Trump Is ‘Central’ But ‘Not Solely Responsible’ For Failure Of The COVID-19 Response | MSNBC

Science Writer at The Atlantic, Ed Yong discusses the American response to COVID-19. Aired on 09/11/2020.
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Trump Is 'Central' But 'Not Solely Responsible' For Failure Of The COVID-19 Response | MSNBC

67 comments

  1. Everything 45* touches dies, including hundreds of thousands of Americans before this is over, and perhaps US democracy itself.

    And always remember that the GOP encouraged and enabled all of this destruction, corruption, and chaos.Vote. Them. Out.

    1. @Kim Morse Kim, trump’s just one of 318 up for the same prize. I’m actually Irish living in the UK and the cries of derision here must have been hear in America ? Funny though, you remember when he lost out in Time Magazine to Greta Thurberg ?

    2. @spencer rhymer “Nominated by Christian Tybring-Gjedde a Norwegian right wing extremist.
      I wouldn’t be bragging! In fact I would turn down the nomination.”
      My liberal answer
      to everything
      “you’re dumb”

    3. @Kim Morse “that’s funny. Like he did anything but killed thousands of people with lies. Oh he’s been nominated for crimes against humanity and his own stupidity.”
      My liberal answer
      to everything
      “you’re dumb”

    1. @Suzuki Beane it is scary
      190,000 COvid19 souls will fly to visit President Trump and his followers.
      why did Trump know the news of COvid19 deadly very early in February 2020?
      He calmed down again and lied that COvid19 was like a common cold and did not prepare a mask and advised everyone to keep their distance.
      President Trump is too cruel and quirky.

    2. @S. Garr. it is scary
      190,000 COvid19 souls will fly to visit President Trump and his followers.
      why did Trump know the news of COvid19 deadly very early in February 2020?
      He calmed down again and lied that COvid19 was like a common cold and did not prepare a mask and advised everyone to keep their distance.
      President Trump is too cruel and quirky.

    3. @Richard Owens I agree that he said that, and you can definitely criticize Trump for saying he likes to downplay the virus, however the full context of what he said “I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down because I don’t want to create a panic.” I believe being transparent will be better in the long run for all, however I don’t think he has been fear mongering the virus, but I don’t think he lied about the virus. I think it raises more questions about what he is using as the definition of downplaying the virus. Not always talking gloom and doom? Not giving certain information, if so, what information was kept from the public. He acted in January once things were getting out of control with information from China and South Korea. He did not say that the virus was a hoax the full context was that he was referring to Democratic attacks on his administration’s handling of the outbreak not the virus.
      He tweeted on March “coronavirus was not as perilous as the flu”. I did say he shouldn’t have stated a fact if the data was still coming in, Fauci stated 2 days later that the coronavirus was far more deadly based on the current data at the time. He stated in the Woodward interview that “Now it’s starting out it’s not just all people, Bob. But just today and yesterday, some startling facts came out. It’s not just old …Young people too. Plenty of young people. We’re looking at what’s going on”. People that refused to wear masks can only blame themselves. IT they destroy displays then charges them with the appropriate crime for that. I said before private and public places that are indoor and require masks should be allowed to enforce who can come in and who cannot. There are masks skeptics that don’t want to follow any law that restricts their “rights” according to them but that seems to be about the people themselves not Trump telling people to go destroy displays and don’t wear masks.
      I will agree with you that I don’t like they (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and World Health Organization, has advised that ordinary people don’t need to wear masks unless they are sick and coughing to preserve medical-grade masks, including N95 respirator masks, for health care workers. Then told us masks were needed. I don’t think they handled that well and should have been direct. Feb. 29th the VP stated” The President mentioned masks. This morning, we talked a great deal about additional medical supplies. Let me be very clear — and I’m sure the physicians who are up here will reflect this as well: The average American does not need to go out and buy a mask.” Immediately after Secretary Azar of HHS stated “
      “From day one, this is what we predicted, this is what we expected. The risk to any average American is low, from the novel coronavirus. The risk remains low. Thanks to the unprecedented actions President Trump has taken and the actions he’s announcing today, that risk remains low. But this can change rapidly. We have always said, from the first moment that we have spoken about this, that we would see more cases. We are seeing more cases. We will see more cases. But it’s important to remember: For the vast majority of individuals who contract the novel coronavirus, they will experience mild to moderate symptoms, and their treatment will be to remain at home, treating their symptoms the way they would a severe cold or the flu. For some individuals, a smaller percentage, especially those who may be medically fragile, they will require medical attention, including possibly hospitalization. Our basic message in terms of the containment of this disease and the measures that we have and are — taken and are today announcing is: We want to lower the amount of travel to and from the most impacted areas. This is a basic containment strategy. That is the philosophy behind the moves that we have taken, the moves we’re announcing today, and any moves that we will consider in the future.”

      Again, you cannot blame Trump from not putting this information out there to those who didn’t want to take precautions in the beginning as well as those who don’t think forced wearing of a mask is “freedom”, that’s on them.
      I don’t think the response was perfect and my initial arguments wasn’t that he did everything right, but it was what did he downplay because on March 30th this question came up in the questioning at the briefing:
      Q Sir, what do you say to Americans who are upset with you over the way you —
      THE PRESIDENT: Here we go.
      Q — downplayed this crisis over the last couple of months? “We have it very much under control in this country. The coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. It’s going to disappear. It’s like a miracle. It will disappear.”
      March 4th: “We have a very small number of people in this country infected.”
      March 10th: “We’re prepared. We’re doing a great job with it. It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”
      THE PRESIDENT: Well, isn’t it true? It will go away.
      Q What do you say to Americans who believe that you got this wrong?
      THE PRESIDENT: And I do want them to stay calm. And we are doing a great job. If you look at those individual statements, they’re all true. Stay calm. It will go away. You know it — you know it is going away, and it will go away. And we’re going to have a great victory.
      And it’s people like you and CNN that say things like that. That — it’s why people just don’t want to listen to CNN anymore. You could ask a normal question. The statements I made are I want to keep the country calm. I don’t want to panic in the country. I could cause panic much better than even you. I could do much — I would make you look like a minor league player. But you know what? I don’t want to do that.
      I want to have our country be calm and strong, and fight and win, and it will go away. And it is incredible the job that all these people are doing — putting them all together — the job that they’re doing.
      I am very proud of the job they’re doing, that Mike Pence is doing, that the task force has done, that Honeywell and Procter & Gamble and Mike, and all these people have done. I’m very proud. It’s — it’s almost a miracle, and it is — the way it’s all come together.
      Fauci said that President Donald Trump listened to his advice when he recommended that mitigation efforts be taken to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
      What numbers are you referring to? The death rates are very small in the US compared to recovery rates. New Zealand has 0.36 deaths per 1000 people and the U.S has 0.60 deaths per 1000 people. The U.S has over 60 times the population size and our death rates aren’t anywhere near that 60x mark. This isn’t to say that deaths are a problem or aren’t an issue, but we need to see that the death rates are very low, so we are taking it seriously and the administration has been keeping telling people to practice social distancing.
      The thing is he hasn’t said oh COVID don’t worry its nothing he has set that it was a serious virus, but others will say that he lied and didn’t tell people. If you disagree then we just disagree with the principle of the verbiage used and what was done prior.

  2. 192,000 corona virus deaths in America? As it turns out:

    HE WHO DENIED IT, SUPPLIED IT!

    Trump lied, Americans died.
    He knows how dangerous the virus is, and he purposefully spreads it with every rally…

    1. Never lied about the virus, he put each state in control of itself so look at the states and the numbers of deaths per state per capita. Better yet look at Sweden who didn’t lockdown, or the 570 riots out of the 10,000 peaceful protests about who wasn’t social distancing. We should them blame Cuomo too then right

    2. @Wood Beast that’s a straw man, I said he put each state in control of its own covid issues in terms of policy and laws. He gave them guidelines but states were allowed to do as the governor wished. That’s the reason some states stayed open and many shut down 😀😁

    3. @Jon Scott Do you understand Democrats want full control or our country and taxes and rules? Republications leave each state to make things work, that way we can hold politician’s accountable. Man are you that dumb?

    1. I know you mean his presidency, but he had a good day back in 1991 when he flew Michael Jackson to Ryan White’s funeral.

    2. @phillup space He continues to outdo himself. After “ramp gate,” I thought he’d work to be more empathetic to other people who struggle walking down gently inclined ramps.

    1. @1776 c – Here is your main problem with the theory that only COVID deaths with no underlying health problems are true COVID deaths. All infectious disease deaths are mostly in the group of people with previous health problems or the elderly. Take the flu for instance. Do you think that people who die from the flu are young and healthy people? Of course not. So, using that as a base, here is your problem:

      During the 2018-2019 flu season, 34,157 people died from the flu in the USA. There were 35,520,883 known cases of the flu during that time. 1 in 1,040 people who had the flu died.

      As of Sep. 12, there have been 6,341,309 confirmed COVID cases. 190,787 of those have died. 1 in 33 people who have or had COVID have died. Once again.

      1 in 1,040 died from the flu
      1 in 33 died from COVID.

      COVID is 32 times deadlier than the flu. But it is worse than that because there were asymptomatic cases that were tested because of their line of work. They never had symptoms.

      You can’t spin this because, once again, most people who die from the flu are older people or people with prior health problems. Do you actually think that the top scientists and doctors in the world are going to change their data because of a conspiracy theory?

      https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html

      https://covid19.who.int/region/amro/country/us

    2. And the left goes out and plays among CV19, catch it, then BLAMS TRUMP for their ignorance (as usual, your stupidity is ALWAYS the fault of someone else) while they insult Trump calling him racist when he did do anything. *GASP* What if he acted even BEFORE that! 😱

      STHU you morons.

    3. @S. Garr. – Once again. Red states are on fire right now. Blue states are doing much better for the most part. Scientists state that a 5% positive test rate is the goal. Lower is better of course. Of the 24 states that have a higher positive test rate than 5%, 19 are red states. You can’t spin that. People in those red states listen to their cult leader. And where have you been? tRump has been feuding with Fauci since day one.
      Again … 19 of the 24 states are red states. Who’s the moron?
      https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/states-comparison/testing-state-weekly-change

    4. @S. Garr. – And here is the proof that tRump is a racist. A while back, he held a “law enforcement & race relations” roundtable in Dallas. He didn’t invite the 3 top law enforcement officials. The District Attorney, the Sheriff & the Chief of Police. The fact that they are Black highly qualified them for the “race relations” part of the roundtable. So, the Mayor of Dallas didn’t attend either because he felt insulted due to the fact that he is Black also. Your racist cult leader invited white people from other cities to take the place of the 3 uninvited long before he went to Dallas. In other words, he didn’t want to meet with Black people. Even the British are laughing at us.
      https://metro.co.uk/2020/06/11/trump-doesnt-invite-top-law-enforcement-officials-who-are-black-police-roundtable-12841049/

  3. 45 should have to go live with the Kardashian’s and see how he turns out, him and Kanye can kick it in a pillowed room together

    1. Just like Gov. Cuomo who sent all those infected patients to the nursing home knowing that the elderly are vulnerable and did not use the ship sent to him, he should be charged killing over 11k but only reported 6k.

    2. He’s avoided facing responsibility for anything his entire life. The shield of wealth works marvellously well for that. I see no evidence he’ll face consequences now.

    3. @Mububban23 that statement is a red herring , if you can narrow down what exactly you mean in the context of the virus I think people can than critically think about your argument

    1. Congress had a chance to save the world during the impeachment trial, but the GOP Senate decided to put fascism before country.

    1. …many not happen. However, when asked why he LIED to the American people (directly from a reporters question) … all he could do is like a sixth grader… shake his head and deny!

    1. I’ve been calling them cultist and the cult of the stupid for 4 years now and never once has one ever denied being in a cult or even taken offense to being in the cult of the stupid. Not one person not one time. And that speaks volumes about the cult.
      Can’t wait for the big kool aid event. Just leave em rot. The smell will eventually go away.

    2. @Dark Justice Because your gradeschool charm doesn’t affect us. Republicans are the cult, but then when you turn on ANY news source….yeah.

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