One million saved from hospitalization by Biden, 400 thousand killed by previous guy, who wanted to declare martial law to hold onto power.
Even though he frequently sought to downplay the threat that coronavirus posed to the country in public statements, behind the scenes former President Donald Trump had apparently suggested the pandemic ought to be used to delay or even cancel the 2020 presidential election.
Trump had insinuated the possibility of doing so in tweets in late July, making the baseless statement that mail-in ballots would make the election “the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT” in U.S. history. But according to a new book by journalist Michael Wolff, “Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency,” the former president also asked his chief of staff and others about canceling the election in a more direct manner.
Earlier in July, Trump talked to his chief of staff Mark Meadows about the idea of “calling it off,” referring to the election. “People can’t get to the polls. It’s a national emergency. Right?” Trump said, per Wolff’s book.
After Meadows explained that there isn’t a constitutional way to do so, Trump pressed the issue more. “I’m sure there might be a way, but … well …” Wolff quoted Trump as saying.
A few days later, he brought up the idea once again, this time to former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who was helping Trump with debate preparations.
Trump told Christie he was thinking of calling things off. Christie thought he meant the debate prep, but Trump elaborated that it was the election that he was considering canceling.
“No, the election — too much virus,” Trump reportedly said to Christie.
Christie responded that he can’t do that, according to those who spoke to Wolff about the issue.
“You do know, you can’t declare martial law. You do know that, right?” Christie apparently added.
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On 08 Jul 2020 the US hit 3 million cases & Trump threatened to cut off funding for schools that didn't reopen despite the pandemic. In Maryland, every person who died of Covid-19 in June was unvaccinated. The Lancet Commission on Public Policy and Health in the Trump Era found that 40% of Covid-19-related deaths in the U.S. could have been prevented: "By the time Trump left office in January, there were more than 400,000 reported COVID-19 deaths in the US. That's more Americans than the number of US troops killed during World War II."
The U.S. COVID-19 vaccination campaign prevented up to 279,000 deaths and 1.25 million hospitalizations, according to a study released Wednesday.
The study from the Yale School of Public Health and the Commonwealth Fund studied the impact of vaccination from Dec. 12, 2020 through July 1.
The study concluded vaccination blunted the impact of some of the earlier variants of COVID-19, including preventing the so-called Alpha or U.K. variant from triggering a new wave of infections during spring that might have caused 4,500 deaths per day.
However, the authors noted that millions of Americans remain unvaccinated, possibly paving the way for a newer and more contagious variant, the Delta variant, to trigger a surge of new infections and deaths.
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