We're Not Safe Yet: Easter Sunday 2020 Edition

Remember a while back, trump was insisting that the COVID-19 / Coronavirus emergency would be over by Easter weekend and he wanted to see churches packed with people... and ultimately let the matter drop because enough experts were warning him that the United States won't be safe enough for large crowds by today. (Never mind the fact a lot of governors left church gathering exceptions in their Stay-At-Home orders, exposing hundreds to COVID anyway)

However, trump is STILL calling for "a return to normalcy" in order to "get America back to work" by opening stores and restaurants and schools and a lot of other places while the exposure rates show no signs of slowing down. Even as these are things not entirely under his control, via Jonathan Chait at New York Magazine:

Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to “reopen” the economy, but it’s not clear exactly what this means, or what he can do about it. Governors and mayors have issued the orders shutting down public spaces. Trump can’t overrule those, though if he wants to pry them open, he does have some tools: He can urge his supporters to resist, or use federal resources to pressure states and localities that resist his advice.

Public-health experts have argued that social-distancing measures can only be relaxed after several benchmarks are reached. Community spread has to be contained, and the government needs to have the capacity to conduct mass testing and to be able to trace the contacts of anybody who tests positive. This is not just some liberal-weenie precaution. The conservative American Enterprise Institute made this case in March, and CDC director Robert Redfield confirms it in a new NPR interview.

The notion that we’re going to be ready to do this within a few weeks seems utterly fanciful. At a recent press briefing, reporters tried to drill down on how much testing Trump planned to have available to accommodate the reopening. Trump simply denied the premise that testing to scale was even necessary. “Do you need it? No. Is it a nice thing to do? Yes. We’re talking 325 million people. That’s not going to happen, as you can imagine,” he said at one point. Asked about the number of tests his former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb has said would be needed, Trump scoffed, “I don’t like using the word needed, because I don’t think it’s needed...”

No matter how the scientists and doctors are trying to talk trump through this crisis, he's seemingly trying to push the federal government towards forcing the governors of all 50 states into this path he wants:

Rather than ramping up a massive national testing regime, the federal government has been signaling to states that they’re soon going to be on their own. And as for contact tracing — like a cell-phone app, or an army of public-health officials, to track down every contact of a person who tests positive — well, there’s simply no sign whatsoever that either project is even in the works, let alone ready for an early May rollout. And if the government doesn’t have the capacity to quickly identify and isolate new cases, relaxing social distancing will simply lead to renewed outbreaks.

So, given the government’s utter unreadiness to transition away from social distancing, what does Trump have in mind when he talks about reopening? The answer seems to be retreating into denial...

Lumped into all of this - something Chait covers in one paragraph - is how trump and his Fox Not-News cohorts have been trumpeting miracle cures - in particular a lupus/malaria drug that doesn't have confirmed medical studies proving it works on COVID - as though said cure is a home run for him to claim victory if it works. Even though that drug in the wrong dosage is lethal, it carries serious side effects, and there's again no actual confirmation from multiple trials - necessary for ANY drug treatment - that it will work.

trump, in short, wants this crisis to be over.

Partly because it's something he knows deep down he's not in control of (and trump is an obsessive control freak), partly because his own attention span can't handle anything taking more than a week to resolve (and COVID is something that will be with us for months), and mostly because he knows the longer this crisis takes the likelier he's not going to resolve it and tie it all up in a pretty bow before November's Election Day. Back to Chait:

It is irrational for Trump to believe he can restart the economy without first putting into place a robust public-health apparatus to contain new outbreaks. But it is not irrational for Trump to worry about his reelection. The state of public opinion may be even grimmer than even the top-line numbers would indicate. The public believes Trump was unprepared to deal with the virus by overwhelming margins — 63 percent to 22 percent, according to YouGov, and 71 percent to 29 percent, per CBS. YouGov also asks if Trump could have reduced the damage had he acted sooner, and 40 percent say “a lot,” while 25 percent say “somewhat.”

Two-thirds of the country believes Trump bungled the early stages of the crisis and subjected the country to unnecessary pain. So, on what everybody expects to be the single question that decides the election, Trump has lost the entire premise. Trump is already losing, and the current course seems far more likely to widen the gap than to shrink it. Whatever slim benefit of the doubt the public was willing to cede as he tackles the crisis is quickly expiring, and he stands (justifiably) to be blamed for the hardships that will follow.

We're already looking at April-May unemployment numbers for roughly 30 percent of the available workforce in America. Given how long it takes for businesses shut down to re-open, even if we resolve COVID-19 with widespread testing - which we can't, we still don't have enough tests - there's a slow slog towards rehiring. Businesses that furloughed workers could arguably bring them back, but again that takes time (and other resources). The economic contraction that happened with the pandemic just for the United States took a huge chuck out of the money needed to rebuild anyway.

Schools are likely not reopening until September, meaning a lost spring for students - high school seniors in particular struggling towards college enrollment - across the board. Universities may have to delay enrollments.

And we're not even looking at the emotional impact this pandemic is leaving on millions of Americans: The loss of loved ones and friends at the scale of thousands, the social isolation that's been causing "cabin fever" issues for people, a lot of personal turmoil that won't be resolved any time soon. There's a dour mood across the landscape... and trump and his Republican allies have to know they're going to be the targets of that mood.

But what trump hopes to do to avert that blame - pushing for re-opening everything before our nation is even safe to do so - is going to re-trigger all the problems that led to us self-isolating and closed down in the first place. Places like Singapore and South Korea are reporting their infection numbers going back up after easing up their extensive isolation policies that had earlier kept their rates "flattened". Until there's a vaccine in place - and that could be September at the earliest - we are not going back to normal.

But trump wants that "normal" - where the stock markets went up, where his tariffs were "winning", where business was booming while millions of workers were NOT - in place before November.

Otherwise, he and his buddies are going to have to cheat harder to steal the 2020 election.

And you know how trump HATES to do more work.

Gods help us.

P.S. Happy Easter Sunday to my Christian peeps. I took care of my Unitarian obligations this morning with a scrambled egg sacrifice (I burned the toast, so be it O Lord).