Day 1,260: Trump is talking about everything except the 128,000 dead from COVID-19
COVID-19 is more out-of-control than ever in the U.S., as the virus has now claimed more than 128,000 lives in the country. That figure, equivalent to the population of Topeka, Kansas, will surely rise by tens of thousands more in the coming weeks and months. More families will be broken and more friends lost.
And that’s to say nothing of those that survive and suffer adverse health effects for life or rack up massive hospital bills.
More than 100,000 people have tested positive in the past two days alone as states are setting records they don’t want every day.
Florida on Thursday reported 10,109 new cases of covid-19, marking a new single-day record for the state, which reported 6,563 cases on Wednesday. There were 68 new deaths, for a total of 3,718. It’s the 25th consecutive day that Florida has set a record high in its seven-day rolling average. Georgia, one of the first states to loosen restrictions, joined Florida and several other states in setting single-day records of new cases. Georgia reported 3,472, up from 2,976 on Wednesday.
In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Thursday issued a statewide mandate requiring Texans to wear masks in public in any county with 20 or more positive covid-19 cases — a dramatic move that comes as cases in the state continue to climb. On Thursday, Texas reported 7,915 new cases of the coronavirus.
Most of the surges have come in red states, where Republican governors have blindly followed Donald Trump’s anti-mask, anti-CDC, anti-science, and anti-common sense stances for weeks and are now seeing the residents suffer the effects.
Trump, meanwhile, is talking about everything except the coronavirus.
On Twitter he can be found shouting into the void about mail-in ballots, cable news lineups, jobs numbers that are woefully far from where they were at the beginning of the year, and statues, in addition to random missives that he thinks rally his base.
Over the past week, Trump has tweeted or retweeted more than 220 times. Just four have mentioned COVID-19. Three of those were Trump criticizing Joe Biden for misspeaking and saying “million” instead of “thousand” when Biden referenced the (then) 120,000 deaths from the disease. The fourth was Trump’s campaign bragging about the amount of testing done in the U.S. (The vast majority of the countries that saw outbreaks no longer need widespread testing because their rapid response largely stemmed the surges. In essence, the U.S. is running a race that no one is participating in and Trump is declaring the country a winner.)
There is no guidance, no words of empathy and certainly no mea culpa from Trump. But there’s not even an acknowledgment of the crisis that is uniquely American and affecting everyone in some capacity from coast-to-coast.
Trump called a news conference for Thursday morning, but afraid of being forced to answer questions he refused to take a single one.
1,260 days in, 202 to go
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