By any measure, Thursday was horrible when it comes to COVID-19 as a broad-based surge continues to drive up cases across the nation. With over 90,000 cases on most tabulating sites, the United States once again broke the one-day record, and it did so for the fourth time in two weeks. With cases going up again in the South, the Midwest, the West, and even in parts of the Northeast that suffered through the first round of virus, it’s hard to find any good news in what’s happening out there right now. The fall surge is turning into a disaster that could outstrip everything that has happened before, and stopping it requires the sort of national leadership that has been sorely lacking.
Unless, of course, you listen to the dulcet tones of the von Trump Family Liars. Because they’re belting out a chorus of “it’s all good, just ignore the bodies” in the key of major desperation.
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Donald Trump carried the melody with a renewed claim that America doesn’t really have an epidemic, it’s just suffering from excess testing and “more testing equals more cases.” That’s despite the fact that testing remains abysmally low in many states. even as the rate of positive tests remains incredibly high.
Eight states currently have rates of positive results over 20%. Despite increasing the number of tests for two straight weeks, South Dakota still has a rate of positives at 46%. Together, both North and South Dakota are now the most coronavirus-saturated area in the United States, with more than 5% of the total population testing positive. For those cheering on this move toward herd immunity, that means they just need to hold out until at least 65% more of the population is infected, even though they’re both already reporting record levels of hospitalization and deaths.
Trump also claimed that the U.S. is “doing much better than Europe.” Which is, shockingly, not true. Despite a renewed spike in multiple European nations, the U.S. is still turning up a higher level of cases and deaths. In response to the rising case loads, Europe is reinstituting social distancing rules and universal mask mandates, which is decidedly not happening in the United States.
But you wouldn’t know that from Don Jr., who dropped by Fox News to say that the number of people dying from COVID-19 is down to “almost nothing.”
Junior: “I kept hearing about new infections, but I was like ‘Wait, why aren’t they talking about deaths?’ Oh, oh, because the number is almost nothing.”
Almost nothing being another way of saying “1,000 Americans a day are dying.”
Both Trump Sr. and Trump Jr. also insisted that therapeutics are working. This comes a week after the largest study on remdesivir showed no net positive effect, and months before monoclonal antibodies will be made available to people who don’t happen to be Republican politicians. But if you are a Republican politician then there really is good news, as Trump campaign press secretary Hogan Gidley explained on CNN:
Reporter: Hospitals in Wisconsin are near capacity. Does that give you any pause about going there and holding a big rally?
Gridley: No, it doesn’t. The VP has the best doctors in the world around him.
Those doctors will presumably stay behind and tend to anyone at the rally who gets sick. Because if there’s anything the Trump campaign is known for, it’s taking good care of its fans.