Trump spent the day in Arizona and held a rally in Phoenix, a city where the wearing of masks is mandatory in public. But he refused to cover his face, along with many supporters who attended his indoor event. And he delighted his fans by reciting a racist name for the virus that refers to its origin in China.
“Flu Kung?” Trump said, drawing roars from his crowd.
Fauci, who has consistently expressed concern about the wave of aggressive economic openings promoted by the President, warned that the coming weeks “will be critical in our ability to address those waves that we are seeing in Florida, Texas, Arizona and other states They are not the only ones having difficulties. “
Rising cases of the virus, which do not represent the “second wave,” medical experts have long feared, but further the expansion of the first wave that crashed in coastal cities and urban areas, are beginning to pose a question. Disheartening for leading state and national politics: Will the situation worsen so much that it will be necessary to consider a return to more restrictive measures and even stay home?
Such a move, mostly by Republican state governors, some of whom have promised that there will be no return to the blockades, would cause a major confrontation with the President, who believes that a rapid economic resurgence is vital to his hopes of winning a second term. . .
States like Arizona, Texas and Florida are moving in the wrong direction, and there are increasing warnings that if they stay on their current course, hospitals could be overwhelmed in the coming weeks and months, leaving leaders with dying options for reverse openings or somehow increase medical capacity to cope with an increasing number of deaths.
“If we experience another doubling of those numbers over the next month, that would mean that we are in an urgent situation where tougher action will be required to make sure we contain the spread of Covid-19,” he said.
But Lina Hidalgo, a judge in Harris County that includes the city of Houston, warned that authorities did not have a month to wait.
“We are at the second highest level of threat, of concern,” Hidalgo told CNN’s John King Tuesday.
“And if these things continue, and I’m seeing it day by day, we would have to turn red at that time, my recommendation would be for everyone to stay home again.”
Kneeling Nation
Everyone’s hope was that states that reopened first would find a way to do so without causing a surge in new cases, and thus begin to mitigate the dire economic cost and psychological effects of the blockades. But some 25 states are now seeing new infections on the rise, while the situation is stable at 12 and down at 13. It is disappointing that the situation seems to get a little worse every day. States like Michigan and California, which have already experienced painful months, have seen their curves begin to increase again. And as states like New York and the Washington metropolitan areas begin to emerge from the blockades, the worsening data elsewhere offers discouraging omens.
Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at the same hearing that Fauci addressed Tuesday, in a comment unlikely to please Trump, that the virus had “brought knees to this nation. “
“We have all done the best we can do to combat this virus,” Redfield said, calling for more investment in the country’s health infrastructure.
Trump has responded to the latest intermittent warning signs with denial, anger, concern over his own political perspectives, and by continuing to celebrate the kind of events, an indoor rally-style appearance in Arizona on Tuesday, that mock basic advice. from top experts from your own government and could expose attendees to infections, serious illness or death and help spread infections.
Trump noted Fauci’s approval ratings in a tweet Tuesday, then insisted he was not joking over the weekend when he told supporters that he had told staff to slow down the rate of coronavirus testing, after the highest-ranking attendees tried to explain the comment as a joke.
“I’m not kidding, let me tell you, let me clear it up,” Trump said before leaving for Arizona. “By having more evidence, we have more cases,” he added. Experts say testing is the key to tracking the true incidence of the disease and breaking the chains of infection. Fauci said the United States planned to screen more people, not fewer. And while Trump says the United States leads the world in the gross number of tests produced, the total conducted over five months (22 million, according to Redfield) is well below what health experts say is necessary in per capita terms. to defeat the virus.
According to a report from Harvard University, the United States needs 5 million tests per day and it would take 20 million to fully mobilize the economy. By way of comparison with EE capacity. In the US, the city of Beijing alone says it can now screen 1 million people a day.
Trump co-founded logic, own officials in evidence
While officials like Fauci are denied a White House platform and face criticism from Trump, officials without medical experience, such as Larry Kudlow, director of the United States Economic Council, are free to go to television. and make inaccurate assessments of the situation.
“There are some critical points. We are on that. Now we know how to deal with these things,” Kudlow told CNBC on Monday.
Meanwhile, the president’s events send exactly the wrong message about precautions like social distancing and wearing masks, which are the only current tools to fight a virus for which there are few treatments, no current cures, and no vaccines.
“Here in the United States, as we open, we see increases in cases, once again we see that hospitals are overwhelmed,” Dr. Richard Besser, former acting director of the CDC, told “New Day” from CNN. “
“Hopefully we are improving in terms of our knowledge of how to treat people, and that may lead to better results for some. And that is encouraging. But we have a long way to go, and we cannot count the virus dimming in terms how it attacks. “
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