WHAT should Americans do when the very leader of our nation goes against the facts, scientific studies, and the advice of health officials as the nation and the world continue to fight the war against the deadly COVID-19?
The mixed messaging has been causing a lot of confusion, misinformation, and division when President Donald Trump denigrates the very people with knowledge and training to help mitigate the spread of the coronavirus pandemic and save lives.
Consider the case of social distancing, testing, contact tracing, use of protective equipment, and development of vaccine and treatment — these are all proven to be the best way we have so far to slow down the spread of the virus as we await a vaccine that will provide immunity against infection, albeit the disruption in our everyday lives and livelihood.
But what could be more important than saving lives? As far as President Donald Trump is concerned, money and good economic numbers he is hoping for are more important, even if it means more Americans will be sick and die as he pushes for the re-opening of the economy, contrary to the advice of scientists and health officials.
Worse, he uses his power accorded to him by public trust and abuses the bully pulpit of the presidency to denigrate health officials’ credibility, downplay the threat of the virus by inventing his own unscientific theory, including malicious conspiracy theories that have now been killing more Americans as a result.
Consider this recent peer-reviewed study published in the journal Health Affairs on Thursday, May 14, which found out that “areas in the United States that do not adhere to any social distancing policies face 35 times more cases of the novel coronavirus.”
This study comes out as more states start the process of reopening, easing restrictions and social distancing guidelines, as pushed by President Trump himself.
Researchers from the University of Kentucky, the University of Louisville and Georgia State University employed a scientific method of research and looked at confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States between March 1 and April 27, totaling about 1 million reported instances at the time. The study illustrated “the potential danger of exponential spread in the absence of interventions,” the Washington Post reported.
The researchers also found that the longer a safety measure [such as social distancing] was in effect, the slower the daily growth rate of COVID-19, the virus’s disease.”
“For social distancing policies that lasted at least 16 to 20 days, the daily rate of infection dropped by more than 9 percentage points, according to the study. Policies lasting 15 days and less also saw declines in the daily infection rate, researchers found. Such social distancing measures, mandated by 95 percent of the country, include shelter-in-place orders, school closures, bans on large events and the closure of gyms, bars and restaurants.”
On the other hand, the study determined that places with no social distancing orders were at substantially higher risk for infection.
“Holding the amount of voluntary social distancing constant, these results imply 10 times greater spread by April 27 without [shelter-in-place orders] … and more than 35 times greater spread without any of the four measures,” the researchers wrote in “Strong Social Distancing Measures in the United States Reduced the COVID-19 Growth Rate.”
Trump has been very adamant and unapologetic in his quest to downplay this information vital to our safety and pushes laughable illogical statements that belong only to comedy shows like Saturday Night Live (SNL) and other late-night comedy shows.
You think Trump’s theory that COVID-19 will just disappear even without a vaccine and his prescription that people should ingest or inject disinfectant to treat or prevent infection were crazy?
He topped himself again this week when he flaunted that he does not believe in testing and vaccines and has been the number one violator of wearing protective masks, shaking hands and social distancing orders.
“If we did very little testing, [America] wouldn’t have the most cases,” Trump said Wednesday. “So, in a way, by doing all of this testing, we make ourselves look bad.”
Calling testing “overrated” on Thursday, Trump also said, “And don’t forget, we have more cases than anybody in the world,” he added. “But why? Because we do more testing. When you test, you have a case. When you test, you find something is wrong with people. If we didn’t do any testing, we would have very few cases.”
This made people scratch their heads in disbelief that these words are coming from the president of the United States.
Memes have been shared on social media following the stable genius Trump’s logic on his argument against testing. Example:
“Remember, kids. You don’t want a baby? Stay away from pregnancy tests.” – Quinn Cummings
“If we never check peoples’ glucose and A1C, we’ll put an end to diabetes.” – Miranda Yaver
His political opponent in the 2020 Presidential polls in November — Democratic
Party’s presumptive nominee Joe Biden — said this week, “With his statement…President Trump has once again demonstrated that he is more concerned with his poll numbers and his reelection than he is with safeguarding American lives and delivering real economic recovery — both of which every expert tells us can only happen with adequate testing capacity to track and stop this disease.”
WHICH brings us back to January 2020. Trump was warned about this virus that may be a pandemic. He ignored the warnings from health officials and scientists and punished people who were shouting out about it and were calling for action. He refused offers to produce more N95 protective masks. Many of out front liners in the hospitals have died because of the shortage of PPEs.
He fought with and demonized governors who were asking for more proactive measures to acquire and/or produce more hospital equipment and beds in anticipation of the worst-case scenario.
He downplayed warnings for the need for more wide-scale testing and has been intentionally boasting that we conduct more tests than any nation in the world but did not explain that such is the case only in absolute numbers, not for every million of the population.
He refused to have the cruise ship dock in Oakland, California in March because he did not want it to add to the “numbers” of the US because we will look bad.
He did, however, pushed for anti-malaria drug and misled the people by saying it has already been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) only to be fact-checked by the FDA’s commissioner and by the country’s top epidemiologist Dr.
Anthony Fauci that the drug has been approved for malaria treatment but NOT for COVID-19, and that many more trials following scientific would have to be done to make sure it works and that its side effects are far less dangerous, instead of just relying on a few anecdotal accounts.
He downplayed contact tracing. He did, however, use this and other safety measures in the White House including testing daily, wearing masks, social distancing when two members of their staff tested positive for COVID-19. BUT he would not implement these to all of America as he pushed to re-open the economy and even force people to go back to work or they will lose their unemployment benefits.
He downplayed the need for a vaccine and reiterated that COVID-19 will disappear on its own and likened it to the seasonal flu, despite experts saying otherwise.
He called it a hoax. He just started to act on it in March. Reluctantly. And then he used his taxpayer-funded daily briefings as a platform to broadcast his unscientific knowledge, theories and prescriptions about the pandemic, and to rewrite history on his (in)action and incompetence in responding to this health emergency.
It was either Trump was that stupid and anti-science, or he has tunnel vision toward winning in his re-election bid, editing out information and numbers not in congruence with his narcissistic view of the universe and the fulfillment of his own political and personal agenda, no matter what the cost, sparing not even the lives of the American people he has sworn to defend and protect as president of the United States.
TELL ME AGAIN: What should Americans do when the very leader of our nation goes against scientific facts, studies and experts as the nation and the world continue to fight the war against the deadly COVID-19?
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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.
