2L dead as Don vilifies science, prioritises politics

New York, Sept. 23: “I did the best I could,” President Donald Trump said. Huddled with aides in the West Wing last week, his eyes fixed on Fox News, Trump wasn’t talking about how he had led the nation through the deadliest pandemic in a century. In a conversation overheard by an Associated Press reporter, Trump was describing how he’d just publicly rebuked one of his top scientists — Dr Robert Redfield, a virologist and head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Redfield had angered the president by asserting that a COVID-19 vaccine wouldn't be widely available until late 2021.

So hours later, with no supporting evidence, Trump called a news conference to say Redfield was

“confused.” A vaccine, Trump insisted, could be ready before November’s election. Mission accomplished: Fox was headlining Trump’s latest foray in his administration’s ongoing war against its own scientists. It is a war that continues unabated, even as the nation’s Cov

id-19 death toll has reached 200,000 — nearly half the number of Americans killed in World War II, a once unfathomable number that the nation’s top doctors just months ago said was avoidable.

Over the past six months, the Trump administration has prioritised politics over science at key moments, refusing to follow expert advice that might have contained the spread of the virus and

Covid-19, the disease it causes.