This is a complete disaster on every level
Testing is the key. We know this because Germany and South Korea made testing a priority, and that is why they have the fewest rates of new cases and the fewest deaths per capita than any other nations on earth. Large numbers of tests followed by rigorous protocols for mandatory quarantine of infected persons has kept the numbers of deaths low. With fewer people infected, Germany and South Korea can focus their resources on care and treatment.
Germany performs 500,000 tests per week. South Korea performs 150,000 tests a week. South Korea is reporting barely 100 new cases a day, while America has twenty times that number in deaths alone. And South Korea had its first reported case on the same day the United States did.
As Trump puts it, “We have a great testing system. We have the best testing system in the world.” That’s almost true, except for two problems. America has an abysmal testing system. America has the worst testing system in the world and ranks dead last. Otherwise whatever is left of that statement is correct. And, thanks to Trump, America’s testing system is about to get worse. Donald Trump has just moved to end federal funding for coronavirus testing sites this week. You read that right.
Ironically, by Easter Sunday, the day for which Donald Trump issued coronavirus a deadline to get out of Dodge, America will have the highest death toll due to coronavirus in the entire world. Coronavirus has just surpassed every other cause of death in the USA. Mass graves are being dug in New York and filled with coronavirus victims every day. The death rate due to coronavirus in the USA is also among the highest in the world and currently stands at around 4%. You can unequivocally lay those deaths at the feet of Donald Trump. Not content to be a “mere” child rapist, Donald Trump has now graduated to murder.
Should the COVID-19 coronavirus mutate, as the Spanish Flu did twice in 1918, America could be in for a calamity for which it is not remotely prepared. “We … are giving out millions of tests, and every day we’re doing it exponentially,” Trump says. Setting aside his vagary about “doing it exponentially,” whatever that means, the United States is not “giving out” millions of tests.
Rarely does a social tragedy underline how deadly dangerous is the difference between political theory and factual reality. If nothing proves that Donald Trump is “not just like” Joe Biden, this is it. Biden would have listened to the scientists, he would have made testing a priority because he would have seen that Germany and South Korea were superbly ahead of everyone else precisely because they made testing a priority.
Above all, Biden wouldn’t have become jealous of those countries and allowed his ego to refuse to learn from them, simply because the idea didn’t originate with him first. Biden would not have allowed thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or millions of Americans to needlessly die because, unlike child rapist and murderer Trump, he is capable of listening to what the experts say, and he is capable of learning from them.
This is the difference between an admittedly flawed but fundamentally decent man, and a child rapist and a murderer. This is why letting the child rapist and murderer Donald Trump have another disastrous term as president of the United States would be fatal to America. We must not let that happen. The child rapist and murderer Donald Trump must be voted out of office in November or there will be no America left by 2024 with which to enact your pet social agendas. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.