Unfortunately, politics and COVID-19 are linked

When Fox News reporters, Fortune 500 executives, Wall Street Journal conservative writers, former U.N. Ambassador and Gov. Nikki Haley (Rep.) and especially Center for Disease Control personnel repeatedly tell President Trump that massive COVID-19 testing and tracing of 328 million Americans is required, it’s a message anyone with a modicum of intelligence should comprehend and follow. Harvard’s researchers want testing to triple before re-opening America (April 17).
Meanwhile, Michael Bender and Andrew Restuccia, reporters for the Wall Street Journal, are calling out the president for which most astute Americans already know: “The president is eager to reopen much of the country and has privately raised concerns that an ailing economy could hurt his chances of being re-elected” (April 16).
Politics before people; perverse. Similar action was conducted by Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds when she met privately with Republican legislators about her mysterious canary-in-the-coal-mine COVID-19 metric. Her staffs’ refusal to communicate with Democrat leaders is appalling. Self-serving political behavior—especially during this pandemic when Iowans are dying—is hideous.
It’s been 117 days since Trump knew about COVID-19 (Dec. 31) and we still don’t have a national testing strategy, a coordinated approach to tracing COVID-19’s transmission, COVID-19’s risk classification guidelines and establishing COVID-19 immunity registries. Additionally, Trump, acting like P.T. Barnum, has repeatedly touted hydroxychloroquine—produced by Sanofi—as a COVID-19 elixir cure. Not surprisingly, Trump has a financial interest in Sanofi.
Trump established a coronavirus task force comprised of 200 business executives. After executives told Trump current COVID-19 testing is inadequate for America to reopen, he sulked and closed down the task force (Wall Street Journal, April 16). Should any of these CEO’s open their business and an employee fatality to COVID-19 occur, Trump’s Twitter would most likely be a repeat of his March 13 statement: “I don’t take any responsibility at all.”
Trump’s flip-flopping from having “absolute authority” over all states to letting governors decide when life in their state can go back to normal may be callously purposeful. Should a death occur in an opened state—especially where there’s a Democrat Governor—Trump can say, “there’s no blood on my hands. It’s that low life Democrat Gov. who made the decision to open up his state, not me.”
Trump’s claim on March 6 that everyone could get tested was false. Only 1.1 percent of Americans (0.8 percent of Iowans) has secured COVID-19 testing. The CDC has said tests must be given to hospitalized patients, healthcare workers, at-risk citizens, first responders and individuals with symptoms. Medical experts concur 750,000 tests—on the low end—must be conducted every week before we return to our “new normal” lifestyle; 22 million tests per day is preferred.
I whole heartedly understand why business owners want to re-open. It’s called cash flow, meet the payroll, pay bills, satisfy your target market’s needs; rinse and repeat. However, medical research is replete that strict shelter-at-home and aggressive testing like was conducted in Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong worked. Re-opening too soon risks a debilitating resurgence of the crisis.
Everyone is searching for a date. May 1, May 15, June 1 and June 15 are aspirational at best without exhaustive testing and tracing. If (key word) we test 750,000 citizens per week as recommended, trace transmissions and shelter-in-place for the next suggested 10 weeks, by the Fourth of July nearly 11 million American citizens will have been tested, COVID-19 will be under manageable tracing control, businesses can re-open, people can return to work, investors will regain confidence in the stock market and Americans can once again start exploring the land of the free and home of the brave.
Steven.B.Corbin@gmail.com. Steve is a non-paid freelance opinion editor and guest columnist contributor to 139 newspapers in six states who receives no remuneration, funding or endorsement from any for-profit business, not-for-profit organization, Political Action Committee or political party.