Can America Survive?
America has over 6 million confirmed cases of COVID-19. Over a thousand deaths on average per day. America’s death toll is almost 200,000 in just the last six months. With schools and businesses reopening, some citizens still refuse to cover their face or socially distance.
Can America survive the next six months? Can we survive as a nation if we cannot agree on public safety? Is science and safety an obstacle to liberty? But can America survive if our fellow citizens see safety and science as a conspiracy against Trump?
Safety v. Liberty?
Public health experts were shocked at the mask-free, socially un-distanced political event at the White House. Some of the 1,400 guests will spread the coronavirus to others. Without adequate testing and contact tracing we will never control the spread and be safe.
Recently, health experts asked the CDC to reverse a dangerous change to coronavirus testing guidance. The CDC’s testing guidance say do not test people without symptoms even if they’ve been in close contact with a COVID-19 case. How incredibly stupid. This hurts America’s ability to slow the spread of the disease.
“Months into this pandemic, we know COVID-19 is spread by asymptomatic people,” Susan Bailey, president of the AMA, wrote. “Suggesting that people without symptoms, who have known exposure to COVID-positive individuals, do not need testing is a recipe for community spread and more spikes in coronavirus.”
Clinical Microbiology and Infection reviewed and analyzed studies involving patients treated with hydroxychloroquine. Researchers found that the drug alone did not reduce mortality. When combined with the antibiotic azithromycin, it was actually linked with significantly increased mortality. Hydroxychloroquine is not a safe treatment for Covid.
Science or Politics?
If any health official (including members of Trumps’ own Task Force) disagrees with Trump, his supporters accuse them of being part of the “Deep State” or worse, a pedophile who eats children! Can America survive with our neighbors swearing allegiance to QAnon instead of the Constitution?
Trump even fired the FDA’s chief spokeswoman, Emily Miller. Trump blames her for correcting misleading and inaccurate statements at a White House press conference. In that “news” conference, the FDA pushed misleading and inaccurate claims. The FDA said convalescent plasma dramatically reduced mortality for patients with Covid-19. This was not true. They knew it was not true.
Now Trump is pushing the FDA to approve an untested vaccine. Trump pledged a Covid-19 vaccine would be available by the end of 2020 or sooner. The chief of the FDA is now under pressure to ignore safety rules. Trump is pushing the FDA to make a Covid-19 vaccine available before the election. Will it be safe? Seventy-eight percent of Americans worry the Covid-19 vaccine approval process is being driven more by politics than science. Will people even take the vaccine if safety trials ?
Meanwhile, Joe Biden promised that he will restore a worldwide virus-hunting program that Trump ended last year. The program, called Predict, searched for animal viruses in bat caves, camel pens, wet markets and wildlife-smuggling routes. Trump’s abrupt cancellation of the successful program just weeks before the pandemic prompted world-wide criticism among scientists.