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A day after 2,804 Americans died in a single day from the coronavirus pandemic, almost as many as in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Donald Trump said nothing about the harrowing national crisis.
The silence of the President of the United States broke with the tradition of predecessors who have tried to play the role of “comforter in chief” for the American public after deadly bombings, school shootings and other tragedies.
Instead, Trump remains consumed by false accusations that last month’s presidential election, which he lost to Joe Biden, was rigged against him. On Wednesday, when the death toll from the pandemic reached its record high, he released a 46-minute videotaped speech that spread lies and misinformation about electoral fraud.
On Thursday, as the country grappled with the traumatic loss of life, Trump was concerned about presenting an award to a football coach. In a subsequent exchange with reporters, he did not directly address the unfolding national tragedy, while on Twitter he continued to push for unfounded conspiracy theories.
Covid-19 cases in the US have doubled in 10 weeks to a total of 14 million. On Wednesday a record of more than 100,000 people was registered in the hospital. The day’s death toll of 2,804, recorded by Johns Hopkins University, was the worst since the pandemic began. The total amounts to more than 275,000.
The United States has 4% of the world’s population and 19% of its deaths from Covid-19. “This is not what people mean by American exceptionalism,” Chuck Todd, host of NBC’s influential Meet the Press, observed Sunday.
Even as Trump continues his doomed legal campaign to overturn the election result, experts warn that the holiday season could mark the most dangerous public health crisis in the country’s history, sharpening ambulance and hospital services by as much as a critical point.
Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned Wednesday: “The reality is that December, January and February are going to be tough times. In fact, I think this is going to be the most difficult time in the history of public health in this nation. “
He added that the total number of deaths could approach 450,000 in February if Americans do not follow public health guidelines to mitigate the spread of the virus.
Jonathan Reiner, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at George Washington University, told CNN: “By this time next week, we’re going to be talking about 3,000 deaths a day, that’s September 11 every day.”
After September 11, George W Bush sought to unite the nation from the Oval Office and Ground Zero in New York. Bill Clinton offered comfort after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and Barack Obama sang Amazing Grace in Charleston, South Carolina, while trying to heal after nine African Americans were shot and killed in church in 2015.
But Trump passed the election promising his campaign rallies, with few face masks and little physical distancing, that the United States was “turning around” the pandemic and that the media would pay no attention to it once the votes were received.
Even now, the president, eager to claim credit for an impending vaccine, is reportedly planning to host two dozen indoor Christmas parties that will again circumvent his own government’s public health councils. Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, has similar plans, according to the Washington Post.
Zac Petkanas, director of the coronavirus war room at healthcare lobby Protect Our Care, said: “The Trump administration has completely renounced any leadership or effort to combat the spread of this virus. As doctors, nurses, first responders and front-line workers battle the worst waves this country has experienced yet, Donald Trump and his cronies are celebrating this holiday season. “
He added: “From the beginning, Donald Trump has downplayed the danger of this virus, and now, on his way out, driven by his tantrums, he is determined to leave death and destruction in his wake.”
