Trump’s lethal failure to face the COVID pandemic. Part 7: A superspreader coup attempt
It was election day, and Trump planned a party. While Trump cut the guest list at his election day party, there were still plenty there, some of whom later tested positive. More than 130 Secret Service officers were infected with coronavirus or quarantining because of Trump’s campaign travel. The most seriously affected counties overwhelmingly voted Trump. There had been over 225,000 deaths, but that had not appeared to influence voters. Shortly afterwards, the U.S. hit 10 million COVID19 cases — 20% of the world total of 50 million. The US only has 4% of the world’s population.
On 9 November the coronavirus task force met for the first time since October 20. Dr. Robert R. Redfield had tweeted that it was time to develop a testing strategy to identify asymptomatic COVID-19 infections and the CDC then said that masks protect both the wearers and those around them from Covid-19.
Also on 9 November, just too late for the election, the developers of the first vaccine to complete tests, Pfizer and BioNTech, announced their vaccine was 90% effective, though it still had to get approval from governments for use. Mike Pence tweeted, “HUGE NEWS: Thanks to the public-private partnership forged by President @realDonaldTrump, @pfizer announced its Coronavirus Vaccine trial is EFFECTIVE, preventing infection in 90% of its volunteers.” However developer BioNTech is a German company, and Pfizer received no funding from the president’s Operation Warp Speed towards the development — the US was merely one of many customers who placed an order. This misrepresentation by several of Trump’s administration overshadowed the fact that the it did assist in funding the next vaccine to come along, by Moderna. Ivanka claimed he was involved on January 13 2020, but he was in denial then and the underlying research had begun much earlier. Trump claimed all the great discoveries took place on his watch.
Trump politicized vaccination, saying that New York would get the vaccine last because of Gov. Andrew Cuomo criticized his handling of the virus. He also locked the Biden Covid-19 team out. Apparently Ivanka Trump screened CDC Guidance.
On 12 November HHS secretary Azar said “targeted vaccinations” would begin in December. On 27 November CDC Covid-19 vaccine advisers called an emergency meeting to discuss vaccine distribution. They decide who will be vaccinated first. On 15 December the HHS announced that the CDC would Award Nearly $227 million for COVID-19 Vaccine Preparedness and Response.
More concerned about the economy than lives, Trump said his administration would not be going to a lockdown. Jerome Powell warned that “We’re not going back to the same economy.” McConnell rejected the Democrat’s big Covid relief package, but Trump called for one. His Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin tried to put $455 billion in COVID funds out of Biden’s team’s reach.
Bad advice continued to come out of the Trump administration. Dr. Scott Atlas called for people to rise up against Michigan restrictions, and urged people to spend Thanksgiving with their elderly because they might die soon.
Trump told the G20 summit in November to vaccinate America first, but skipped the side-summit on pandemic preparedness to play golf. The WHO said otherwise. Meanwhile El Paso needed help from the National Guard to deal with its morgue crisis.
A week into December, Trump held a COVID-19 summit without the two vaccine manufacturers, Moderna and Pfizer. It emerged that the Trump administration officials turned down a Pfizer offer of more vaccine doses, which were no longer available. On 8 December Trump signed an Executive Order prioritizing vaccines for Americans, but even Operation Warp Speed scientist Moncef Slaoui didn’t know what it was supposed to do.
On 10 December an unenviable milestone was reached. More Americans had died from COVID-19 than the number of US soldiers killed in battle during World War II.
Once again Trump applied political pressure to what should be a careful scientific process, ordering the FDA chief to authorize the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine Friday or submit his resignation. The FDA cleared it, followed the next day by the CDC vaccine advisers. The FDA issued an emergency use authorization for the Moderna vaccine on 18 December.
On 13 December Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines began to be delivered. By 16 December confusion reigned. Trump claimed, ridiculously, “If I wasn’t president? According to almost everybody, even the enemy, if I wasn’t president, you wouldn’t have a vaccine for five years”. It was reported that White House staff would be first, but Trump nixed that.
As the first Americans received a coronavirus vaccine, a worrying new variant, the first of several possibly more contagious or lethal variants, was reported in the UK, and US Covid deaths passed 300,000. Soon 1 in 1,000 Americans had died from COVID-19. The US did not have a surveillance system to determine which new variants were circulating in the United States, but on 29 December the first case was detected, in Colorado.
In mid December a $900B COVID relief bill was finally sent to Trump to sign. Instead, he made new demands for changes.
How was that great year for you?
And so 2020 came to an end, a year after Trump said, “We’re going to have a great year, I predict.”
The following day, U.S. COVID-19 cases surpassed 20 million. Trump said the numbers were ‘far exaggerated’ and called if ‘fake news’. Fauci and Surgeon General Adams disagreed. Los Angeles started to triage patients.
After Fauci said that the U.S. would not delay second doses of Covid-19 vaccines, the Trump administration reversed course, but it turned out that there wasn’t a reserve coronavirus vaccine stockpile anyway.
A superspreader coup attempt
On 6 January 2021 Trump gave a speech near the Capitol calling on people to go to the Capitol and fight. He turned on Mike Pence, who had been so loyal, for saying he could not overturn the election results. Many of the crowd, not wearing masks, marched on the Capitol and invaded it. 5 died, some at the hands of the crowd. They erected a gallows and cried “Hang Mike Pence” and went hunting for him and Democrats. While many were likely just caught up in the moment, there was a hard core who came well trained and well equipped, with a solid gallows and zip ties for capturing people. They got very close to where Democrats and Republicans alike were huddled in safe rooms. Such was Trump’s unhealthy influence, that even crowded in those rooms some Republicans refused to wear masks. People were infected as a result.
Twitter and Facebook and others banned Trump after that and he sat and stewed in the White House.
On 20 January, one day after the U.S. passed 400,000 coronavirus deaths and two days after it surpassed 24 million COVID-19 cases, all on his watch, Trump left the White House and Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States. He inherited a huge mess, and, allegedly, no vaccine distribution plan.
To see far more examples of Trump’s downplaying the virus, blaming others and falsely boasting about how well he is doing and how everything is under control, as well as what others are saying and doing, and who he came into contact with who caught COVID, please click here.