“Shortly after being discharged from the hospital
treating him for the novel coronavirus, President Trump on Monday climbed onto
a White House balcony — and then peeled off his mask to salute Marine One as it
flew away. After waving, Trump turned to go inside, still maskless.
“Following
a weekend of mounting horror among medical professionals and
commentators fretting over Trump’s handling of his own infection, his actions
Monday — particularly removing his mask and walking into a room frequented by
White House staff — left them worried and frustrated yet again.
“‘What White House staffer would still wanna go to
work tomorrow?’ Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and health economist with
the Federation of American Scientists, said in a tweet Monday night. ‘Epidemiologists just wanna
vomit.’
“Many
medical professionals and commentators echoed Feigl-Ding’s concerns Monday
night, slamming the president for posing and then reentering the White House
without a mask even though he is still suffering symptoms of covid-19…
“‘There is stuff that is pretty reckless, but at
some point it’s just becoming absurd,’ Dr. Sanjay Gupta said, according to a tweet shared by one of his colleagues at
CNN. ‘A person with known contagious deadly disease — without a mask on — is
walking into the residence. Other people are around him.’
“The
heightened risk of coronavirus for people working within the White House has
had many on high-alert as the virus spread quickly among individuals who had
close contact with Trump last week. At least 10 people who attended a ceremony
in the Rose Garden last week to mark the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney
Barrett have since tested positive for the virus…” (Washington Post).
Trump makes misleading comparison between coronavirus and the flu (Politico)
ReplyDelete“Donald Trump on Tuesday continued to downplay the coronavirus and suggested the United States should learn to live with the pandemic, posting to Twitter hours after returning to the White House from being hospitalized with Covid-19.
“In his morning tweet, the president likened the highly contagious disease to the seasonal flu, reprising a misleading comparison he repeatedly invoked in the early stages of the U.S. outbreak.
“‘Flu season is coming up! Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu,’ Trump wrote. ‘Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!’
“In fact, the most deaths to have resulted from a flu season in the U.S. over the past decade is estimated to be roughly 61,000 in 2017-2018, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — well below the president’s claim of 100,000 or more.
“Over the past 10 years, an average of just under 36,000 Americans have died annually from the flu. More than 200,000 Americans have died from Covid-19 since the virus emerged early this year.
“And while flu strains change from year to year, varying in severity, most people have some underlying immunity based on prior exposure. The coronavirus, however, was only identified late last year.
“Trump himself appeared to tell The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward in a February interview that the coronavirus was five times more lethal than the flu, saying that Covid-19 is ‘deadly stuff’ and ‘more deadly than … even your strenuous flus.’
“Public health experts have warned that that the fall and winter months could significantly strain the nation’s health care system as it grapples with both a potential resurgence of the coronavirus and its yearly fight against the flu.
“Trump’s tweet resembled other messaging from the president in the past 24 hours that has been dismissive of the disease’s threat — even as he has received two rounds of oxygen therapy, two experimental drugs — including one that is not available to the broader patient population — and one steroid generally reserved for severe or critical Covid-19 cases.
“Trump also was treated by a top team of physicians in the presidential quarters of a military hospital. Ahead of his departure from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Trump tweeted on Monday afternoon that Americans should not “be afraid of Covid” and should not ‘let it dominate your life.’
“Upon his return to the White House on Monday evening, the still-contagious president ascended the steps to the Truman Balcony and removed his mask to pose and salute for the cameras before entering the executive mansion.
“And in a video message posted to Twitter later Monday night, Trump claimed he might be “immune” from the coronavirus — despite testing positive for Covid-19 last week…” (Politico, Oct. 6, 2020).
Trump Says COVID-19 Is Nothing to Fear—While Getting the World's Best Care
ReplyDelete“When most Americans get mild coronavirus symptoms, they get tested, wait days (or even weeks) for their results, and stay home from work to avoid infecting others. But when you’re U.S. President Donald Trump or former New Jersey governor Chris Christie (one of Trump’s close associates), you immediately get access to some of the best medical care available.
“As my colleagues Abigail Abrams and Abby Vesoulis monitored the viral outbreak linked to the White House, they remembered speaking with average Americans who hadn’t been so lucky. ‘I thought back to a woman I interviewed a few months ago: She had lost her husband, a Detroit bus driver, to COVID-19 in April after he was twice turned away by a hospital,’ Vesoulis says. ‘If Christie and Trump were feeling as well as they said they were, why did they get elite hospital care when the bus driver didn't?’
“In their latest story, Vesoulis and Abrams explore the stark contrast between the COVID-19 care most Americans receive with that of Trump and his coterie. Those inequalities start before hospitalization and continue through treatment—even simply getting tested is a challenge for many Americans because of surprise costs, access issues and long wait times. ‘Coronavirus testing was supposed to be free, but hasn’t always been,’ Abrams says. ‘Treatment for COVID-19 can cost tens of thousands of dollars, especially if you’re one of the millions of Americans who doesn’t have insurance.’ (Trump’s Justice Department is also trying to overturn the Affordable Care Act, which could cause millions of Americans to lose their coverage for coronavirus and countless other conditions.)
“The disease is wiping out the health, finances and lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans, but the President’s handling of his own illness reveals little understanding or compassion for their plight—'Don’t be afraid of COVID. Don’t let it dominate your life,’ Trump tweeted Monday. ‘When I went back to talk to the grieving widow for this piece, she was frustrated Trump had been harping that the virus wasn't a big deal,’ Vesoulis says. ‘It was a big deal to the people who lost their loved ones.’ (That includes TIME’s Arpita Aneja, who wrote a heartfelt story about losing her mother to the virus.)
“Trump is now back in the White House despite the possibility he is still contagious, putting all those who work there at risk. The people Vesoulis and Abrams spoke with took precautions by wearing masks and physically distancing from others. Trump and his staffers, on the other hand, seldom wore masks and often held in-person celebrations, rallies and campaign events. ‘They flouted all these things and got the virus, and yet they get better care than the average American does,’ said one woman in the new story. ‘That makes me really angry.’
“It makes the widow who Vesoulis spoke with angry, too. ‘She's taking this energy to the polls and voting for Democratic nominee Joe Biden,’ Vesoulis says. ‘It will be a solemn day for her, though. Voting used to be something she enjoyed doing with her husband.’…” (Time).