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NDN News: The President creates a huge COVID outbreak, does nothing to stop its spread

When we look back at the Trump era one of its great mysteries will be the President’s refusal to fight COVID.  Objectively he’s done more to combat an imagined terror threat than he has the very real and deadly threat of COVID.  It’s not easy to understand.  At some point in December or January, the President had to have received a briefing about what we do when a pandemic strikes.  It’s pretty simple, as we don’t have a lot of tools.  We have social distancing, masking, testing/tracing/isolation, travel bans, shut downs, therapeutics, vaccines.  The key as he was told was to move quickly, catch it early, prevent a wide spread that becomes hard to reverse.  Clear Presidential communication with the public about their role in preventing the spread is critical too. 

The President was informed that he had a tried and true set of tools he could use when we knew the virus was really here – and the story, incredibly, is that over all these months he has chosen to use none of them.  He has just let the virus ravage the country, while also working really hard to prevent other government leaders from setting up effective regimes in their own cities and states.  It is perhaps the worst governing disaster in American history.  We’ve experienced mass death and one of the worst economic collapses in our history.  Kids are missing school, workers aren’t working, businesses are shutting down for good, social isolation is doing perhaps irreparable harm to millions. Countless lies have been told, scientists undermined, medical quackery celebrated.  It has been, as Joe Biden has said, a dark period in our history.  

In August the President returned to campaigning.  He started holding rallies without social distancing and masks.  He has repeatedly broke state and local COVID protocols banning mass gatherings, and requiring local quarantine, masking and social distancing.  People returned to full time work at the White House without masks.  Reporting suggests that the testing regime around the President began to let up.  The President wanted a return to normal, and around him, at least, normal did return.  

So it was inevitable that once the President really started traveling and doing more intimate gatherings he and his team would get the virus.  And at some point, perhaps on Friday the 25thor Saturday the 26thof September the President got COVID, and so did lots of people around him.  RNC Chair McDaniel was with him on the 25thand now has COVID.  At least 10 people at the Sept 26thConey Barrett event have COVID, including people who returned home to states like CA, IN, NJ. At least 11 Ohio residents who worked on the Sept 29thdebate in Cleveland have COVID now.  At least 2 campaign staff involved in debate prep with the President have COVID.  Dozens of people who work in the White House alongside the President have COVID.  3 US Senators have COVID.  On Sept 30th, almost certainly infectious, the President spent the day in Minnesota – dozens of Republican elected officials and party leaders there are now isolating.  On Thursday, symptomatic and knowing by then he had been exposed, he went to his property in Bedminster, NJ and spent time with 225 people with no social distancing, no masking.  

Sometime that week – Monday? No later than Thursday morning – the White House learned COVID had spread to the inner sanctum around the President.  At that point, if the White House was concerned about stopping the potential spread of the virus their reckless behavior had caused, it needed to start a vigorous testing/tracing/isolation program.  The President and his team had come in contact with vast numbers of people that week, far more than another group in the US could have possibly come in contact with in such a short period of time.  The chance they could have spread the virus not just through the White House and DC, but other places like CA, IN, MN, NJ, OH and anywhere else people who had come for the Coney Barrett event, the debate, the Bedminster event had come in from was very high.  No precautions had been taken, common sense protocols were never followed.  It had been a week of Typhoid Donald with Air Force One and mass gatherings.  It was a dangerous moment. 

So what did Mark Meadows and Donald Trump do to stop the spread in all these places in those first critical 48 hours? Nothing.  They did nothing.  As of Monday morning officials in DC, MN, NJ and OH said the White House wasn’t working with them on contract tracing.  The White House said the President’s physician was overseeing a limited contact tracing effort, something Dr. Conley denied at the press conference yesterday. The President risked new infections by interacting with staff and Secret Service MASKLESS EVEN WITH COVID.   And every day we learn more people are infected but as there is no central system to track what’s happening so we don’t really know what’s happening.  Though if secondary and tertiary infections began mid last week, we could see a significant uptick in positives this week. 

Over the past 10 days the President not only didn’t protect the American people from COVID, he used his immense powers to actually spread the  virus widely – in a way no other American could - and has done nothing to help slow the spread he’s caused or treat those who have become ill.  Both the WaPo and the NYT Times have stories this morning about White House staff freaking out at the chaos and lack of concern for their safety. Prominent Trumpites who have been exposed – Pence, Meadows, Barr, Coney Barrett – are refusing to follow CDC guidelines and isolate.  The President exposed all sorts of people last night who worked on his video as he isn’t isolating and isn’t wearing a mask.  He has also revived his ridiculous narrative that fears of COVID are exaggerated, that all our precautions unnecessary.  

I don’t know what is going to happen to the President’s health but if in the next few days the virus spreads even more widely, as it may, due to their recklessness and inaction, I think the President will be finished.  He and his team are already responsible for the deaths of tens and thousands due to their inaction and negligence; if he closes the election reminding us of his unwillingness to do literally do ONE THING to protect us from COVID this could be a huge Biden blowout indeed.  

As the resident of a city which is now experiencing an outbreak due to super spreader events and crowded unsafe work conditions in a very busy and large office complex, I hope the DC govt gets together with MD and VA to forge a regional alliance to force the White House to turn on its contact tracing powers and help ensure the Coney Barrett outbreak doesn’t become something truly dangerous. And we end where we began – why in the world has the President continued to play down the threat of the virus, and why has he done nothing to fight it? It remains the most inexplicable – and deadly – chapter of this dark era.  

Best,

Simon, Georgia, and the rest of the NDN team


 

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