Trump thinks it’s time to put this whole pandemic thing to bed.
Trump administration officials are telling members and staff of the coronavirus task force that the White House plans to wind down the operation in coming weeks despite growing evidence that the crisis is raging on, Maggie Haberman reports.
Ok it’s raging on but it’s boring, all right? Trump has tv to watch and lies to tell, and this whole “task force” caper is a big yawn now.
A top adviser to Vice President Mike Pence who has helped oversee the task force, Olivia Troye, has told senior officials involved in the task force to expect the group to wind down within weeks, a notice echoed by other top White House officials. While the task force met Tuesday at the White House, Monday’s meeting was canceled, and a Saturday session, a staple of recent months, was never held.
…
While the rate of new infections and deaths has been falling in New York, it has continued to rise in much of the rest of the country, and a number of projections suggest that deaths will remain at elevated levels for months to come and could increase as states ease their stay-at-home orders. One document circulating inside the administration raised the possibility of a rise in coronavirus infections and deaths this month, reaching about 3,000 daily deaths on June 1 — nearly double the current level.
The normal daily death rate is around 8000, so 1000 is not a trivial increase, let alone 3000.
Comments
11 responses to “Ok that’s enough now”
From the NYT article:
This is not just about Trump having the mind of a toddler. It looks as well like good-old-fashioned corruption. Can Impeachment #2 be far away?
So his re-election strategy is to double down on voter suppression and racism I presume? Should be a super reliable strategy in lieu of the next Great Depression… (it could work, certainly, but it’s not something I’d put money on)
The death toll, for him, has become wallpaper, or background radiation. Yesterday’s news for a mind that can’t remember a lie uttered in the previous sentence.
Did someone tell Trump about the whole “declare victory and go home” idea from the Vietnam War?
Just one detail: where would America go home to?
YNnB:
I think that Captain Bonespurs would contend that the war was won because he managed to avoid fighting in it. Which is right, given the axiom that the Universe revolves around him, and which he by all appearances believes.
@BKISA
#2
Of course you wouldn’t put money on it. You haven’t been initiated into the higher mysteries of casino management.
Normal daily death rate is 8000? Or 800?
8000.
Then how is 1000 or 3000 an increase? I’m not understanding.
maddog:
8000 is the background rate, 1000-3000 extra deaths are predicted on top of that. The 8000 figure just puts the others in perspective.
Yes. Sorry for obscurity. I’ve been meaning for weeks to find out what the normal rate is so that I could understand what the COVID rate was like in relation to that, and for weeks I’ve been forgetting to do it, and then I saw the c. 8000 per day mentioned somewhere. I should have said “The normal daily death rate is around 8000, so an added 1000 is not a trivial increase, let alone the predicted (if we re-open) 3000.”