Golly, who’d a thunk it? Like Trump’s fond of saying, “Nobody saw that coming!”
For nearly two months we’ve been walking on egg shells but relatively safe in Arizona, watching the rest of the country live through unimaginable horrors, as the state’s infection and death rates, except for the always neglected Navajo Nation, have been modest by comparison—for example, about half the cases in nearby Colorado.
Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, a former businessman, was late to shut down the state because early on Arizona’s numbers weren’t that bad, and he was still listening to the morally challenged Chamber of Commerce and the GOP numbskulls who control the legislature. When Ducey finally did announce a shelter-in-place order on March 23, it was a toothless shut down—so ineffective that a doctor’s online petition eventually shamed the Governor into giving the order some umph in early April and close businesses like nail salons, which he originally deemed “essential.”
Like Gov. Cuomo in New York, Ducey held a number of live TV press conferences where he sounded reasonable, as did the medical experts at the table with him. It was science and data, he said, that were going to determine when the state would open again—not politics, not loud protesters. And, for the most part, while Arizona’s infection and death rates continued to climb, the 15-20% more each week seemed less-than-apocalyptic, as the curve, while not going down or leveling off, wasn’t heading north too fast.
Then Donald Trump came to town.
A week before Trump arrived on Tuesday to visit the Honeywell plant that makes masks, which he toured without wearing one, Gov. Ducey announced an extended stay-in-place order until May 15. Even after that date, the opening would be gradual, with restaurants allowed limited capacity service, and other businesses slated to open by month’s end. After all, that’s what the joint team of nearly two dozen top-notch scientists from Arizona State University and the University of Arizona had concluded:
The universities’ model—an Arizona-specific model created by 23 researchers from Arizona State University and the University of Arizona—has projected that the only way to avoid a dramatic increase in coronavirus cases is to wait to reopen at the end of May.
After Ducey announced the extended shelter-in-place order, a few hundred goobers held death rallies at the Capitol to protest the gradual reopening, declaring that the Constitution gives them the God-given right to a seat at Olive Garden now! At the same time, Trump was ignoring his own CDC recommendations and urging governors to open their states as soon as possible—forgetabout what my own scientists say.
So when Trump’s visit was announced last week, the first thing Gov. Ducey did was rework the announced timeline for opening the state—accelerating everything a week or two so the brown-nosing pol could tell Trump that Arizona is following his leadership and opening sooner than the original schedule. Yea team!
Then, while Trump was here, Ducey told the scientists at ASU and UA, who’d been providing valuable information for free, that their assistance would no longer be required. They should “pause” their work, said the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS), which would no longer send the scientists the data they require to conduct their research (ASU says they will continue). We are now told that ADHS is relying on a FEMA model, no doubt one more compatible with the Trump/Ducey timeline, but the public and press are not allowed to see that study. Seriously.
Now why would Ducey dismiss the very “science” and “data” the Governor once said determined his course of action? Oh, silly me, Donald Trump is coming to town! As the university scientists predicted, however, soon after Ducey’s revised order and Trump’s arrival Arizona’s cases have increased from roughly 250 a day to 450, and the death rate has spiked from about 10-20 a day to over 30. And the trend is upward. While more businesses open!
Moral of the story: Keep Donald Trump away.
UPDATE: The ADHS just announced that they are reversing the decision to dismiss the university researchers.
The abrupt turn comes after pressure from Democratic lawmakers, including U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, and local and national media attention.