As I sip my coffee this morning, I again am shaking my head at Trump's comments yesterday. How can you lead in solving a problem if you are in denial about the problem or perhaps totally delusional about it?
During his interview yesterday with Axios his comments about the Coronavirus were actually borderline deranged. With a straight face he said, we have made "significant" advances and there are "very encouraging" signs while he also celebrated "plateauing" cases in sunbelt areas. This is in the face of the likelihood that 1,000 people a day will continue to die from the pandemic in the coming weeks. He had the audacity to suggest, "it is what it is. But that doesn't mean we aren't doing everything we can. It's under control as much as you can control it." This is from a clown that only got on board with social distancing and face masks a little over a week ago.
Really, we are "doing everything we can to control it." How about testing, testing, testing? Not just testing but turnaround times that are not next to useless. If you have to wait a week to get results, what friggin' good are the results for contact tracing and isolation? "The U.S. had done a better job than many countries." I may vomit. I won't bore you with the statistics, but that statement is so detached from reality that my keyboard was fighting me while I typed it. With 5% of the world's population, we have 25% of the cases... and yet Cheeto says, "I think we are doing very well and I think ... as well as any nation."
I read that the administration was promoting a program where nursing homes were being provided with new Abbott automatic testers that can turnaround test results in a matter of minutes. Guess what? There are not enough test kits to test more than about 115 people per state. That's like selling a car without any gas. OK, I get the problem of "start-up" issues with any new program, but how about outlining some plans to address the situation and acknowledge that testing is still inadequate instead of touting our testing as the 'best tn the world.'
Isn't it about time the administration admitted that they totally mismanaged the pandemic and it was time to do a reset to address the problem with renewed vigor and resources? Using Pence and Kushner as point men in the management of the process is like asking an Irishman to lecture us on temperance while sitting on a bar stool. There may be some credibility issues here. The current strategy of criticizing Birx and Fauci every time they correct misstatements by the administration is a very, very, poor management process.
While I continue to shake my head, I'm going to pour another cup of coffee.