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This is Going to be Bad — Ep. 14
So, my wife and I have been reading the new book about Trump and the Republican handling of Covid last year (I Alone Can Fix It). What’s really clear is that we missed our chance to contain C-19 in the first pass because Trump and the Republicans were worried about what it would do to his reelection prospects. They crippled our response to the threat in the hopes it would be a false alarm or at least wouldn’t be serious until after the election.
They were wrong.
Then we got amazingly lucky and previous research into a vaccine for the first SARS virus (2003) accelerated development of a vaccine for this one. In the medical equivalent of the Manhattan Project vaccines were developed in record time. But not fast enough for Trump.
He couldn’t take credit for the vaccines before Election Day. So, in a fit of pique knowing that Biden would get credit for the rollout of the vaccines, he deliberately poisoned the well and expressed doubt about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines. Republican officials throughout the country amplified his message and encouraged a “wait and see” attitude among Republicans.
They were wrong.
If we had gotten most of the country vaccinated by June (and we could have done it) we might have managed to snuff out the spread of Delta before it got a foothold in…
