HOW COULD ALL THREE GO UP AT ONCE?
How could the number of American coronavirus infections, coronavirus deaths and Trump’s approval rating all go up at the same time?

OF COURSE OBAMAWAS SMARTER
“During the Obama administration, Congress wavered back and forth on funding pandemic preparedness, cutting $870 million from the 2009 stimulus package and later approving a larger sum. Then, in 2018, President Trump’s national security adviser…abolished the office assigned to prepare for pandemics and reassigned its director…Soon afterward, Senator Sherrod Brown wrote to Trump warning that “this administration’s proposed budget cuts threaten our ability to respond to a public health emergency.”” (Steven Kinzer, The Boston Globe, March 22, 2020) In the same article Kinzer concluded, “This pandemic is a wake-up call from the future. It tells us that we need to re-imagine what we mean by the term “security threat.” The scariest threats to human security no longer come from armies or hostile nations. They now come from forces that endanger us all. If this pandemic teaches us only that – if it leads us to begin focusing on emerging threats rather than continuing to fight old wars – it will have brought good along with tragedy.”

WHAT WERE WE THINKING!
“Scientist around the world were waiting at their computers in early January when China released the coronavirus genetic code, the blueprint for creating tests and vaccines. Within days, labs from Hong Kong to Berlin had designed tests and shared their research with others….Within about two weeks, Australia had its own test (and made it available to its citizens around the country). Laboratories in Singapore and South Korea ramped up test kit production and ordered extra supplies. That quick work allowed them to test hundreds of thousands of people, isolate the sick and – so far, at least – contain the spread of the disease.” (The Boston Globe, March 21, 2020) The article’s authors also wrote, “By contrast, anxious citizens in the United States and many parts of Western Europe have endured byzantine delays or have been denied testing altogether. As the coronavirus pandemic shuts down world capitals (and vital U.S. states like New York, California, Michigan, Washington, Massachusetts and more, I might add) and paralyzes entire economies, political leaders are rushing to make testing more widely available.”

REPEAT: HOW COULD ALL THREE GO UP AT ONCE?
“How could the number of American coronavirus infections, coronavirus deaths and Trump’s approval rating all go up at the same time?”
The author in the above-referenced article also wrote, “The world may be paying for those missteps right now. Testing is central to the effort to fight the spread of the virus. Countries that test widely can isolate infected people and prevent or slow new infections. Without early and widespread testing, health officials and policy makers will be flying blind…” The authors point out that scientists say…”the chasm between the testing haves and have-nots reflects politics, public health strategies, and, blunders.” Which, when one thinks about it, appears to be a perfect description of the behavior of the Trump administration which could have easily began doing in January what it is only attempting to do now.
Which is, of course, why I keep asking the question, “How could the number of American coronavirus infections, coronavirus deaths and Trump’s approval rating all go up at the same time?”

MAYBE LEONARD PITTS CAN ANSWER THE QUESTION
Pitts wrote: “As has often been argued in this space, reasoning with Trump believers is a waste of time. They lack the willingness and the capacity. (Does he mean Hillary Clinton was right?) But one still can’t help marveling at their ability, at this late date and with their lives on the line, to continue to deny the evidence of their senses.” (The Republican, March 29, 2020) In the same article Pitts also wrote: “Yes, we all deny reality some times: all of us are loath to change our minds even when the facts dictate that we should. That’s a human trait, not an ideological one….But you always think there will come a moment of reckoning, a moment when even the most truth-phobic and logic-allergic will have to face reality.”
By the way he introduced his article, one might think Pitts was describing Trump not his followers. Pitts opened by quoting some of Trumps favorite declarations about the coronavirus: “We have it totally under control. It’s going to be just fine.” (Jan. 22, 2020) “One day – it’s like a miracle – it will disappear.” (Feb. 27, 2020) “Anybody that wants a test can get a test.” (March 6, 2020) “No, I don’t take responsibility at all.” (March 13, 2020) As has been the case from the beginning of his delusional presidency, it is impossible to distinguish between whether the president is misleading his followers or his followers are misleading him. But what is clear is that neither is leading.

THE STOCK MARKET CERTAINLY DOESN’T SEEM TO KNOW THE ANSWER
One would think that Trump followers would rethink their “slavish” trust in him as they watch the historical shrinkage in their 401(k)’s, as stocks crash around the world, and their jobs disappear. Maybe I should ask my opening question a little differently: “How could the number of American coronavirus infections, coronavirus deaths and Trump’s approval rating all go up at the same time as stocks tank and jobs disappear?” But I bet his followers will find some pseudo-equivalent palliative in the fact that they can get a cheap tank of gas even if many of them have to delay retirement and can’t pay their current bills.

LIQUOR STORES AND GUNS
I can sort of understand why liquor stores are considered essential. Requiring people to stay home from work and to isolate themselves from close contact with friends and family and large groups is tough enough especially when all major sports competitions have been cancelled. It’s going to be boring for a long time and a bit of booze might make it easier for many to bear. But I find it more difficult to understand why some states (Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois and Connecticut, so far) have designated gun stores as essential even though, since the onset of coronavirus, gun sales have gone through the roof.
The run on guns and ammunition is as puzzling as the run on toilet paper that emptied the shelves at Costco, Big Y and Stop and Shop and I am sure at many other locations I didn’t visit. I can understand why gun store owners want to profit from the explosion in the demand for guns and bullets. But I don’t understand what is driving the public demand for guns and bullets, or toilet paper for that matter, except for maybe buyers’ primal fear of the unknown that comes with the unanswered questions about the coronavirus pandemic. Whatever the fear, the run on guns and toilet paper and many other commodities that we have plenty of seems irrational and certainly not born of any imaginable necessity. 

BUT IT IS NOT AS BIZARRE AS “RATIONING”
Allen C. Guelzo wrote an interesting article in The Wall Street Journal (March 27, 2020) on the coronavirus and “rationing” that folks should think about especially those considered to be “older” folks. Unless you live in an empty cave out in the middle of nowhere, you’ve heard politicians and hospital administrators complaining about not having enough PPE’s (personal protection equipment) as well as not having enough beds and respirators or medical personnel for all the patients who need them. One way to solve this scarcity problem is to produce the scarce products. The other is to simply ration out what is available and make those who are forced to go without as comfortable as possible. But, when the scarce products are not made available, things get complicated because somebody must decide who gets what is available and who does not. And when it comes to life and death in an emergency, the decision is not usually done randomly or first-come, first-serve. It’s normally done by way of “triage” which is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as “the act of sorting according to quality.” Or “the assignment of degrees of urgency to decide the order of treatment of wounds, illnesses, etc.”
Officials in New York, Seattle and California have held discussions about triaging to select those who will get the beds, ventilators and the most in-depth care and those who should simply be made comfortable and allowed to die peacefully. And they all suggest that the weakest and least likely to survive should be made comfortable while the strongest and most likely to survive be given what is available. If you listened to the attention given to a certain age group and you are in that age group, as I am, you should be getting a bit nervous. The author, of course, concluded, as I have, that we are better than that as a nation and should not be choosing between who should live and who should die with the oldest of us being considered expendable. Rather, as the richest, most powerful and technically proficient nation in the world, we should muster our resources to serve every patient to the fullest. Let’s hope Trump reads The Wall Street Journal. If not, they might be coming for him soon! ■