As a third covid-19 wave rises, Trump dawdles and Republicans hide
The third wave of covid-19 is here, and the numbers are truly grim. The first wave peaked in April with about 34,000 new cases per day; the second wave crested in July at roughly 76,500 new cases per day. Saturday alone saw more than 167,000 new cases. Forty-nine states have seen new case rates rise in the past week; half of states have seen a jump of 34 percent or more in that time. And though treatments have become more effective since the grim days of spring, we have no idea how high death totals will spike in the coming weeks as this wave runs its course.
At the root of this third wave is public fatigue: Americans are weary of staying indoors and away from one another. The Post reports that public health officials are increasingly tracing outbreaks to “small, private social gatherings” — as opposed to the nursing homes, dangerous workplaces or crowded social venues that defined earlier outbreaks. And with savings tapped out and government support dried up, more businesses that closed during previous outbreaks are likely to try to stay open and attract customers, despite the risks.
These are entirely understandable reactions; indeed, experts have warned for months both of a winter wave and of the difficulty in asking a tired populace to do what it takes to combat that wave. This is where leadership comes in — and where Trump has been unsurprisingly, yet still horrifyingly, negligent.
A senior administration official told The Post that the president hasn’t attended a meeting of his covid task force in “at least five months.” On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, confirmed that Trump had been physically absent from task force meetings for “several months.” And Fauci addressed the most dangerous aspect of Trump’s refusal to concede: “It would be better if we could start working with” President-elect Joe Biden’s team immediately, he stated. Instead, by obstructing the transition process, Trump and his flunkies at minimum are making the country’s fight against covid less smooth, and doing so at the pandemic’s most dangerous point.
Trump’s failings have, in turn, lowered the bar for everyone else. His uninterest in stimulus to help Americans ride out the pandemic has made it easier for Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to do what he does best: block help to millions of Americans. Trump’s cavalier attitude toward the virus has emboldened too many Americans to flout mask rules and other basic public safety measures. And, frankly, his ineptness lowers the bar for acceptable leadership from Democrats, as well, which is how we end up with New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) being hailed by liberals for his mistake-filled covid-19 response.
There is light at the end of the tunnel. Incoming chief of staff (and former Post Opinions contributing columnist) Ron Klain told Todd, “We now have the possibility — we need to see if it gets approved — of a vaccine starting perhaps in December or January.”
Even if the vaccine takes longer to be verified as safe and effective, certainly by the end of January we’ll have a president who actually cares about all Americans’ lives, not just his polling numbers. But the damage has already been done: On ABC’s “This Week,” Biden covid-19 task force member Atul Gawande said the task force is against a nationwide lockdown, which other countries have implemented as cases have soared. Instead, he touted “more localized” measures. Left unstated was the fact that, because of how the president and the GOP have politicized the virus response, a national stay-at-home order from a Democratic president inevitably would be ignored by many Republicans. In other words, should the worst-case scenarios come to pass, one party has already destroyed the efficacy of a tool the country might need.
Already on this president’s watch, nearly 250,000 Americans have died of covid. Thanks to his continued incompetence, that total will grow far more than it otherwise would have even after he has left office. No doubt Trump and his supporters will reject blame. They excel at that. But history will judge them nonetheless.
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