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A public health expert told Salon that President Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic has been abysmal.

"It definitely made it worse," Dr. William Haseltine told Salon when asked about Trump's reluctance to acknowledge the severity of the pandemic in January and February, when news of it first broke from China. "And his reaction was if not the worst in the world amongthe worst in the world. It was dangerous. It was spineless. It was heedless. It was self-serving."

Haseltine is a biologist renowned for his work in confronting the HIV/AIDS epidemic, for fighting anthrax and for advancing our knowledge of the human genome. He is also the founder and former CEO of Human Genome Sciences, and is currently the chair and president of the global health think tank Access Health International.

By his estimate, Trump's performance was very poor and "did, and will" cost lives.

"He should have been warning us it was coming," Haseltine told Salon. "He should have been preparing by stockpiling all the necessary equipment. But even today we're not doing what we should do. Let me put it that way. What we should be doing is contact tracing [identifying people who may have come in contact with infected patients] and having mandatory quarantines for everybody who's been exposed. And quarantining not at home, but in hotel rooms, single occupancy hotel rooms."

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He added, "That's how the Chinese control the epidemic. Anybody who was exposed, was confined to a hotel room for at least 14 days from the time of exposure. And they were served meals by hazmat-clad attendants. They weren't allowed to open their door. And even today, if you come into China from outside, you're required to do this quarantine at home without opening your door for 14 days. If you've come from another city within China to Beijing for example you've got to self-quarantine for 14 days. Even if it's a low-incidence area, you have to self-quarantine."

Haseltine still believes these measures are warranted.

"We've got to do very serious contact tracing, followed by mandatory quarantine for anyone who is exposed," Haseltine explained. "At this point, for example, that would include most of the Senate who encountered Rand Paul [the Republican senator from Kentucky who was diagnosed with COVID-19]. If we were in China, every single senator who had contact with Rand Paul would be in a 14-day single isolation hotel room. That's how they control the virus. And we don't."

Trump has expressed concern that voters might turn against him due to his response to the virus. He tweeted on Wednesday that "the LameStream Media is the dominant force in trying to get me to keep our Country closed as long as possible in the hope that it will be detrimental to my election success." In addition to minimizing the threat for two months, Trump disbanded a National Security Council pandemic panel that experts had praised, advocated major budget cuts to the Centers for Disease Control, misrepresented factors that supposedly could kill the virus and pushed for pseudo-scientific or untested potential cures to the disease. The president has focused on reviving the economy as soon as possible, regardless of the threat to public health, even tweeting that we are at risk of having "the cure be worse than the problem itself."

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Public health experts say Trump is bungling the coronavirus response - Salon

Thursday was the one month anniversary of one of Donald Trump's more memorable miscalculations.

Ignoring the warnings of scientists, health care professionals and his own national security team, Trump assured America that coronavirus would magically disappear.

In the rambling, incoherent demeanor of one performing fellatio on himself, Trump said, When you have 15 people, and a 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that is a pretty good job weve done.

A reasonably intelligent, honest president might have said, We have 15 cases of coronavirus here in America, so we know the virus has crossed our shores. We need to act now to limit its spread.

That's what a reasonably intelligent, honest president might have said. That's what a president who puts the nation's interests before his own might have said.

Our self-obsessed, shameless president said no such thing. His only thoughts were of himself and his reelection prospects.

On March 6, Trump said that he liked his numbers where they were and didn't want to inflate them by bringing ashore two Americans from the cruise ship Grand Princess for treatment.

Donald Trump did not want to bring two Americans off of a cruise ship to be treated by American doctors because he was worried about his numbers.

Take a moment to let that sink in.

Right now it would be great if we only had TWO HUNDRED coronavirus patients. Hell, it'd be great if we only had two hundred coronavirus deaths.

As I write this, we have over 120,000 cases of the virus, more than 2,000 deaths. Would those numbers be lower if Donald Trump had acted sooner, instead of trying to manage them?

We can only speculate, but it's reasonable to conclude that we would be better off if Donald Trump was not in charge.

You can read more about Trump's lies, exaggerations and downplaying a pandemicHERE.

Trump is withholding much needed medical supplies from states like Michigan and New York because he's not feeling the love from those states' governors (Gretchen Whitmer and Mario Cuomo, respectively).

If it seems right to you that the President of the United States (ALL of the United States) requires governors to kiss his ring in exchange for life saving ventilators, please stop reading here and cancel your subscription to this blog.

Much of the damage Donald Trump has inflicted upon America will be calculated and chronicled for generations. The price America is paying in human suffering and death right now will be available in the months to come.

Whether history is rewritten to blame it all on Democrats, Barack Obama and "fake news" may depend on the outcomes of the next couple of elections.

One question that may never be answered is how Trumpsters always find a way to swallow the spin. When he tells them to wipe from their memories what they heard him say last month, they do it, just like the Neuralyzerin Men in Black.

This new, new normal may have a lasting effect beyond gutted 401k's. For many, life will be a heavy burden with nightmares of loss, deprivation and vulnerability.

For some, it will remain a hoax, and they will move forward in the fog of oblivion that has always defined their lives.

For the rest of us, life will go on. Our instincts will redefine our routines and we will reestablish what relationships we can.

But we won't forget. Any of it.

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Filed under: Activities, America, Basket of Deplorables, Commentary, Current Events, Donald J. Trump, Editorial, Political, Republican Party

Tags: Grand Princess, Gretchen Whitmer, Mario Cuomo, Neutralyzer, Ventilators

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Did you celebrate the 1-month anniversary of Donald Trump telling America that coronavirus would magically disappear? - ChicagoNow

KEY POINTS

Donald Trump is reportedly incapable ofcarrying out his role as president because he has a serious mental illness, experts said.

The POTUS has received a slew of criticisms for the way he responded to the coronavirus outbreak. Many felt that Trump downplayed the pandemic. Due to the increasing COVID-19 cases and death tolls from the disease, many questioned Trumps leadership and several went as far as doubting his mental health, with George Conway asking whenthere will be a discussion about Trumps psychological unfitness.

People are dying because of it, and yet we still arent having a frank national discussion about @realDonaldTrumps psychological unfitness for office? Conway wrote on Twitter.

"You do not have to be a qualified physician to KNOW that Trump is mentally ill, @MargaretAnton11 added. How is he allowed at this point to continue killing people because of his incompetence? He is KILLING people. Will someone please explain why he is not being held responsible?

Three years ago, many also attacked Trumps mental health. Psychologist John Gartner even starteda petition to remove Trump from the office due to his mental condition. The professional said that the POTUS is mentally ill.

We, the undersigned mental health professionals (please state your degree), believe in our professional judgment that Donald Trump manifests a serious mental illness that renders him psychologically incapable of competently discharging the duties of President of the United States, he wrote in the petition.

And we respectfully request he be removed from office, according to article 4 of the 25th amendment to the Constitution, which states that the president will be replaced if he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, he continued.

Aside from Gartner, a group of mental health professionals evaluated the POTUS mental health. According to them, Trump is psychologically and mentally both dangerous and incapacitated.

We have been seriously warning about this for some time. The US Congress must act immediately and forcefully without further delay, the World Mental Health Coalition said in a statement obtained byThe Independent.

The group claimed that Trump is consistent with a person who, when his falsely inflated self-image is questioned, or when his emotional need for adulation is thwarted, lashes out in an attempt to restore his sense of potency and command over others.

Just recently, online users are calling the POTUS to get mental health help. Many also said that they wanted him out of office through the 25th amendment.

I totally disagree! Trumps declining #Mentalhealthon display is frightening during this crisis and we [want] to use the #25AmendmentNow, @anntirrell wrote.

US President Donald Trump backtracked on a proposal to place the greater New York region in lockdown after strong pushback from local leaders Photo: GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Sarah Silbiger

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Donald Trump Has Serious Mental Illness, Psychologically Incapable Of Discharging Duties, Experts Claimed - International Business Times

The Washington Post editorial board made a chilling prediction about what would happen if U.S. businesses that have been shuttered amid the coronavirus pandemic were to reopen by Easter, as hoped by President Donald Trump.

The newspapers board in a column titled Why choosing between the elderly and the economy is a phony, barbaric choice warned Friday that many elderly Americans would get sick and die in the ensuing weeks and months maybe hundreds of thousands, very likely millions.

And so would countless other people, it added, echoing a point made by Anthony Fauci (the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) who earlier this week warned young people are not absolutely invulnerable to suffering complications arising from COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

The board imagined a social, political, moral and economic cataclysm in worrying detail:

The quick and certain result of a damn-the-torpedoes approach would be to overwhelm and break the health-care system. Hospitals would fill to overflowing. Those in need of ventilators would be out of luck not only covid-19 patients but also babies, children, tweens and anyone else in respiratory distress. People who suffer strokes, heart attacks, broken bones and gunshot wounds would arrive at hospitals if they were lucky or rich enough to find ambulances to find emergency rooms resembling Grand Central Terminal at rush hour. Doctors, nurses and medical technicians would face extraordinary risks; many would not be spared.

Worldwide, the virus has sickened more than 600,000 people and killed almost 27,500. The U.S. now has the highest number of confirmed cases 104,000. As of Saturday morning, the nationwide death toll stood at 1,700.

The costs of the pandemic-induced shutdown are colossal to the economy, society and the nations collective emotional and mental health, the board concluded.As dangerous as that is, it is more dangerous still to pretend the pandemic can be harnessed by diktat and wishful thinking.

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Washington Post Hits Donald Trump With Chilling Reality Check About Reopening For Easter - HuffPost

President Donald Trump again attacked the media at his latest coronavirus press briefing, but the trigger was a question about a tweet he sent earlier on Wednesday afternoon, claiming that the media wants the economy to falter to hurt his chances at reelection.

Trump tweeted, The LameStream Media is the dominant force in trying to get me to keep our Country closed as long as possible in the hope that it will be detrimental to my election success. The real people want to get back to work ASAP. We will be stronger than ever before!

But that drew questions among journalists on whether his pronouncement that he wants to lift social distancing guidelines and reopen the country by Easter is based on his own political considerations.

At the briefing, CBS News White House correspondent Paula Reid asked,Is this Easter timeline based on your political interests?

The media would like to see me do poorly in the election, Trump responded.

Then Reid interjected,Lawmakers and economists on both sides of the aisle have said that reopening the country by Easter is not a good idea. What is that plan based on?

I think there are certain people who would like it not to open so quickly, Trump said. I think there are certain people who would like it to do financially poorly because they feel that would be very good as far as defeating me at the polls. I dont think that is so, but I think it is so that there are a lot of people in your profession that would like that to happen.

He went on, telling Reid, I think it is very clear that there are people in your profession that write fake news you do.

He added, They would love to see me, for whatever reason, because we have done one hell of a job. No one has done the job that we have done. And it is lucky that you have this group here right now for this problem. Or you wouldnt even have a country left.

After Trump left the briefing, Vice President Mike Pence and other members of the coronavirus task force continued to answer questions. CNN and MSNBC eventually switched away from the briefings while Fox News stayed with it.

The briefings have generated large audiences for the news networks. According to Nielsen, 11 million viewers watched Tuesdays briefing on the three news channels, with Fox News drawing 5.5 million, CNN garnering 3.1 million and MSNBC with 2.4 million. Those figures do not include the audiences watching on broadcast networks and web platforms.

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Donald Trumps Latest Media Attack Invites Questions Of Whether He Wants Easter Reopening To Boost Election Chances - Deadline