On Monday night, Donald Trump told a collection of his death cultists that the COVID-19 virus “affects virtually nobody.” In an administration full of bizarre lies, this one somehow rises to the top of the scummy stew of bile spewed into our public sphere by Trump. The reason this is the worst is because it’s in order to distance himself from his abject failure as a leader, his failure to protect the people he was elected to serve, and his willingness to trivialize millions of people’s suffering and loss are monstrous.
As of the writing of this story, almost 7 million Americans have officially contracted COVID-19 and over 200,000 have died due to it. What Trump had said would be maybe 15 sick people has become the tragic public and economic health crisis he had been warned it would be. Right now we are en route to easily surpassing 300,000 dead Americans by Election Day with no public health policy in place other than hoping a vaccine is made, distributed, and effective enough to bring the spread down into manageable numbers some time in … the future.
In places like Texas, where more than 14,500 people have died from COVID-19, it’s easy to forget that each one of those 14,560 people were parents, grandparents, wives, husbands, sons, and daughters. The “nobody” Trump is talking about does not simply disrespect the lives of people like 28-year-old Houston area OB-GYN resident Adeline Fagan, who passed away on Saturday after battling with the COVID-19 virus for months. It disrespects Adeline’s survivors. She was a daughter, a sister, a friend, a co-worker, and a medical professional. Fagan is just one of the hundreds of thousands of people who have died because of how poorly our country has dealt with this public health crisis. Her death marks the end of her suffering, but the start of mourning for dozens more.
- Son and 32-year-old Florida resident Adam Hergenreder died in July after suffering with COVID-19 for 94 days. He is believed to have contracted the virus after being treated at a hospital.
- Cancer survivor 17-year-old Carsyn Leigh Davis died in June after attending a Florida church youth function where social distancing was not practiced.
- A Chicago family lost both their mother and 20-year-old son to the virus, leaving a father who found out about their deaths after coming off of a ventilator, and one surviving son. Luis Tapiru II and his mother Josephine succumbed to the virus in April.
- Adela Carvajal passed away at the age of 73 and is survived by her younger brother. The two seniors were working as temporary construction workers in Texas when they contracted the virus.
- A 9-year-old girl from Putnam County in Florida passed away from COVID-19 in July.
- A Bay Area postal worker and his wife, who were approaching their retirement, died within one week of each other after he contracted the virus while driving a postal distribution truck. 61-year-old Keith Robinson and 62-year-old Gwendolyn Robinson—who worked at the Veterans’ Home of California in Yountville—left three children who needed to fundraise in order to pay for their parents’ funeral expenses.
- Retired Chicago Fire Department lieutenant Leroy Hearon, who was remembered for his love of tango dancing, died at the age of 63 in June.
- Harilal and Padmaben Thakkar, married since 1949 and living in Naperville, Illinois, died days apart from the virus. They are survived by “four children, eight grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.”
- In March, transgender activist Lorena Borjas passed away from complications related to the 2019 novel coronavirus. Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality Mara Keisling said of Borjas: “Lorena Borjas was a real hero for trans people, especially in Queens. She was a leader, a builder and a healer.” Borjas was 60.
- At the beginning of September, Johnny Lee Peoples, 67, and his wife Cathy Darlene Peoples, 65, passed away minutes apart while holding hands. The North Carolina couple had been together for more than 50 years, married for 48 of those years. They are survived by three children and nine grandchildren. Their son Shane told CNN: "They both had pre-existing conditions. Just keep in mind, these didn't kill my parents, Covid-19 did."
- A Kansas City high school assistant baseball coach, Derek Leppert, passed away during a month’s rehabilitation stay for COVID-19 in a hospital. The day before he died, he wrote on Twitter that he had settled into his “long term care room. Going to be a battle starting @ 7:30 in morning but I will be back stronger.” Olathe West high school, where Leppert coached, renamed their field after Leppert.
- Another North Carolina couple, Lora and David McManus, passed away on the same day in September. The two leave behind a 14-year-old daughter. A coworker of Lora told WCNC Charlotte: “She is just one of the kindest people I’ve ever met, she had a heart of gold, would do anything for you.”
- In August, Joan Scullen passed away in Cleveland. A mother to nine children. and grandma to 17—including a Daily Kos staffer—as well as great-grandmother to eight more, Joan joined her daughter-in-law Lynette Rae Scullen, who also died from COVID-19 in April.
There are hundreds of thousands more stories like this. There will be hundreds of thousands more people for Trump to call “nobody.”
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