If it seems like I keep writing about the Trump regime’s horrible response to Wuhan Coronavirus (COVID-19), that is because it seems like they are only ever making things worse and worse.
I have mainly been bringing up how Trump has sabotaged America’s Coronavirus Response.
And how the response he has so far been able to muster up, if you can even call it that, has been utterly pathetic.
But with Wednesday’s Baghdad Bob-level performance, where Trump held a press conference largely dismissing the fears around Coronavirus and downplaying the risks, a new risk enters the stage, that I do not think most in the media have picked up on yet:
The people most likely to believe Trump, and not take coronavirus seriously, will also very likely be the ones most hit hard if (or when) an outbreak occurs.
There is one recent Dailybeast article, that I think hits the tip of the iceberg of the issue:
The Ticking Coronavirus Time Bomb: America’s Uninsured
“Lack of health insurance could result in a person delaying seeing a doctor or being turned away,” Gostin, a Georgetown professor and expert on public health law, told me in an email. “That just fuels an epidemic.”
Compounding this potential problem, according to Wynia, is the phenomenon of “presenteeism,” or going to work when you shouldn’t. Service sector workers typically get few sick days, if any, and miss out on tips if they drop a shift, which is a big concern for epidemiologists every flu season, and an even bigger concern when there’s an outbreak. “There have been infectious disease outbreaks among workers in bars and so on in the past—not of COVID-19, but of other things like tuberculosis. So we've worried about that for a long time,” Wynia said.
But if you think about where in our country America’s uninsured are mostly located, thanks to Republican efforts against affordable healthcare, we are primarily talking about Red, Conservative states.
top 10 uninsured |
uninsured rate % |
Trump 2016 win |
population state rank |
state poverty rank |
expanded medicaid? |
Texas |
17.7 |
Yes (52.2%) |
2 |
13 |
No |
Oklahoma |
14.2 |
Yes (65.3%) |
28 |
12 |
No |
georgia |
13.7 |
Yes (50.8%) |
8 |
10 |
No |
florida |
13.0 |
Yes (49.0%) |
3 |
16 |
No |
alaska |
12.6 |
Yes (51.3%) |
48 |
41 |
Yes |
mississippi |
12.1 |
Yes (57.9%) |
34 |
1 |
No |
nevada |
11.2 |
No (46.0%) |
32 |
24 |
Yes |
idaho |
11.1 |
Yes (59.3%) |
38 |
23 |
Yes |
north carolina |
10.7 |
Yes (49.8%) |
9 |
14 |
No |
arizona |
10.6 |
Yes (48.7%) |
14 |
9 |
Yes |
So in this list, you have a lot of states that voted for Trump, have some of the highest populations, as well as highest populations of uninsured and in poverty, and the majority of which refuse to expand Medicaid.
Even if coronavirus does not turn into a major pandemic, it is only a matter of time before the US faces the next one. And when it does happen, states like these will be hit hardest, having the least amount of medical resources to monitor and respond to an outbreak, to help the people most likely to need medical treatment and most likely to spread it around even more, and with a large portion of such people not being able to afford enough to get the best medical care and preventatives, that usually first make it to the most wealthy and well-off.
Donald Trump’s public statements largely downplaying the threats of coronavirus makes this all the more problematic. Now, he should not be inciting panic and a run on badly-needed resources, but without communicating the adequate level of threat that the public faces, a large proportion of his fervent followers will take him at his word, and not take action to help prevent the spread of an outbreak. Because of the type of devotion Trump and the GOP have cultivated within their base, who are they going to listen to more, the experts and doctors of the CDC and NIH trying to best protect Americans, or what is coming straight out of Donald Trump’s mouth? Unfortunately, I think we all know the answer to this question.
It is not hard to imagine what effect this level of blind fervent devotion, mixed with political ideology, will have. One need only look at how the coronavirus story is now unfolding in Iran.
Despite the spread of the virus,
President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday that authorities won't quarantine any Iranian cities. He also warned about the virus becoming "a weapon at the hands of our enemies," as part of "propaganda" against the country.
Rouhani said the virus should not further cripple the country's economy.
Geez, does any of this sound familiar?
What seems to be unique about the coronavirus problem in Iran, unlike many of the other countries that have had to face a larger outbreak so far, is that even high-ranking officials are falling victim to it.
- Two members of parliament, including the chair of the parliamentary committee for national security, have also been infected by the virus.
- One of the country’s top clerics, Hadi Khosroshahi, died on Thursday after he contracted the sickness.
- Deputy Health Minister Iran Haririchi announced on social media Wednesday that he tested positive for COVID-19 — just 24 hours after he tried to downplay the threat of the virus in a press briefing.
Iran’s Vice President Tests Positive for Coronavirus
This can be directly tied to their decision to downplay the threat of the virus purely for political purposes.
The reason, it appears, is that the government in Tehran either didn’t understand the severity of the problem or, more likely, quashed evidence of the outbreak altogether. The lack of alarm allowed millions of workers, religious pilgrims, and others who travel to and from the country every day to spread the disease.
When one connects a lot of the issues that make Iran and China’s current struggles with containing the virus different from the majority of other countries, what stands out is the importance of preserving the political message over the actual realities on the ground. This can have disastrous results, as Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman noted, in his report on the 1986 Challenger shuttle explosion
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
And when you look at what has happened in China and Iran, you can draw a lot of connections about, potentially, what can happen here in the US — especially in the Red States that have been strongly influenced by Trump and the Republican Party.
Much like what is happening in Iran, we can see where politically there is a lot of distrust and opposition to each others’ political ideologies. But I do not wish any of these needless deaths on anyone. It is up to officials in government — like Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, China’s President Xi Jinping, and yes our own President Donald Trump — to give the public and accurate assessment of the risks they face, and that they are doing everything in their immense power to prevent catastrophic loss of life. Unfortunately, it seems like this is far from the case, and the stakes could not be higher.