Taiwan has also been lauded for having “a plan in place for years, which involved quarantines, contact tracing and wide availability of masks, among other things.”
Why did the richest, most powerful nation in the world fail on this, especially after the Obama administration left a document to his successor: “Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents?”
This 69-page National Security Council pandemic guidebook, as reported by Kaiser Health News, was developed along with “similar documents created for the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
The playbook included a list of types of infectious disease which may emerge to be a pandemic and the novel coronaviruses were among the pathogens flagged based on scientific studies. However, after these were endorsed to the incoming administration during the transition period, nobody among the Trump administration followed through. Then Trump blamed the Obama administration as a scapegoat for his inaction.
Now, Trump wants to do less testing instead of more and foolishly said if we do not test more, then the U.S. would have fewer coronavirus cases. His focus is just the numbers that would make him look good for his re-election ambition, and not on the role testing to help contain and stop the spread of the disease especially now that the vaccine is still in the works.
Testing does not cause the disease, it just reveals the infection or the disease so it can be treated. It’s the same principle as sugar level tests do not cause diabetes nor do pregnancy tests cause pregnancy!
Children are not immune
In Trump’s push for schools to reopen, despite the escalating threat of COVID-19 in many states, Trump said in a Fox News interview that “If you look at children, children are almost — and I would almost say definitely — but almost immune from this disease,” and that they have stronger immune systems.”
Social media companies Facebook and Twitter flagged the video and penalized the Trump campaign for spreading such misinformation. Why would Trump say something like that which goes against what science already proves? While children may have milder symptoms, scientific studies show they may still be able to catch and spread it to other people, including adults at home and in school settings, such as teachers.
How irresponsible can these statements come out from the highest leader of the land? Just as irresponsible as denigrating health officials working so hard to save our lives. Just as irresponsible as defying social distancing, wearing of masks, staying at home orders which he just promoted when his ratings were going down. Just as irresponsible and dangerous as his crazy prescription of ingesting Lysol or any disinfectant to treat/prevent getting infected by COVID-19.
Hydroxychloroquine is not yet FDA approved to treat COVID-19
Trump has been touting the drug Hydroxychloroquine and even lied during one of the Coronavirus Task Force daily briefings that this drug has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat COVID-19 infection. He was subsequently fact-checked by the FDA and Dr. Fauci, who said the drug, while having had good anecdotal evidence, has yet to pass through rigorous wide-scale testing following scientific protocol to be approved for the treatment of COVID-19 infection.
The FDA stated that contrary to Trump’s claim, the drug has not yet been approved by the FDA. “Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are FDA-approved to treat or prevent malaria. Hydroxychloroquine is also FDA-approved to treat autoimmune conditions such as chronic discoid lupus erythematosus, systemic lupus erythematosus in adults, and rheumatoid arthritis.”
While the FDA has initially granted “emergency use authorization (EUA) to use hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to treat COVID-19 in certain hospitalized patients when a clinical trial is unavailable or participation is not feasible. The FDA added that “The EUA was based upon limited evidence that the medicines may provide benefit, and for this reason, we authorized their use only in hospitalized patients under careful heart monitoring.”
On June 15, 2020 the FDA announced: “We made this determination based on recent results from a large, randomized clinical trial in hospitalized patients that found these medicines showed no benefit for decreasing the likelihood of death or speeding recovery.
This outcome was consistent with other new data, including those showing the suggested dosing for these medicines is unlikely to kill or inhibit the virus that causes COVID-19. As a result, we determined that the legal criteria for the EUA are no longer met.
On July 1, the FDA stated: “A summary of the FDA review of safety issues with the use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to treat hospitalized patients with COVID-19 is now available. This includes reports of serious heart rhythm problems and other safety issues, including blood and lymph system disorders, kidney injuries, and liver problems and failure.”
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Gel Santos Relos has been in news, talk, public service and educational broadcasting since 1989 with ABS-CBN and is now serving the Filipino audience using different platforms, including digital broadcasting, and print, and is working on a new public service program for the community. You may contact her through email at [email protected], or send her a message via Facebook at Facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos.
