We know Trump was golfing while the country smouldered, and now it’s on fire. What’s really staggering is thinking that 200K deaths or less is a win. And don’t miss this summary from Jake Sherman:
Don’t believe the nonsense from the enablers about Trump being hamstrung by impeachment. The timeline does not match up. Trump was golfing instead of governing.
In any case, yesterday was not the day Trump pivoted and became president. But it was the day Drs. Fauci and Birx got Trump to focus for an hour (before he veered back to festivus).
Political reporters (not the opinion journalists) cannot bring themselves to say lying/not lying, true/not true. They are not built for covering Trump and have not adjusted in 3 years.
Here’s the briefing headline, courtesy of WaPo:
Trump projects up to 240,000 coronavirus deaths in U.S., even with mitigation efforts
Of course, it’s not Trump’s projection. It’s modeling from WA state (website here, where you can look at your own state and see where the modeled peak is):
Here’s a review of the model from NBC:
What we know about the coronavirus model the White House unveiled
In a task force briefing, the White House offered the first look at the statistical models being used to anticipate how the virus could spread across the U.S.
What I find valuable is looking at your own state and seeing when projected peak is for hospital beds and deaths. Connecticut, eg, is in 14 days per the model, similar to WA. New York is 8 days to peak (MI, NJ and LA are similar), FL is 31.
If you have time, act. That is why states like MS and FL governors are so shameful.
Of course, the numbers are staggering.
Jill Lawrence/USA Today:
Trump's chaotic coronavirus presidency: Historically divisive and, for some, fatal
Trump is stoking division even amid the coronavirus pandemic. Has he misjudged his country? We'll know for sure in November, but history suggests yes.
Experts are ignored, long gone or forced to kowtow to Trump. Science is on the back burner. The message from the top is consistently mixed and confused. Trump says the coronavirus will disappear like a miracle, then two weeks later declares it a national emergency. He downplays the need for more ventilators Thursday night and rudely demands them Friday morning. He says he may quarantine New York, New Jersey and parts of Connecticut, then says hours later it won't be necessary. He says he wants America open and churches packed by Easter, then says never mind, that was just an aspiration.
Trump supporters voted for a chaos presidency. That’s what we have. And it's going to kill some of us. It already has.
The incompetence can’t be hidden.
Politico:
Poll: Trump's coronavirus bounce fizzles
Fewer voters are pleased with the way the Trump administration has handled the Covid-19 outbreak.
More voters say the Trump administration isn’t doing enough to combat the coronavirus outbreak, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll.
The survey, conducted immediately before President Donald Trump announced a 30-day extension of his physical and social distancing guidelines “to slow the spread” of Covid-19, shows 47 percent of voters feel the administration isn’t doing enough in response to the outbreak, greater than the 40 percent who feel the administration is doing the right amount.
Two weeks ago, 43 percent said the administration wasn’t doing enough in the days following the initial measures deployed to reduce the impacts of the virus, while 39 percent said it was doing the right amount.
While the new poll was conducted before the extension of the household isolation recommendations, it comes as other polls suggest the positive marks Trump earned for his early response to the crisis are turning more negative…
Trump’s ratings pale in comparison to those for the governors of the various states. A combined 62 percent say their state’s governor has done an “excellent” or “good” job handling the crisis.
No surprise there. if you read me regularly, or the political scientists, you knew that was coming.
“Now that’s a bump” ~ Crocodile Dundee.
Tom Nichols/USA Today:
Why I watch Trump's daily coronavirus briefings (and no, it's not because I'm a masochist)
When the coronavirus crisis is over, many people will claim they didn't know what Trump was saying or doing. I will remember, and I will speak up.
There are two answers, and neither of them involve being a masochist. First, as a professional matter, I’m a political scientist, and Trump is the president. When the president speaks, I tune in and listen, as I have with every chief executive. Even if I don’t learn much about policy — because Trump really doesn’t have “policies” so much as he has random thoughts and reactions — I still need to know what my fellow citizens are watching and what they’re being told.
The other is that Trump’s rambling press conferences, South Lawn fandangos and bellowing rallies are now a real-time laboratory in democratic decline, and I think it’s important to be a consistent witness to it all. Although I often live-tweet his public events as a kind of venting (it’s better than yelling at the television, really, and my wife has gotten to the point where she can’t watch Trump, so I’m usually on my own anyway), I actually am trying to figure out the impact on my own society.
Interestingly, the public isn’t buying it. At this point, I wonder if even the usual culprits in the press do.
NY Times:
Restrictions Are Slowing Coronavirus Infections, New Data Suggest
A database of daily fever readings shows that the numbers declined as people disappeared indoors.
But the new data offer evidence, in real time, that tight social-distancing restrictions may be working, potentially reducing hospital overcrowding and lowering death rates, experts said.
The company, Kinsa Health, which produces internet-connected thermometers, first created a national map of fever levels on March 22 and was able to spot the trend within a day. Since then, data from the health departments of New York State and Washington State have buttressed the finding, making it clear that social distancing is saving lives.
You can find that Kinsa database right here.
Watch this, it’s from a NYC sports radio personality and Trump supporter:
Mother Jones:
Trump’s Coronavirus Denials Sound like the First Act of Every Disaster Movie
I’m not looking forward to Act Two.
And of course, the president. Trump’s performance here has been a real tour de force. He seems to have modeled himself on those villainous politicians in every disaster movie. He’s ignored experts, shifted the blame, repeatedly downplayed the threat, stoked racism, and spread misinformation.
Watch our video above to see how eerily similar Trump’s approach has been to climate-denying officials in The Day After Tomorrow, the captain of the Titanic, and the spineless apparatchiks in charge of the response to Chernobyl.
Thankfully we’ve begun to see a shift in some of the most visible skeptics. But remember: That’s only the start of Act Two. We still have a long way to go.
The political analysts treating this as just another disaster story, let’s get back to what happens in November, are the least likely to understand what is actually happening:
Trump’s press conference yesterday was his most somber yet. 100-200K deaths expected. It was at least 2-4 weeks late. We didn’t discover these numbers yesterday. We do need to have a national stay at home policy. National. MS TX FL OK all have to stop fighting the needed plan. And/but while he can’t make equipment appear out of nowhere, he can (but didn’t ) address this:
Atlantic:
The Social-Distancing Culture War Has Begun
Across the country, social distancing is morphing from a public-health to political act. The consequences could be disastrous.
For a brief moment earlier this month, it seemed as if social distancing might be the one new part of American life that wasn’t polarized along party lines. Schools were closed in red states and blue; people across the political spectrum retreated into their home. Though President Donald Trump had played down the pandemic at first, he was starting to take the threat more seriously—and his media allies followed suit. Reminders to wash your hands and avoid crowds became commonplace on both Fox News and MSNBC. Those who chose to ignore this guidance—the spring-breakers clogging beaches, the revelers on Bourbon Street—appeared to do so for apolitical reasons. For the most part, it seemed, everyone was on the same page.
The consensus didn’t last long. Trump, having apparently grown impatient with all the quarantines and lockdowns, began last week to call for a quick return to business as usual. “we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself,” he tweeted, in characteristic caps lock. Speaking to Fox News, he added that he would “love” to see businesses and churches reopened by Easter. Though Trump would later walk them back, the comments set off a familiar sequence—a Democratic backlash, a pile-on in the press, and a rush in MAGA-world to defend the president. As the coronavirus now emerges as another front in the culture war, social distancing has come to be viewed in some quarters as a political act—a way to signal which side you’re on.