May 8th 2020

By Dan Benbow

The sustained clip of new COVID-19 infections (25,459) and deaths (2,528) continued in the United States yesterday, but the Trump administration refuses to let inconvenient statistics impact their public health decisions. 

According to the Associated Press, Trump’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was set to release a 17-page report (“Guidance for Implementing the Opening Up America Again Framework”) last Friday. The report was intended to provide direction to localities about how to lift stay-at-home orders safely:

“The guidance contained detailed advice for making site-specific decisions related to reopening schools, restaurants, summer camps, churches, day care centers and other institutions. It had been widely shared within CDC, and included detailed ‘decision trees,’ flow charts to be used by local officials to think through different scenarios.”

Among the details, “restaurants and bars should install sneeze guards at cash registers and avoid having buffets, salad bars and drink stations” and “as restaurants start seating diners again, they should space tables at least 6 feet apart and try to use phone app technology to alert a patron when their table is ready to avoid touching and use of ‘buzzers.’”

The need “for scientifically valid information with which to make informed decisions” was so urgent that state and county health departments were contacting the CDC daily for advice, yet the administration blocked the release and CDC officials were told the report “would never see the light of day.”

A White House official claimed that the report was spiked because it hadn’t been cleared at the upper level of the CDC and re-openings varied from state to state, but the more likely explanation is that the administration is more focused on Trump’s re-election campaign than public safety. 

Even as Anthony Fauci and CDC head Robert Redfield have recently cautioned against a premature relaxation of social distancing guidelines, Trump has been a cheerleader for the governors who’ve chosen to ignore sound scientific and public health advice and the flat earth protesters who egg them on.  

The administration’s own models show that re-opening the economy early will lead to “dramatically more U.S. deaths,” a doubling between now and August of what would be expected if stay-at-home orders were maintained, but as the Washington Post recently reported, Trump has more important things on his mind. 

Guidelines could convince state and local public health officials to be careful (and slow) in re-opening businesses. This would protect Americans from contracting COVID-19, but could pose challenges to Trump’s re-election campaign. 

Over the last century, only three incumbent presidents have lost re-election:  Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter, and George Bush Sr. The common denominator in all three cases was a weak economy. Americans vote with their pocketbooks.

Trump can’t run on his competence, as his response to COVID-19 has been a clear and colossal failure, so he’s putting all his chips on sliming Joe Biden and overseeing an economic rebound. 

Trump’s message to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who will get infected to serve his short-term political ambitions?

Shut up and die already.  

Dan Benbow has been an online political features writer since 2003. His work has appeared at Buzzflash, Raw Story, Salon, GetUnderground, AlterNet, AddictingInfo, BeyondChron and his blog, Truth and Beauty. He can be followed @danbenbow on Twitter.