Wisconsin is “in a crisis right now,” according to the state’s chief medical officer. The White House Coronavirus Task Force recommends that the state employ social distancing “to the maximal degree possible,” and singles out La Crosse and Green Bay as red zones for the spread of COVID-19.
So Donald Trump is about to have rallies in La Crosse and Green Bay, and as we know, mask-wearing is not enforced at Trump campaign rallies.
“During the intense period of viral surge, large numbers of acutely infected individuals caused exponential growth in infections,” the task force reported of Wisconsin, which has had 243 new cases per 100,000 people over the past week, the third-highest rate in the U.S. “Although young adults are the most affected group currently, spread to other age groups is inevitable.”
Trump claimed at Tuesday night’s debate: “We’ve had no negative effect, and we’ve had 35, 40,000 people at these rallies,” both parts of which are false. Trump’s rallies have not been anywhere near 35,000 people lately, and public health officials in Tulsa said a COVID-19 surge in the city was “more than likely” connected to Trump’s June rally there. To say nothing of the coronavirus death of former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain a suspicious interval after that rally.
Conveniently for Trump, poor contact tracing levels in much of the U.S. mean it’s hard to pin down the virus-spreading effects of his rallies. But even if not a single case of coronavirus was spread at a Trump rally—which Tulsa shows us is vanishingly unlikely—the fact is that instead of leading the nation by advocating more responsible practices to prevent the spread of the virus, Trump is setting a terrible example by having rally after rally with little or no social distancing measures. That’s one more way he’s shown contempt for public health and human life, and his supporters hear that message loud and clear.