This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated April 2, 2020
The coronavirus outbreak has continued to affect the lives of everyone. For most, it has been limited to inconveniences related to the stay-at-home orders, but for far too many it has resulted in the serious illness or death of themselves or a loved one. By March 30th, New York City was seeing a related death every 2.9 minutes.
Last week news broke that 30-year-old Brooklyn teacher, Rana Zoe Mungin, was denied a coronavirus test three times and was on life support. A week-and-a-half before, President Trump was asked whether the well-connected go to the front of the line for tests and he said, “perhaps that’s been the story of life. That does happen on occasion.” It is unacceptable that the well-connected getting tested, even if they have no symptoms, is just accepted as part of life, while essential workers go without.
On March 28, President Trump threatened to quarantine New York to keep residents from fleeing to other states, only to proclaim the next day he decided against it. This terrible decision likely led to more people leaving the state, for fear they would soon be precluded from doing so.
As healthcare heroes continue to risk their lives in hospitals, the lack of available protective equipment for them and ventilators for the sick becomes more dire by the day.
President Trump suggested the sudden need for masks might be because they are “going out the back door,” adding, “I think it’s maybe worse than hoarding… I think that’s for other people to figure out.” It is hard to comprehend what kind of person would presume that healthcare workers are stealing masks during this crisis. The accusation is as offensive as it is ludicrous, but if he really felt it was true, as president he should be using every tool at his disposal to have it investigated.
“We should have taken the same steps we did with Ebola and we should be closer to where South Korea is today with COVID-19.”
Trump also alleged “hoarding of ventilators,” stating that “many of the states are stocked up,” without providing anything to substantiate his claim. Most states have said they have only received a fraction of what they need and have found they are competing against other states or the federal government to secure medical equipment from private industry.
As of March 30, New York had received a few thousand ventilators, despite knowing they’d need tens of thousands within days. Florida, which had a small fraction of the cases of New York but is led by a Governor who is a close ally of Trump, had received 100% of what they had requested from the national strategic stockpile.
The president has been wrong with his numbers at every step along the way. He said on February 26 that “the 15 [US cases] within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.” Two days later he said, “One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
32 days after he bragged about how well he was doing because 15 cases would soon be near zero, he told us that 100,000 dead Americans will be a great success. In recent days, he has repeatedly referenced a model that said up to 2.2 million Americans would die if no measures were taken to slow coronavirus, as he seems to be setting the stage to tout any number of deaths shy of that multi-million figure as proof of a job well done.
South Korea had its first confirmed case on the exact same day the U.S did. They treated this aggressively and immediately and have seen less than 200 deaths, not thousands. On the day COVID-19 surpassed 3,000 deaths in the U.S., making it more deadly than 9/11, Trump spent a good part of his day bragging about how great his ratings have been.
In 2014, there were 11 cases of Ebola and 2 deaths in the U.S. and Trump tweeted that “Obama should apologize to the American people & resign!” Ebola is far more contagious and deadly, but our government was extremely effective in containing it. We should have taken the same steps we did with Ebola and we should be closer to where South Korea is today with COVID-19.
