This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated April 9, 2020
As the COVID-19 outbreak continues to affect all of our lives — for some, in terribly tragic ways — the bad news can seem all-encompassing.
At the highest levels of government, the extremely slow and ineffective initial response, along with continued misinformation, lack of coordination, and often selfish decisions, has had disastrous consequences in terms of exacerbating how much carnage this pandemic will inflict on our country.
President Trump continues to blame his most significant failures on his predecessor. And while President Obama was criticized for not sufficiently resupplying the national stockpile of emergency medical equipment like N95 masks after several outbreaks and natural disasters during his presidency depleted the reserve and legislative haggling in Congress led to budgets not allocating funding to restock the supply, it doesn’t change the fact that Donald Trump has been in office for over three years and his administration has taken no steps to address what he is blaming Barack Obama for.
Trump has also blamed the Obama administration for the federal government not having valid tests for COVID-19 sooner, despite the reality that tests for a novel strain of a virus cannot be created until it is identified and the world has only been aware of COVID-19 for four months.
While Trump continues to tout the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a game-change that doctors should prescribe to COVID-19 patients, saying, “What do you have to lose?” medical experts warn against possible deadly side effects of using it in this unproven application, such as the President of the American Medical Association, who said that taking it could mean “You could lose your life.”
The President’s own expert, Dr. Fauci, has warned against rushing this drug into use without further testing. At the White House press conference on April 6, when Dr. Fauci was at the podium and asked about the drug, President Trump interrupted and would not allow him to provide his medical opinion.
“[Congress] should look to create a fund to increase pay for all essential workers and forgive the student loan debt of the hospital heroes risking their own safety to treat the most vulnerable among us.”
The following day, it was reported that Trump has a financial stake in the pharmaceutical company that makes the brand-name version of hydroxychloroquine and he stands to profit from it being pressed into wide use.
As of April 7, eight states still refused to issue stay at home orders. Most of those Republican Governors specifically mentioned that they wouldn’t do so unless the President told them they should or if he issued a nationwide order. Not ordering a stay at home mandate for all 50 states is about as effective at isolating the virus as when restaurants were allowed to designate one side of their establishment as the smoking section was at keeping secondhand smoke away from the rest of their patrons.
After several rulings swung the decision back and forth, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Wisconsin’s April 7 primary would not be delayed and people who didn’t have mail-in ballots postmarked for that same date, would not be allowed to vote.
The threat to public safety for voters and poll workers was evident, but the greatest impact would be in cities that lean heavily democratic. Since the age of poll workers skews much older, many refused to work. The city of Wisconsin, with a population of 600,000, usually has 180 poll sites, but they went forward with only five, making it more difficult for voters to cast their ballots, as well as more dangerous, since it concentrated more people at each site.
Make no mistake, the Wisconsin Republican Party was eager for this primary to take place because they are confident with suppressed voter turnout in metropolitan areas, they can pick up a judicial seat that will swing a pending ruling in their favor, allowing them to remove nearly a quarter-of-a-million registered voters, mostly from urban areas, from the rolls.
Democrats in Congress must insist that the next legislative packages to address the fallout from this pandemic yield some good news and include provisions to provide election integrity and greater access to mail-in voting. While they are at it, they should look to create a fund to increase pay for all essential workers and forgive the student loan debt of the hospital heroes risking their own safety to treat the most vulnerable among us.
