His apparent lack of understanding
President Donald Trump held a Cabinet Room meeting with pharmaceutical executives Monday, pressing them to deliver a vaccine for coronavirus as the epidemic spreads across the U.S.
Helpful. I’m sure they’re just being lazy, and if he presses them they’ll sigh and say “Oh all right” and come up with the vaccine by this afternoon.
At one point, Trump asked whether the normal flu vaccine could be used to prevent the spread of the current COVID-19 strain of coronavirus that is causing global disruption. “You take a solid flu vaccine,” Trump said, “you don’t think that would have an impact, or much of an impact, on corona?”
“No,” came the response. Tony Fauci, the director of the National Institute on Allergy and Infectious Disease, added, “Probably not,” as the president nodded.
A really solid one? Not one of those flimsy ones that break so easily, but a really solid one with good foundations and steel I-beams?
Trump has been criticized for his response to the spread of coronavirus and his apparent lack of understanding about the epidemic.
Apparent? You mean “obvious” and “staggering.”
Experts raised concerns about the president’s knowledge gap last week when he admitted he was “shocked” to learn that the flu generally kills more than 30,000 Americans each year.
And on Monday, Trump said “maybe a cure is possible” for coronavirus and that a vaccine would be ready “relatively soon.”
And that exciting things are happening, and that they’re happening very rapidly.
The president’s desire for a quick vaccine was evident when meeting with the pharmaceutical executives in the Cabinet Room. Trump told Gilead Sciences CEO Daniel O’Day that his work on a therapy to alleviate symptoms was “very exciting,” and instructed him to “Get it done, Daniel. Don’t disappoint us.”
That will make all the difference.
Fauci and Health Secretary Alex Azar noted that vaccine work is complex, time-consuming and prone to failure, pointing out the difference between having a vaccine ready for tests and one ready for the market. But the president kept returning to the executives’ promising pitches.
Because that’s how thick he is.
Trump said he had “heard very quick numbers, that of months. And I’ve heard pretty much a year would be an outside number. So I think that’s not a bad range. But if you’re talking about three to four months in a couple of cases, a year in other cases.”
Heard where? At the golf resort? Inside his head? From Princess Former Liberal Hope Ivanka?
Trump said he had “heard very quick numbers, that of months. And I’ve heard pretty much a year would be an outside number. So I think that’s not a bad range. But if you’re talking about three to four months in a couple of cases, a year in other cases.”
Just write it down somewhere with a Sharpie and then show it to us. That’ll work.
Rush Limbaugh said coronavirus is “…the common cold, folks.” Maybe Trump took that particular ‘fake news’ literally.
Dr. McCoy would have a vaccine ready in under an hour, with time left over for some anti-Vulcan snark.
This is the way people talk about real estate, about getting a casino or high rise built. Sometimes there’s rain or a temporary shortage of materials, but enough workmen and plenty of hustle and we’re looking at the apartments being occupied by, oh, 9 months to a year. Not a bad range.
Get it done. Don’t disappoint us. I didn’t install this trap door in the Oval Office for nothing, you know. And what’s beneath it — well, they’re getting hungry. Capeesh?
Dang, so it is. Well spotted.
Exactly. If this were a building project, Trump would just order the contractor to have his employees work a lot of overtime. I mean, Trump’s gonna stiff the contractor anyway, so it’s no skin off his nose….
I hope he gets it, his germaphobia is unlikely to get in the way of his lack of understanding.
I hope those that promulgate this misinformation believe their bullshit to such an extent that they willingly eschew appropriate precautions.
Perhaps there is a completely logical reason to call a drug/biotech company “Gilead Sciences”, but I don’t find the connotations particularly comforting.