In his usual measured, meticulous way, on Wednesday my colleague Mark Sumner demolished the Trump regime’s apparent decision to follow the advice of some highly credentialed quacks and openly choose “herd immunity” as the way to combat—or rather not combat—the coronavirus.
Openly, because while the White House and Health and Human Services Sec. Alex Azar have denied herd immunity is their policy, it’s become increasingly obvious that from the beginning, behind all Trump’s cooing about how everything would be just fine, a de facto herd immunity attitude was favored. This shone through the subterfuge unambiguously when Trump started demanding the economy completely reopen and kids go back to school far too soon. Clearly he persuaded lots of people, including some very foolish governors, that this was the way to go. Right now, a few of those men and women running states with sharply rising hospitalization rates are surely wondering if they’ll soon be digging mass graves.
The “philosophy” behind herd immunity is protecting the most vulnerable population while encouraging the less vulnerable to “naturally” get infected as a means of spreading immunity. It is a policy of slaughter. Or as former Harvard Medical School Professor William Haseltine has said: “Herd immunity is another word for mass murder. That is exactly what it is. If you allow this virus to surprise as they are advocating, we are looking at 2-to-6 million Americans dead. Not just this year, but every year. The reason for that is that there is no such thing as herd immunity.”
In a commentary piece two weeks ago, Haseltine wrote:
The day after Trump’s ABC News town hall, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow ran the numbers on how herd immunity would play out in the United States, which has a population of roughly 330 million. If reaching herd immunity requires a minimum of 65% of people to be infected, as the World Health Organization’s chief scientist, Soumya Swaminathan, has said, that would mean 215 million cases of COVID-19 countrywide. If the US fatality rate remained what it is now—close to 3%—it would also mean 6,385,500 deaths.
Donald Trump told Bob Woodward early on that the virus was especially deadly. His aides gave board members of the right-wing Hoover Institution, many of them Republican donors, reason to believe that the coronavirus could have more serious consequences than the White House was letting on publicly. That heads-up spread through the investment community and spurred a sell-off of stocks before they plunged. To the general public, however, Trump said everything was swell. Nothing to worry about. Just like the flu. Got it all under control. When Woodward’s book appeared with these revelations of special messages for special people, Trump said he had wanted to downplay the severity of the virus so as not to panic the America populace. But being truthful to hoi oligoi didn’t panic them. The big investors just smiled and cashed in.
In early March, I wrote that much of the deluge of 16,000+ lies Trump had told by then had been harmless nonsense or boasting:
But that’s not what’s been happening the past few weeks when it comes to the coronavirus. These lies are dangerous, lethal. Indeed, the spew he’s been slathering us with ought to be labeled COVID-45, a political virus.
[Trump said at a visit to a factory]:
“People are really surprised I understand this stuff. Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability.’”
Yes, yes. Dr. Trump, MD of nonsense, PhD of jackshit, and JD of prevarication. But his wacko claim of having an innate understanding of specialized medicine aside, it’s the outright garbage he and some of his political appointees are making about the virus that is the most disturbing. The coronavirus is not contained, tighter border controls have not worked to keep the number of infections low, people with symptoms of the infection should not go to work if they feel okay, etc., ad nauseam.
Doctors have made some progress treating COVID-19 patients. Epidemiologists know much more about the virus than they did back then. Drugmakers are working hard on vaccines that keep being called “promising.” Progress is being made, excruciatingly slow as it may seem. But Trump and his sycophants have made none.
Don’t wear a mask. Drink bleach. Kids can’t get it. We’d have fewer cases if we didn’t test so much. The hospitals have all they need. We’ve turned the corner. I’m cured and you can be too!
If there were any smidgen of doubt about Trump’s true aim, he’s long since squelched it for anybody really paying attention. Many presidents have had to deal with the prospect of a war, an accident, or a diplomatic miscalculation leading to a few million Americans getting killed. After all, the planet had enough nuclear weapons 35 years ago to obliterate several Earths. But no previous president was so wicked as to promote a policy guaranteed to wipe out millions of Americans. Trump has no problem doing that. He has been headed that way from the get-go. And he refuses to stop.
All we have learned about the man since he lied through the oath of office nearly four years ago tells us that if he could make money by somehow scamming every family who has lost someone to COVID-19, he would do it in a heartbeat.
The 25th Amendment should have been invoked months ago, and if we had a vice president in office with a milligram of integrity, it would have been. That failure speaks for itself.
Trump is killing us. Not accidentally. Not mistakenly but with good intentions. He is perfectly fine with everyone getting infected. As long as he’s in charge, we can expect no end to a policy of slaughter.