The Preventable Tragedy

April 13, 2020

The United States now has recorded the most deaths from Covid-19 of any nation on the Earth, 20,064 as of April 11. We are challenged with 521,714 cases of this new disease today. Both heart-rending statistics will rise.

It will be for the American people to determine if this carnage was preventable and, if so, whether the malfeasance or misfeasance of The Donald exacerbated the outcome.

One needless death is tragic, particularly for those who loved, cared for or knew the victim. But 20,000 deaths, if preventable, require an examination of the causes to determine if any person or institution is responsible.

China first faced the coronavirus late last year. They took drastic measures to limit its spread by limiting the movement of people in the impacted area. As of today, they report 81,953 cases nationwide and 3,339 deaths. Acknowledging that the Chinese government has both the reputation and incentive to underestimate this contagion, let’s assume that both are low by 50%. That would mean China has in the range of 125,000 cases resulting in about 5,000 deaths.

To put those numbers in context, China has an infection rate of 89 per million people, compared to the US rate of 1,590 per million people. Italy’s pandemic has infected 2,584 per million, while South Korea has contained their outbreak to 198 infections per million.

China reported their first cases on December 31 and announced the discovery of the new virus on January 7. Strategies for dealing with the situation were necessarily based on uncertainty, having little history to draw on. Each nation used public health approaches based on prior epidemics but could not have known if they would work with this pathogen.

On January 20, we had the first reported case in the US. In effect, China had about a three-week head start on the world in creating and implementing appropriate public health initiatives to stem the spread of the coronavirus. South Korea took extreme steps quickly when the virus reached them, while the US and Italy hesitated. Less than four months later, the results shock us all.

Where did we go wrong? The Donald has often bragged that we have the greatest health care system in the world. We surely have incredibly dedicated doctors, nurses and other health care providers, sophisticated technology and the CDC which is acknowledged as the foremost authority in the world.

The problem was in leadership. At his daily Covid19 brief, aka campaign rally, last week The Donald was asked what the criteria would be used to begin reopening US businesses. He pointed to his head and said that the criteria are “right here.” He was regrettably truthful.

The pandemic models can provide estimates on the impact of cutting back on social distancing. Drs. Fauci and Brix can interpret those models and give public officials scientifically based advice on best practices. Both have learned quickly that, to be as effective as possible, they have to carefully modulate their private and public statements to nudge, but not push, The Donald to the optimum decisions. But, in the end, The Donald is the decider.

On the friendly confines of Fox on Saturday, The Donald said, “It’s going to be based on a lot of facts and a lot of instincts also. Whether we like it or not, there is a certain instinct to it.”

That response is consistent with everything we know about The Donald. He has supreme confidence in his own instincts and acts on them, often to the consternation of experts in the field.

Looking back, then, to the January-February time period, it seems clear that The Donald was acting on his own instincts in delaying the US response to the growing pandemic.

What were The Donald’s instincts telling him in the critical weeks in January and February? He held campaign rallies on January 9, 14, 28, 30, February 10, 19, 20, 21 and 28. His campaign theme was that the US had the greatest economy of all time. Stock market soaring, unemployment at record lows.

Leaders here and around the world may be excused if hindsight shows that they did not react appropriately to the coronavirus pandemic because they did not comprehend the potential disaster ahead. It spread with unprecedented speed and ferocity.

However, if The Donald understood from his health experts and reports from his intelligence agencies that this virus could have a devastating impact on American lives, and he made a conscious decision to publicly minimize its threat, then we have more than a failure to understand the problem. We have an intentional decision to promote his own chances for re-election over the health and safety of American citizens.

The three-week head start was squandered with campaign rallies and misleading comments from The Donald. Juries in America often have to determine the level of liability of a party, ranging from simple negligence to intentional conduct. This November America must determine the level of liability of The Donald in those weeks. When the most affluent country with the highest cost for medical care also leads the world in deaths from Covid-19, there must be a reckoning.