Here’s a political analysis by Philip Bump from April 23, which was six days ago, about how Trump reveled in a downward projection of the coronavirus death toll in the U.S.
With 60,000 deaths, “you can never be happy,” Trump said at a briefing on April 10, shortly after the model revision. “But that’s a lot fewer than we were originally told and thinking. So they said between [100,000] and 220,000 lives on the minimum side, and then up to 2.2 million lives if we didn’t do anything. But it showed a just tremendous resolve by the people of this country. So we’ll see what it ends up being, but it looks like we’re headed to a number substantially below the 100,000. That would be the low mark. And I hope that bears out.”
By Trump standards that wasn’t an outrageous thing to say, on April 10. But he didn’t keep up with revisions.
As recently as Monday [April 20], Trump again touted this number.
“We did the right thing, because if we didn’t do it, you would have had a million people, a million and a half people, maybe 2 million people dead,” he said. “Now, we’re going toward 50, I’m hearing, or 60,000 people. One is too many. I always say it: One is too many. But we’re going toward 50- or 60,000 people.”
We passed the 60,000 deaths mark today. Models may show that the curve is flattening, but the numbers keep going up higher and faster than predictions said they would go up. It seems to me that unless there is a major slowdown, we’ll reach 100,000 dead sometime in June. That tragic number at least should blow the “it’s no worse than the flu” argument out of the water, although it probably won’t.
If anything, right-wing media seems to be doubling down on the claim that covid-19 is no more deadly than the flu. Chris Hayes went on a memorable rant about that last night.
Another example: An article by Joseph Curl dated April 28 in the Washington Times is headlined “COVID-19 turning out to be huge hoax perpetrated by media. Media hyped the virus and alarmed Americans to the point of shutting down the economy.” I am not going to link to it, because links just make it more visible to search engines, but it shouldn’t be hard to find if you want to read it. I wrote a takedown of it on Facebook. Curl repeats some of the same cherry-picked data to argue that covid-19 is no worse than the flu that I took apart on April 18 in Death by Stupid. The zombie arguments just won’t die.
Viral photo by Joshua A. Bickel, Columbus Dispatch, of Ohio anti-restriction protesters.
Curl also claims that a “major model relied on by the White House Coronavirus Task Force predicts about 70,000 dead by the end of August.” At the rate we’re going, we’ll pass 70,000 dead some time next week. Seriously. I notice Curl provides no links or other information on where this “major model” came from. It may be that this is the model Trump seized on to announce only 70,000 deaths two days ago. April 27:
President Donald Trump on Monday acknowledged more Americans would die of the coronavirus than he has recently predicted,now saying that the nationwide toll is likely to be between 60,000 and 70,000.
Yes, the nationwide toll for the coming week almost certainly will be between 60,000 and 70,000. Then it will be higher.
See Beware of studies claiming covid-19 death rates are smaller than expected. The authors are the dean of Harvard Medical School; a professor and researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston; a professor and researcher at the Ragon Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital; and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School. The studies they criticize, conducted in California, appear to be the same studies cited by Curl to argue that the covid-19 mortality rate “is likely 0.1% to 0.2%.”
And regarding Fox News, see also Sean Hannity’s self-own by Erik Wemple in today’s WaPo.
Even when they’re proven wrong, the coronavirus truthers don’t give up. Remember Richard Epstein, the highly esteemed “legal scholar” who made a complete ass of himself claiming that coronavirus would kill no more than 500 Americans? He then claimed that “500” was a typo; he meant to write “5,000.” Hah. Well, Epstein hasn’t given up. Jonathan Chait reported on April 21 that Epstein has another essay out arguing that the official coronavirus data is completely overblown and doesn’t justify the economic shutdown. See Chait, Richard Epstein Can’t Stop Being Wrong About the Coronavirus.
This pooh-poohing of the worst pandemic of our lifetimes — so far — unless you’re really, really old — of course is in service to Republican political interests. But I’ll have to rant about that tomorrow.
The initial goal was to flatten the curve because doubling every three days would have overwhelmed the capacity of hospitals. We did flatten the curve at 15K fatalities per week. That's the average of the last three weeks and it only varies by about a thousand each week. We're not going up – we're not going down BUT, we're going to claim "Mission Accomplished" and remove the precautions that flattened the curve.
The professionals (with MD behind their name, experience with Ebola, and years of planning under their belts) say we have to REVESE the trend – actually drive numbers down until contact tracing can be effective. If you're not up on contact tracing, it's a working method (in functional public health systems) where if you test positive, the health department tries to locate and test anyone you have been in contact with. This isn't new – it's how health departments try to deal with STDs.
Why not use contact tracing now? We have a million people who have tested positive with COVID – 80% (roughly) are potentially still capable of transmitting the virus. After two weeks they won't be, but you can't do contact tracing on that many people! You have to reduce (not just flatten) the number of infected, mostly asymptomatic, carriers.
Bending down the infection rate means cracking down on elective travel – ANY public appearance without a mask, fiercely enforced anti-transmission procedures aggressive testing at essential businesses. It won't happen until the pain is much greater, until everyone knows someone who suffered through it, and everyone has personally lost a loved one. COVID will have to savage the ranks of the Tea Party and execute senior leaders.
At the current rate, we hit a half-million dead in December. I don't see any objective reason to think the rate will decrease. I expect and intend to survive long enough to vote against Donald Trump but I'm almost as confident we'll be over a half-million dead before he leaves office
Being proven wrong is never even a tiny impediment in conservative circles(-jerks!).
If anything, it's a call to double-down on the stupidity!
As we on this planet know, the number of folks who got/have the disease is grossly undercounted. WHERE ARE THE PROMISED 5 MILLION DAILY TESTS, DONNIE?!?!? How do we know how many people have/had the tRUMP Plague without those tests, hmm?
And the number if deaths is also vastly undercounted. Now, we're finding out that young people have mysteriously had a spike in heart atracks. There's a lot we still don't know about this Covid-19 virus! Could those heart attacks have been a result of exposure? In the past week, I've read a few articles where statistically, we're 15,000+ deaths over the same time period over the past few years. Coronavirus, maybe? I think yes, it's likely.
But facts have never been known to sway conservatives like they do us libtards!
Once they chomp onto something, they're as tenacious as a rabid wolf on a lamb's leg!
Someone (who knows who or why) lies. Then others swear to it and repeat the lie. The bigger the lie you can tell and get others to repeat it or make it an alt reality, the more status you get in the tribe. They like Trump, he is one of them. He has high status on the big lie scale. He messed up big time on the bleach lie, and the satire comeback, but he has his minions running "bad choice of word cover for him".
I am not at all tolerant of this. I just tell people up front if you want to play bull shit you picked on the wrong guy. The truth is a noble ideal that deserves respect. Giving people status who are truth benders is morally and ethically reprehensible. They receive an immediate and severe rebuke from me.
If this continues, it will destroy this country. I could go for existential threat but those who argue from their brain stems scoff at rhetoric like that.
If, as some of the scientists have said, that the virus may be with us for up to 18 months to 2 years, and if, the second wave they predict to hit this fall actually does, and at this point I don't have any reason to doubt them, because they have been correct with their predictions, I don't believe the country will survive going forward with Trump and the GOP still in power.
Up to now, "change" as an essentially empty and nebulous campaign slogan has been a luxury, but its one we can no longer afford. A lot need to change, starting with our leadership, the political system and how we use the political system to manage government. The kind of systemic change that those on the left have long called for, that have been ignored by both parties, unfortunately. And no, this is not to equate the two parties; the GOP is so bad now it can't even be considered a political party in the true sense anymore. But it needs to be recognized that mission statements of our institutions needs refreshing, at least. That our tried and true solutions, tax cuts and tax credits are at best band-aids, and at worst schemes to transfer wealth. We can no longer afford to allow race to fester at the bottom of everything in this nation.
A tall order, sure. But that's where we are. The first step is voting Trump and the GOP out of power and then building coalitions to keep them out. Without that, nothing changes, and America is done. Period.