Infinitely worse. It’s hard to calculate, but there were countries where they literally had single digit covid numbers during the pre vaccine days, just because they gave the situation the gravity and strictness it deserved
I have a family member who’s in the hospital right now, in a part of the country where practically no one including the hospital staff is wearing a mask. It’s hard to even find them in the hospital to put one on. There are rooms clearly marked with mask and droplet precautions on the outside of the door, and the staff will take a mask from a box next to the door, go inside to deal with that person, and then when they’re done they take their mask back off and go back to walking around treating patients with no mask. What do the people in those rooms have? I don’t know but I can confidently say the hospital is fucking up in a fashion that is actively killing some number of patients and that politics are involved in that.
I am constantly worrying whether Trump’s bullshit will wind up adding my family member, individually and personally, to that 1.5 million surplus deaths
No, he caused it. He may not have directly created the virus, but he is personally responsible for the disaster that tore apart the US.
He explicitly disbanded the organization directly responsible for warning about and planning for possible pandemics.
He dismissed the danger and refused to do anything at all until the pandemic was in full swing.
He politicized standard and critical pandemic procedure, crippling any effort to manage the spread and deathtoll.
He caused havoc in ppe distribution as feds competed with states and hospitals to fill a “stockpile” that strangely never seemed to distribute said stockpile.
He actively spread misinformation on treatment and preventative care, downplaying necessary medical treatment and promoting crackpot “cures”.
Suffice to say, he did plenty to make the pandemic what it is. Honestly, the only thing I can give him any credit for is focusing on fast tracking the vaccine. But considering his part in fostering the pandemic we are still dealing with, he isn’t absolved of much, imo.
Ok but… Let’s be real trump didn’t cause it, he just made it worse.
Infinitely worse. It’s hard to calculate, but there were countries where they literally had single digit covid numbers during the pre vaccine days, just because they gave the situation the gravity and strictness it deserved
I have a family member who’s in the hospital right now, in a part of the country where practically no one including the hospital staff is wearing a mask. It’s hard to even find them in the hospital to put one on. There are rooms clearly marked with mask and droplet precautions on the outside of the door, and the staff will take a mask from a box next to the door, go inside to deal with that person, and then when they’re done they take their mask back off and go back to walking around treating patients with no mask. What do the people in those rooms have? I don’t know but I can confidently say the hospital is fucking up in a fashion that is actively killing some number of patients and that politics are involved in that.
I am constantly worrying whether Trump’s bullshit will wind up adding my family member, individually and personally, to that 1.5 million surplus deaths
No, he caused it. He may not have directly created the virus, but he is personally responsible for the disaster that tore apart the US.
He explicitly disbanded the organization directly responsible for warning about and planning for possible pandemics.
He dismissed the danger and refused to do anything at all until the pandemic was in full swing.
He politicized standard and critical pandemic procedure, crippling any effort to manage the spread and deathtoll.
He caused havoc in ppe distribution as feds competed with states and hospitals to fill a “stockpile” that strangely never seemed to distribute said stockpile.
He actively spread misinformation on treatment and preventative care, downplaying necessary medical treatment and promoting crackpot “cures”.
Even at it’s height in 2020, he was attempting to sweep it away out of sight instead of doing what needed to be done: https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/22/politics/donald-trump-testing-slow-down-response/index.html
Suffice to say, he did plenty to make the pandemic what it is. Honestly, the only thing I can give him any credit for is focusing on fast tracking the vaccine. But considering his part in fostering the pandemic we are still dealing with, he isn’t absolved of much, imo.