IS TRUMP TRYING TO SPREAD COVID-19?
When the full record of the coronavirus in America is written, historians may argue that President Donald Trump’s biggest mistake was not what he failed to do in early 2020, when the right strategy for combating the virus was widely debated, unproven and hard. No, they will point to what Trump failed to do in June 2020, when the right strategy was clear, proven and relatively easy.
No doubt, this virus is inscrutable. It pops up, it disappears, it reappears, some people are symptomatic, some asymptomatic, some seem to have natural immunities to it that we don’t understand, and once it infects people it hits in radically different ways: It comes in the equivalents of decaf, regular and double macchiato — and you never know if you’re going to get the mild or the extra-strength version.
But there is so much that we do know now that could make this post-lockdown phase so much less dangerous and so much more economically viable than it is.
We know that countries where everyone wears a mask outside the home sharply reduce the spread and that people who practice strict social distancing infect fewer people and are infected less often. And we know that people who avoid “superspreading” events — large, prolonged social gatherings, religious services and crammed nightclubs and workplaces, where one highly contagious person can quickly spew the virus to many others — are less likely to get infected.
Top government expert Dr. Anthony Fauci has pointed out that taking just these relatively easy steps, plus testing, tracing chains of transmission and quarantining the infected, would tamp down what appears to be a brewing, post-lockdown resurgence and limit the number of people needing hospitalization as we await a vaccine.
And yet we have a president who, instead of wearing a mask, turns defiance of mask-wearing into a heroic act of defiance against liberals; who forces 1,100 West Point cadets to travel back to campus, and quarantine for two weeks, so he can get a photo op addressing their graduation; who is planning a mass rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday — where the most notable precaution is that you sign a legal disclaimer that you “voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19 and agree not to hold Donald J. Trump for President Inc.” liable — and who hails governors who open bars and restaurants for people to crowd together.
It is absolutely devilish — like Trump wakes up every morning and asks himself: What health expert’s advice can I defy today? What simple gesture to reduce the odds that the coronavirus continues to surge, post-lockdowns, can I ignore today? What quack remedy can I promote today?
I’ve argued from the onset of this pandemic that our goal had to be a sustainable strategy that maximizes saving lives and livelihoods, and I’ve been stunned by the criticism that anyone talking about saving lives and jobs in the same breath is an unfeeling capitalist. That’s crazy. We now have 40 million Americans unemployed. The physical and mental health consequences of that number, if it continues for six more months, will be devastating.
But Trump wants as many Americans back to work now, and the stock market to rise now, without asking Americans to take even easy precautions.
If a nationwide resurgence of COVID-19 hospitalizations meets crowded, intense social protests against police killings meets stubborn mass unemployment, meets an exhausted nation being ordered into a second round of lockdowns, watch out.
What would a real president be urging governors to do today? Prepare detailed plans to get people back to work on a risk-stratified basis with proper protections, along the lines recently proposed by public health experts Dr. Darria Long and Dr. David Katz.
“The data are now overwhelming, from here in the U.S. and all around the world, that this infection is a grave threat to the elderly and chronically ill but generally mild for younger, generally healthy people,” said Katz in an interview.
It’s also clear that “many of the worried projections about social determinants of health and the consequences of mass unemployment are confirmed. We have, indeed, seen rising rates of addiction, domestic violence and mental duress.”
We also know much more now, Katz continued, “about the risks of exposure. This virus is not transmitted all that easily. … Many people with transient, ordinary exposures don’t get infected because of low exposure dose, partial resistance to this pathogen, or both.”
To get back to normalcy requires widespread immunity to the coronavirus, which happens in only two ways.
One is a vaccine that is safe, effective, mass produced and universally distributed. That would be the best solution, and God willing, a vaccine will come in the fall and everyone can get back to work safely in subsequent months. But it may not, and we can’t just keep the economy on hold.
“The other,” said Katz, “is natural herd immunity, achieved by those of us at low risk for severe infection, who can most safely go back to work and school and life as we knew it, while taking the right, reasonable protections. Meanwhile, we should guard those most vulnerable until we can sound the all-clear. Only this kind of thoughtful, risk-stratified approach can allow for herd immunity with maximal safety and minimal total harm from infection and the consequences of prolonged lockdown alike.”
Our current haphazard approach is just begging for trouble.