WE are in a war against the coronavirus infection.
After bragging he is a “wartime president,” we would think President Donald Trump would finally unite the country in leading us all, regardless of political affiliation, race, age, gender, income, and immigration status toward safety and to mitigate the spread of this pandemic.
But instead, Trump has again pushed to irresponsibly re-open the United States for business, despite serious warnings from scientists, health officials and experts, many governors and mayors that “we are not there yet” and that relaxing the social distancing safety measures would put the lives and safety of the American people at risk.
More ominous is a dire warning from the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that “There’s a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through.”
CDC Director Robert Redfield said in an interview with The Washington Post, “We’re going to have the flu epidemic and the coronavirus epidemic at the same time.”
In the report, Redfield explained that having two simultaneous respiratory outbreaks would put unimaginable strain on the health-care system. The COVID-19 pandemic alone has overwhelmed hospitals, and contrary to the claims of the Trump administration, the United States has concerning shortages in test kits, ventilators, hospitals beds, ICU, and even protective equipment for health-care workers, who have already killed so many of our front liners in the line of duty.
As of press time on Tuesday, April 21, COVID-19 has killed more than 44,000 Americans and infected more than 816,240 people. Many parts of the country continue to report a record number of deaths and infection cases. Globally, total cases have topped 2.5 million, with a nearly 176,000 death toll.
This is the reality we are now facing and yet, Trump has been encouraging people from different Republican-led states to protest against the social distancing, stay-at-home and shelter-in-place safety measures.
Trump even praised these protestors for their “patriotism,” saying they love this country and want to go back to work. He has been encouraging and inciting protesting people to defy the safety orders of the governors, which the demonstrators say violated their “civil rights” — eating out in restaurants, getting tattoos, chilling in the bars, getting their hair and nails done, working out in the gym, attending concerts, partying, etc.
CEOs have also been pressuring Trump about their businesses’ growing losses, leading them to fire or furlough workers and causing an uptick in the unemployment rate, and investors selling their shares in the stock market has lowered the GDP. These are “numbers” Trump has been obsessed with and critical to his re-election.
Trump himself has been complaining how the social distancing measures have prevented him from holding his campaign rallies, which he boasted had been attended by hundreds of thousands of American people, the numbers of which he claims the world has never seen before. Another important number for Trump: crowd size and ratings!
Therefore, the president has been using the taxpayer-funded coronavirus daily briefings to rewrite history about his inaction for two months after he was warned about the possible threat of the pandemic by our own intelligence agencies. He has called COVID-19 a hoax and accused the Democrats of using it to kick him out of office. He has taken advantage of the briefings to spread lies, confusing the American people with his “doublespeak” to give him political cover.
And even after the coronavirus has progressed to be a pandemic, killing so many Americans, Trump remained fixated on his ratings and his need to be praised by the governors before he starts heeding their call for help from the federal government. Further, he has directed coronavirus stimulus funds to give more money to rich corporations instead of ordinary hardworking Americans.
Trump also announced Tuesday that he will stop immigration to the United States for 60 days, explaining that this freeze will block green card recipients from moving to the country but allow temporary workers to arrive.
Trump regurgitated his demonizing claims against immigrants. As the Post reported, Trump decreed late Monday that he “wanted to protect the country from the threat of foreigners bringing the virus to U.S. shores and to stem the economic crash the pandemic has triggered — and he retweeted the same post Tuesday, in one measure of his enthusiasm for the plan.”
WE ARE IN A WAR. And yet this president continues to divide the nation and has been riding on and enflaming the frustrations of the people to demand the relaxation of social distancing and force their local government officials to open for business — all because of his personal and political motives.
This is a betrayal of the oath he took as president of the United States: to protect the people’s safety and lives. More Americans have been killed by this war against the coronavirus more than any other war before!
This is selfish. This is short-sided. This is electioneering. This is criminal. This is immoral.
We are in a war and our first goal is to keep our people safe and alive. But this president, who has put the blame to all but himself, continues to pull the country into his quagmire, stirred by his own greed for power and money more than anything else.
This is not a Democrat argument. This is a fight for our life.
Former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele called out Trump for defending those protesting stay-at-home orders to stop the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Steele pointed out that those protestors “aren’t just putting their own lives at risk, they’re also endangering the lives of vulnerable people around them.”
“Go to work and die?” he asked in a report by MSNBC. “Go to work and get sick? What is the point of that?”
He continued, “And if you weigh your job greater than you weigh your grandparents’ lives or your children’s lives or your own life, maybe that’s your individual choice, but that’s not something that I’m willing to take a risk with my life on.”
WHAT is more important to you? Money and “civil liberties” or your life and the lives and safety of your family and country?
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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.
