Reading time – 3:32 . . .
Even the most casual observer knows that Donald Trump will spin everything about coronavirus so that he looks good. He will lie, he will try to force revisionist history on us and he will declare in unambiguous terms that only he can lead us out of the pandemic. He’ll tell us he knows more than the doctors and the epidemiologists and that only because of him has the astonishingly self-defeating COVID-19 test kit shortage been solved.
There will be more, of course, but the point is that he will ignore and deny his months long bumbling of this crisis. Instead, he will declare his genius and heroism in protecting the citizens of this country. The question for those of us living in the real world is how we will deal with this hurricane of presidential self-serving, deadly fantasy. Here’s how:
DEMOCRATS, GET YOUR HEADS OFF OF PURITY TESTS AND BORING POLICY ARGUMENTS AND
GET IN FRONT OF THIS!
- Unite behind one voice.
- Establish a single point of contact for COVID-19 information.
- Declare exactly what needs to be done, including enlisting the Army Corps of Engineers to refit appropriate structures like hotels, barracks, apartment buildings, field houses and more to become auxiliary hospital facilities. Utilize FEMA resources wherever it’s possible (tents, mobile living facilities, food stockpiles, transportation equipment, etc.).
- Secure beds – any beds – for these new facilities.
- Order manufacturing facilities to shift from whatever they were constructing to make COVID-19 test kits, hospital masks, gowns, respirators, ventilators, specialty ICU equipment, oxygen generation machines and all the rest of the medical materials we’ll need.
- Establish drive-thru testing stations everywhere so that all 325,000,000 Americans can be screened, including those showing no symptoms.
- Establish an emergency education panel to identify best practices to help teachers to educate our millions of school children remotely.
- Figure out safe food and medical supply, including delivery services that don’t put delivery people and recipients at greater risk.
- Require broadband and internet services providers to maximize performance for everyone.
- Provide emergency funding for the development of a safe and effective vaccine against COVID-19. This is no time to hide behind “free market” philosophies. When a vaccine is available require all Americans to be vaccinated, including the anti-vax crowd. And make the vaccine available to the entire world immediately. If another country develops a vaccine first, go get it.
Then stand in front of the American people and deliver a presidential message of leadership, outlining your plan, calling for sacrifice for our common good and declaring your belief in all of us. Do it before President Nero bumbles through the same message reading a Tele-Promp-Ter. Be the presidential one.
We can’t wait until the next debate for this declaration because more people will die. DO THIS NOW!
And DON’T deliver your message from the podium standing shoulder-to-shoulder with politicians and healthcare professionals, all of whom know better than to be close enough to breathe, cough and sneeze on one another. Lead by example.
WHOOPS! You’re too late.
Yesterday the President held a presser with VP Pence, the head of the VA and a couple of medical types, all foolishly standing shoulder-to-shoulder. They outlined some of what’s in the list above.
Trump continued his happy talk, although he’s sounding a little more serious about this pandemic. At least he isn’t still telling us that the virus will magically go away.
The experts by the podium were very short on specificity. We heard about a phantom self-swab test kit and that a couple of hospital ships are being deployed – somewhere.
Except we learned later that both ships are down for maintenance and one won’t be ready for weeks. Worse, these ships have no medical staff. They will have to round up doctors, nurses and technicians in order to be of any use to us. The problem is that there are no spare medical people. All are maxed out at existing hospitals or they’re down with coronavirus. So for now, hospital ships are largely yet more Trumpian happy talk.
We heard that FEMA is being put on alert, although we haven’t a clue what they will do, nor do they.
So, maybe it’s not too late to stand up and be the presidential one. Americans want the truth. What if someone told it to them? Try it.
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Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so
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JA
Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
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