April 16, 2020

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH

As I wrote earlier this week, there is more than ample evidence, —some of which I detalied — that a second round of COVID-19 infections and deaths is occurring in a smaller — because of the reduced workforce — wave of the Coronavirus pandemic in the US.

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I headlined the article, “The Second Wave of Coronavirus Infections and Deaths Is Already Underway, With a Willful Boost From Trump.” Because COVID-19 is still being actively transmitted in the so-called “essential workplaces,” it is astonishing that the media, in general, is letting Trump (who has been proven a mentally-ill man many times over) adopt the narrative about “opening the economy up” when the small outside-the-home workforce in place is becoming increasingly infected. (Just think of the perils of bus drivers and those who labor in public transportation, for example.)

Trump and his administration have done little, if anything, to put into place OSHA standards for preventing transmission among “essential workers,” and as you will find in my commentary, has hidden the outbreaks in the current “essential” economy by informing employers that they don’t need to report COVID-19 infections to OSHA or any of the US health agencies, which would normally be required. In addition, Trump’s CDC issued “new guidelines” that recklessly instruct workers to return to work after being exposed to a confirmed or suspected case of Coronavirus ”without quarantining for 14 days [and without a COVID-19 test].”

This is willful negligent disregard for preventing Coronavirus transmission. It makes it abundantly clear that the Trump administration is not particularly concerned about reining in the pandemic. In short, much of the workforce is regarded by Trump as disposable people (and that goes double for Blacks, elderly in nursing homes, the approximately 2.3 million American prisoners and countless migrants in cramped detention centers).

BuzzFlash doesn’t accept analyses, like this weekend’s New York Times detailing of warnings transmitted to Trump, as “bungled,” “botched” or due to an “incompetence.”

As media critic Eric Boehlert wrote on his website, Press Run:

That's borderline treasonous behavior. It's not just that Trump has refused to provide national leadership in a time of crisis. He's actively and purposefully making everything worse, starting with spending most of the winter downplaying the risks and making misleading and false proclamations. ("Anybody who wants a test will get a test.")

Because the media won’t treat Trump as the sociopath he is, because they enable his insane narcissist and lethal antics, the nation is at grave risk during this fierce and implacable pandemic. This is exacerbated by the still relatively minuscule number of tests that are available, and it has been decreasing! Testing in the tens of millions is vital to determining the extent of our Coronavirus infestation, and it is also a vital tool for testing workers (and contact tracing and isolation), but it is not mandated and scarcely available. This is not accidental. Remember Trump’s desire “to keep the numbers down”? The only way to see the large number of current “second wave” “essential worker” COVID-19 infections and deaths is to read articles on the different industries.

There is no federal monitoring, data collection or testing of the workforce in relation to COVID-19. This is brazenly irresponsible as lives are at stake.

On April 11, The Washington Post ran an article, “Trump administration has many task forces — but still no plan for beating Covid-19.” It provided reported evidence that, as Boehlert wrote, “He's [Trump is] actively and purposefully making everything worse”:

During one task force meeting in the Situation Room last month, Trump turned to Fauci and challenged him.

It was the day the administration was adding Ireland and the United Kingdom to its travel restrictions, and Trump wanted to understand why talk of “herd immunity” — allowing the Coronavirus to sweep a nation largely unchecked, with the belief that those who survived would then be immune — was such a bad idea.

“Why don’t we let this wash over the country?” Trump asked, according to two people familiar with his comments, a question other administration officials say he has raised repeatedly in the Oval Office.

Fauci initially seemed confused by the term “wash over” but became alarmed once he understood what Trump was asking.

“Mr. President, many people would die,” Fauci said.

The president said he understood but since then has repeatedly made clear he wants to reopen things soon — although significant roadblocks remain.

In short, Trump was expressing what has likely been his desire all along to let “the forest” of the virus burn through the population. The wealthy will be protected by isolating themselves in mansions, expansive Park Avenue apartments, islands and the Trump Towers. The rest of the working class, who are risking their lives, is expendable, as long as the oligarchy could start gorging on money again.

One can strongly make a case that Trump has facilitated the spread of COVID-19. He has done almost nothing to reduce it.

Trump thrives off of chaos, expanding his authoritarian powers, implementing detestable policies including increased pollution and fewer restrictions on toxic chemicals, deporting all asylum seekers, increasing his claims of unaccountability, engaging in illegal politics, grifting, trying to eliminate Obamacare and reduce Medicaid, and using daily TV spectacles to capture the evening and following morning headlines with outrageous pronouncements that serve as distractions — all this chicanery, and much more, under the cover of COVID-19. The Coronavirus epidemic in the US gives him maximum leeway to invoke emergency powers, break the law, and rally his base.

An April 9 New Yorker article was headlined, “How Did the U.S. End Up with Nurses Wearing Garbage Bags?” describes the dismay of a Silicon Valley CEO, Eric Ries, who volunteered to help develop tools for procuring protective gear for front line healthcare workers, police and paramedics. However, the CEO found that the White House was doing virtually nothing to obtain the PPE’s:

What they did not foresee was that the federal government might never come to the rescue. They did not realize this was a government failure by design—not a problem to be fixed but a policy choice by President Trump that either would not or could not be undone. “No one can believe it. That’s the No. 1 problem with the whole situation: the facts are known, but they are inconceivable,” Ries told me. “So we are just in denial.”

Independent reporting has corroborated what Ries and other volunteers saw for themselves: “a fragmented procurement system now descending into chaos,” as the Associated Press put it. The news agency found that not a single shipment of medical-grade N95 masks arrived at U.S. ports during the month of March. The federal government was not only disorganized; it was absent. Federal agencies waited until mid-March to begin placing bulk orders for the urgently needed supplies, the AP found

OSHA is not even enforcing social distancing or setting protective standards for front line and essential workers.

The mainstream media will continue enabling a sociopath to gaslight America and avoid calling it ”a government failure by design” that will further result in the infections of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of Americans and deaths in the tens of thousands, or more.

This is what Trump wanted, and this is what he got, still daily commanding the attention of the press as he commits negligent homicide.

Quotations were bolded by BuzzFlash

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