Pandemic takes deadly toll of our state’s elderly

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The self-serving criminality of Donald Trump has never been more flagrantly obvious. At 91—being sort of “post-elderly” with a couple or three slow-me-downs, I have every right to voice the opinion headlined here on behalf of myself, my wife and family, my friends, my contemporaries . . . Our pandemic is not about to “flatten out” at all until we see results of actual local testing. Early Tuesday as I was working on this, state deaths were 35 and total cases were 365+, according to the computer. By 7:00 p.m. the same day 4,459 “known cases” were recorded nationally, but that’s just the tip of the world’s icebergs.

MEANWHILE, I know I’m not the only one who, for quite a while now, has been watching Donald keeping a lid on and hiding reality—keeping our country looking good in comparison to others—as if we were responding more efficiently. And there’s always the hope with him that the Stock Market will go blind while he’s stalling around.

A day later than the story condensed in the heading above, a somewhat longer one in the same publication by S. V. Date was titled “LYING, TWEETING AND WISHING A PANDEMIC AWAY DOESN’T WORK, IT TURNS OUT.” You can read that one out here as I need the allowable word space for a couple of related articles: https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/trump-pandemic-response-222416379.html “On Feb. 26, the day after a top official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that life in the United States was likely to change very quickly, Trump claimed that there were only 15 cases here, and that number would soon fall to zero . . . While Trump’s shaky effort with coronavirus began in January, its seeds were sewn nearly two years earlier, when his administration dismantled the pandemic response team that Obama created following the Ebola outbreak . . .” etc.

Trump’s recent stalling appears to have been in hopes that he could fool the Stock Market. It only made things worse—as he encouraged the slightly-afflicted to keep right on showing up for work (and infecting others). Anything not to besmirch the Trump presidency with scary numbers, with the 2020 election on the horizon.

Perhaps more meaningful is this headline on a story by Los Angeles Times staff writer Noam N. Levey April 10, 2017, about two and a half months after Trump took office as president: “TRUMP PUSHES HISTORIC CUT IN GLOBAL HEALTH AID, STOKING FEARS OF NEW DISEASE OUTBREAKS AND DIMINISHED U.S. CLOUT.” The story—about three weeks shy of three years ago began: “Reporting from Washington —  Half a century after the United States led a global expansion of international efforts to combat infectious disease and promote family planning, the Trump administration has embarked on a historic retrenchment that many fear threatens the health of millions and jeopardizes America’s standing in the world . . .” https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-global-health-20170410-story.html

A meaningful single sentence from this article of several years ago says “Across the world, there are growing fears the U.S. no longer will be a reliable ally in tackling major global health challenges, including combatting HIV/AIDS, malaria and future pandemics such as Ebola.”

Or “The White House is urging reductions this year to major international heath initiatives, including the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, which provides life-saving medicines to millions of AIDS patients in developing nations. The Trump administration has imposed tough new restrictions on U.S. support for aid organizations that provide family planning and other health services . . .”

I believe that’s from the Feb. 10 (this year) CNN story by Jennifer Hansler, “Trump proposes cuts to global health programs during coronavirus.”

And there is a plethora of stories headlined such as this one March 11 by Santana Karanth of HuffPost: “Trump Won’t Answer CNN Reporter’s Question About His False Coronavirus Comments.” It begins, “
President Donald Trump dismissed a reporter as “fake news” on Wednesday afternoon when asked to respond to Americans who see him downplaying the coronavirus pandemic and giving statements that differ from what experts are saying about the public health crisis.
The president’s refusal to answer the question from CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta came during a Cabinet Room meeting with banking leaders to talk about the virus’s effect on the economy.

‘What do you say to Americans who are concerned that you’re not taking this seriously enough and that some of your statements don’t match what your health experts are saying?’ Acosta asked.
‘That’s CNN, fake news,’ Trump responded, at which several meeting attendees began snickering. The reporting pool was then dismissed from the room . . .”