#Coronabreak diaries: The Prevalence of Ignorance in America

As I watch President Trump’s evening briefings, I hear a lot of nonsense about the US being the best, and how the administration has done everything ‘absolutely perfect’. What I don’t hear is anything about the tens of thousands of people who have died in the past 3 months. This president needs to step up, or get out of the way.

President Trump’s administration has been hosting briefings to update the press and the nation on what his administration is allegedly doing to help the nation amid this crisis. 

These briefings have over time become more of a campaign ad for president Trump than a briefing filled with actual information. It’s become so ridiculous that Trump is repeatedly and actively contradicting the top expert on infectious disease in the country.

I watched a portion of last Tuesday’s briefing in which Trump insulted a reporter, spat nonsense about the US being the best, and then proceeded to lie about the helpfulness and openness of the WHO(the top internationally recognized authority on all things health related). During the meeting the day before, he called a reporter disgraceful, because they asked a reasonable question about him taking responsibility for the administration’s failings.Also during tat same briefing, he showed off his “plan for the future” which was a campaign video for his base rather than a plan of action for the country.

Normally, I would just scoff and ignore Trump’s nonsense, but this is different. This is costing lives. A lot of lives. 

Five states still don’t have a stay-at-home order. That includes South Dakota, which recently had over 500 workers of the largest meat processing plant in North America get infected. The governors of these 5 states coincidentally keep spouting what Trump is saying including that hydroxychloroquine, a drug originally used to treat malaria, can be used to treat the coronavirus. This has only an anecdotal basis in facts according to Trump’s own Center for Disease Control. 

Trump needs to either start being presidential and helping the American people or he needs to get out of the way and let the top medical professionals do everything. At this point, I do not care which. More specifically, he needs to just not show up to the briefings, and have Dr. Fauci and Dr. Brix present on everything medical or epidemiological. Then have the person in charge of logistics speak about logistics, and so on. The more the president is present at these briefing the more disgraceful and mistrustful they begin.

The US has more cases and deaths than any other country in the world – including China. These numbers will only get worse unless the federal government does some actual good.

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