In Sickness and In Politics, Part 2

This is how the 2020s begin.  A rampant worldwide plague called coronavirus aka COVID-19, begun in China, has been taking a deadly tool for the past few weeks.  The approximate numbers as of March 26:

Worldwide (from worldmeters.info)                         U.S. (from worldmeters.info)

530,000 cases                                                                83,000 cases
23,000 deaths                                                               1209 deaths
123,000 recoveries                                                       1800 recoveries

Life as we used to know it has shut down in many places.  Businesses, except for the most essential ones, are closed.  Sports, entertainment and other events have either been postponed or canceled.  "Social distancing" and "community spread" have become part of the language.  The economy has cratered, leaving thousands out of work and many others working from home.

Some city and state officials have adopted "stay at home" mandates as a way of maybe keeping the spread of the virus at bay.  They have become far more trustworthy so far than the federal government, who seemed to have been asleep at the switch in the weeks since the crisis began.  There has been little to no planning when it came to getting tests ready, providing enough masks and ventilators to hospitals, quarantining already sick patients, etc.  Reportedly, some U.S. Senators have been taking advantage of the situation by dumping their stocks in certain firms.

Much of the blame has fallen on President Donald Trump.  He's cut the budget and the research of federal health agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control.  He's blamed the virus as a hoax perpetrated by China and the Democratic Party, refers to himself as the "wartime president", and claims he can get America back to work by Easter.

Trump has also pretty much muzzled his staff when it comes to the seriousness of the pandemic, with the notable exception of Dr. Anthony Faudi.  As director of the National Institute of Allergy and as a member of the President's coronavirus task force, he is one of the few officials willing to give people  credible, straightforward information that lacks it.

Unfortunately, Trump is having a star turn right now with his daily news briefings.  Bereft of his bloviating political rallies, the President has been using valuable network air time to (A) misinform and downplay the nature of the situation, (B) making snide comments about his opponents, and (C) ripping into an NBC reporter who dared to ask if had any encouraging words for the American people.  This is what he's been doing for years, so why stop now?  Faced with the dilemma of having to cover a president with an attitude at the worst possible time in history, the networks now just cover Trump's opening remarks before returning us to regular programming.

While America and most of the world stays at home for however long it takes for COVID-19 to pass, we know this:  the number of cases and the death toll WILL rise.  Hospitals WILL be overwhelmed.  Governments, in spite of themselves, WILL come up with some kind of solution.  For now, we can all hope for the best and expect the worst.

In Sickness and In Politics

There's a health crisis going on that's been killing more than three thousand people worldwide (11 in the United States) as of March 4, and changing the way we live.  It's called coronavirus, also known as COVID-19.  Every day brings another death, another crackdown, and another run on hand sanitizer and face masks.  The times demand someone who will lead us through this emergency that experts believe will get worse before it gets better.  Someone who will handle this crisis in a calm and reassuring manner, and not turn this into a power play.

Enter President Donald Trump, a man who disdains science and much of reality.  His approach to crisis management is to downplay the situation, then blame it on Democrats and the "fake news media", which is what he does with most everything else.  Instead of having experts front and center on his task force, he names Vice President Mike Pence to micromanage what information on the virus needs to be released.

Trump has already gutted the resources of federal health agencies including the Centers for Disease Control during his administration, thereby weakening their effectiveness in getting a handle on coronavirus and other diseases.  The result is confusion about what to do other than washing your hands like a surgeon and not touching you face.

Meanwhile, the race to see which Democrat gets the honor of trying to compete against the fire-breathing dragon named Trump continues.  Through the first couple of primaries and caucuses in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont led a gaggle of candidates in the polls with his fiery brand of socialism that appealed to mostly younger voters who weren't much interested in the moderate influences of the others.  But there was a problem.  The Democratic party seemed uncomfortable with the idea of an aging socialist at the top of their ticket, one who thought Fidel Castro wasn't such a bad leader because he introduced a reading program shortly after taking control of Cuba.  To most Americans, three decades after the Cold War ended, socialism still equaled communism.

Then something incredible happened.  Joe Biden, Barack Obama's former vice president and front-runner who had been lost in the shuffle of Ukraine-gate accusations and so-so debate performances, won the South Carolina primary through the support of African-American voters and others who didn't care much for Sanders.  The waters parted.  Fellow moderates Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg had exited the race and threw their support toward Biden.  Super Tuesday was just that for him, taking more states who had primaries that day than Sanders did.  A day later, Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor who spent millions of his own money on TV ads and had only American Samoa to show for it, gave up and endorsed Biden.  Elizabeth Warren is still in the race as we speak.

The delegate count as of March 4 (according to CNN) reads like this:  Biden with 509, Sanders with 449, and Warren with 37.  1,991 delegates are needed before the Democratic presidential nomination can be claimed at their convention in Milwaukee.

Meanwhile, Trump is preening toward a second term, crisis or not.  And possibly a third, if he and Senator Mitch McConnell can find a loophole to a law that's been in place since Republicans passed it to prevent another Franklin Roosevelt wannabe from making the White House his permanent home.

The race for president goes on. The race to survive a possible killer virus goes on too.  President Trump has a chance to show what kind of leader he can be in a crisis situation, just in time for him to make his case to the voters in November, or else he will be replaced.  That is, those voters who survive the virus by then.

UPDATE (3/6/2020):  It is now a race between three old men in their 70s.  Elizabeth Warren, the last remaining Democratic candidate who is a woman (unless you count Tulsi Gabbard, a congresswoman from Hawaii), has dropped out.  Which means that either America still isn't ready for a female president, or the presence of That Man In The White House required Democrats to get someone who's at least as well known and can be counted on to garner more male support than Hillary Clinton ever did.  Stupid reasons, yes, but understandable given the circumstances.