Stunning visualization shows how many lives could've been saved if Donald Trump had acted sooner

[babylonsister]

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/4/15/1937442/-Donald-Trump-s-failure-to-act-on-COVID-19-can-be-directly-measured-in-thousands-of-lives#read-more

Stunning visualization shows how many lives could've been saved if Donald Trump had acted sooner
Donald Trump's failure to act on COVID-19 can be directly measured in thousands of lives
Mark Sumner
Daily Kos Staff
Wednesday April 15, 2020 · 10:40 AM EDT
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A large portion of the daily Donald Trump ego-athon is devoted to the ludicrous idea that Trump acted either promptly or appropriately to the threat of COVID-19. While Trump continues to pretend that his ineffectual shutting down of some direct flights between the U.S. and China was a key event in the progress of the disease, the truth is that it accomplished nothing. The only reason that Trump keeps trying to inflate the value of this meaningless gesture is that it’s the only thing he did, despite mounting evidence and pressure from all directions that serious action was required.

Instead, Donald Trump continued to hold rallies. Donald Trump continued to play golf. And Donald Trump continued to blow off the threat of the coming pandemic during the days and weeks when action could have saved tens of thousands of lives.

Donald Trump wants to put his name on stimulus checks, but he should be forced to personally sign every death certificate. The novel coronavirus was not made in a lab, but this disaster is definitely man-made. And Trump is the man who made it.

The New York Times has done an excellent job of visualizing how much outright economic damage, suffering, and death has been generated by Trump’s failure to act at the time when that action could have had a consequential effect.

With no vaccine, no existing immunity, and no therapeutic treatment, there is only one way to fight COVID-19, and that’s to break the chain of transmission. The whole purpose of social distancing is to reduce the number of people who are infected by someone who has the disease. It’s necessary at every point, but it’s most effective when it happens early. After all, the best way to make sure that someone doesn’t spread COVID-19 is to keep them from being infected in the first place.

The R0 value, or the rate of transmission, for COVID-19 is estimated to be around 2.5. That means that in an environment without social distancing, each person will infect 2.5 others, and each of them will in turn infect 2.5 others, and so on. Because there is no immunity to this disease, everyone is a potential carrier, so a single case can become 100 in just five generations of passing the virus along. If social distancing happens late in that chain, 100 might become 98. But if it happens right at the start, the whole chain of infection is ended.

When people talk about social distancing “just buying time,” they’re absolutely correct. Because time is everything in responding to a pandemic. Time is lives.

All through January as the numbers in China soared, Donald Trump sat back and assured Americans that it could not happen here. All through February as it became obvious that the virus had no regard for national boundaries and a pandemic was inevitable, Trump golfed, and rallied, and dismissed any possibility of a threat. Even in the opening weeks of March as South Korea bent the curve on the outbreak there through diligent testing and a coordinated response, Trump did nothing to either slow the spread of the disease in the United States or to prepare the nation for the fight ahead.

It wasn’t until March 16 that the White House released suggested guidelines for social distancing. By that time there were already 4,000 cases in the United States and the idea of stopping the chain at the beginning was long gone. The mathematics of exponential increase are unrelenting, and so is the consequence of Trump’s inaction: Had Donald Trump acted just two weeks earlier, over 90% of the deaths in the United States could have been avoided.

March 2 was the day that the United States hit 100 cases. It was clear there was community spread on both coasts. If Trump was still harboring some idea that closing “the border with China” had somehow protected the nation, that idea was clearly ridiculous by that point. But Trump did nothing. And then nothing. And then still more nothing.

By March 9, the United States hit 1,000 cases even with an inadequate testing program that was clearly making it impossible to determine the real scope of the disease. Had Trump moved at that point, he could have saved 60% of all the lives now projected to be lost. Trump still did nothing.

In ethics classes, students are commonly faced with what is called the “trolley problem”—an issue in which inaction will result in more deaths than action. Usually, the dilemma presented by the problem comes in the form of lives that will be lost through action weighed against lives lost through inaction. But Donald Trump was handed a problem where on one track, tens of thousands were sure to be plowed down by the oncoming train of a coming epidemic. On the other rail was only a small slice of his overwhelming ego.

And, as he has every single day of his miserable life, Trump showed that he valued his own ego above any number of human lives.

Link to tweet

[at140]

1. Trump has zero authority to dismantle shutdowns in all 50 states

That is the job of governors.

[Rorey]

2. Key word: "some"

"While Trump continues to pretend that his ineffectual shutting down of some direct flights between the U.S. and China....."

I talked to someone who has family members in China way back in late February or early March, and he told me nothing was shut down except for Wuhan. Even if OrangeAss had shut down flights from ALL of China, which he did not do, would it have prevented travelers from simply flying to another country before coming into the U.S.?

He's just flat out lying, but that's the norm with him.

[at140]

3. Not easy because passport is stamped at every airport when arriving or departing.

[Rorey]

5. According to this article, and others

A whole lot of people traveled here from China, while OrangeAss tries to act like he completely sealed the border.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/04/us/coronavirus-china-travel-restrictions.html

[at140]

7. I am sure many did!

I doubt if US immigration checked every Chinese traveler's passport with a microscope.

If the whole world had banned ALL travelers from China on Jan 1st 2020, there would be no virus spread anywhere except China.
But China and WHO did not advise the world about human to human transmission by virus until late January 2020.

[niyad]

4. He and his kool-ade drinkers are soaked in blood. I agree that every death certificate issued in

Last edited Wed Apr 15, 2020, 06:08 PM - Edit history (2)

This pandemic should list his name as cause of death.

[redstatebluegirl]

6. The orange one is so fond of taking everything to court, I think the families should sue him for

the loss of their loved ones.

[crickets]

8. The deliberate initial and ongoing lack of response is criminal. K&R for visibility.