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Home » Trump: the country’s not closing down if there’s a second wave

Trump: the country’s not closing down if there’s a second wave

The New Neo Posted on by

I think his instincts are correct on this:

“People say that’s a very distinct possibility. It’s standard. And we’re going to put out the fires. We’re not going to close the country. We’re going to put out the fires,” Trump told reporters during a tour of a Ford manufacturing plant in Ypsilanti, Mich., when asked if he was concerned about a second wave of COVID-19.

Trump expressed confidence in the country’s ability to contain future outbreaks, referring to them as “embers.”

“Whether it’s an ember or a flame, we’re going to put it out. But we’re not closing our country,” the president continued.

We never did it before, not even with worse viruses. And we can’t afford to do it again, not in terms of life quality, mental and physical health of the non-COVID type, and people’s livelihoods.

In addition, the evidence has amassed that it probably is unnecessary. At the beginning, we needed to buy time. Time has been bought, with a high price. The voices clamoring to stay closed are all on the left, and time has (so far) proven them wrong. I certainly hope it will continue to prove them wrong in terms of COVID. And I hope we can recover from the damage.

We’re hardly alone, either. A lot of countries are facing this situation. Our federalist system, though, allows (so far) governors who wish to be little dictators to bring out their inner tyrant. The courts might stop them, although that takes time.

Speaking of time, this has been quite a couple of months, hasn’t it?

Actually, it’s been quite a couple of years, even before COVID. I remember when Trump was elected, a Democrat friend of mine said, “Well, it certainly won’t be dull.”

She was correct.

Comments

Trump: the country’s not closing down if there’s a second wave — 28 Comments

  1. Trump has done amazingly better as President than anyone predicted but if the Democrats were both running a good candidate and had demonstrated they learned something from their 2016 defeat, him losing in November wouldn’t be the end of the world.

    But the Democrats are running a guy who’ll be 78 when he would take on the most stressful job on Earth and already appears to be in some kind of cognitive decline and their reaction to 2016 has to legitimately get stupider about both the state of the country and the challenges it faces.

    Mike

  2. Here’s a clue about the D’s: they aren’t running him. They’re letting him rot in the basement. And nobody likes going down into a basement.

  3. The media loves the 24/7 attention they are getting over this, they will not let it go lightly. The main thing that needs to be followed is the number of cases in the hospital and the numbers in the ICUs. All the rest is noise in the end. The government and public health agencies need to stop reporting daily and give a weekly synopsis. The media will scream, but screw them, they are just keeping the anxiety high this way.

  4. “The main thing that needs to be followed is the number of cases in the hospital and the numbers in the ICUs. ” Yes. Georgia is showing an uptick in cases starting about a week ago which I’m sure the MSM will eventually latch onto, but the number of ICUs and deaths continues to go down. The last 5 days have averaged 10/day down from the peak on April 22 of 44/day.

    But of course Georgia is lying about all these numbers. /sarc off

  5. I think the problem has been we had insufficient protective equipment stockpiled and no contingency plan for protecting the elderly. It’s people over 60 and people over 50 with a high BMI who are in danger.

  6. The Democrats and the media are selling headlines and story content that portrays anything Conservative, especially Trump to be wrong, evil wrong. Before long they might find a judge in Massachusetts that will support a DA who says Melania Trump is a witch, demand she be brought to court, stripped to look for the sign of the devil and even if there isn’t one, tie her up and throw her in the River, if she sinks and drowns she was not a witch but if she floats she is so we pull her out of the water and burn her at the stake because the proper things must be done for the good of the people.

    Common sense be damned, burn our country down by shutting down no matter what the cost because Trump and the people don’t know better if they think it is alright to accept some risk, as in the past, and try to restore our economy. Even as the media is losing money and laying people off they are advocating a shut down nation. This has become a quasi-religious war between the left and reasonable plain old Americans.

  7. Well….take a look at this summary of new CDC information over at PJmedia. Combine that with CDC’s announcement yesterday of very low transmission via surfaces and maybe the dike is starting to collapse.

    But of course, now the Left will just say Trump has now compromised the CDC and they are putting out false numbers.

    https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2020/05/22/the-cdc-just-gave-us-the-biggest-reason-to-end-the-coronavirus-lockdowns-n417178

  8. Those who support continued lockdowns fall into two categories: 1.) people that Fauci and the MSM have frightened into believing COVID19 is going to kill millions or 2.) cynical people who view severely damaging the economy as a blessing because orangemanbad must be defeated in November. The first group is to be pitied and the second group needs to be defeated in November.

  9. “not closing down” but first need to open up . . .

    Here in my N California town the youth swim – where it’s a pretty big sport – is trying to restart. Parents just joined a zoom meeting with the leading coach as he explained the hoops he’s been jumping through in the past weeks. He has had to talk to the County Health office, the sheriff’s office, and lastly the city. One entity tells him to do this, talk to them, etc., the typical red tape.

    He’s proposed to really water down the swim practices to maintain distancing – from a normal 6 kids/lane to 2 kids/lane. Also all meets are cancelled through the summer. The cost to the program to do all of this is quite large mainly because we’re going down from six swimmers per lane to one (after he thought two was in the bag). The time expense for coaches and pool rentals has more than doubled due to all of this.

    And now our small city wants some kind of insurance (since the swim program is affiliated with the city).

    So I go to the CA Dept of Health for corona virus stats and guess what? California shows 86,197 cases tested positive, and 3542 deaths. Ages 0-17 show 3,855 cases with . . . 0 deaths.

    California, and even more my University town, way pride themselves on ‘going by science’ (since Trump = anti-science). Yeah, right.

    Makes little sense.

    Not closing down again? Ha! We’ll be lucky to even come close to opening back up in the first place, even in a low covid-19 area of California.

  10. Typo alert: “In addition, the evidence has amassed that it probably isn’t unnecessary.” Make that “necessary.”

  11. Berlin study reveals 92 percent of left-wing activists live with their parents.
    (https://tinyurl.com/y9e3s6y3)

    Left-wing activists have embraced COVID-19 mitigation measures, because they’re accustomed to unemployment and wearing masks.

  12. Thanks for the link, physicsguy. Even in the older age group (70s), my chances of surviving this are very high, and I can always opt out of large gatherings if I choose. There are no good reasons for continuing the restrictions.

    Here in NC, a group of gym owners are gathering funds to sue Gov. Cooper over his continued refusal to allow gyms to operate, despite their extensive preparations to do so in safety.

  14. The PJmedia article (https://tinyurl.com/y7o79cne) cited by physicsguy reports that the CDC has recently determined that the current case fatality rate, for both symptomatic and asymptomatic cases, is approximately 0.26%. Most people would call this good news.

    If we accept that the country is now in a race between coronavirus herd immunity and an effective vaccine, then we can do some simple math.

    If herd immunity arrives before we have widespread effective vaccination, then here are the implications: 330,000,000 (US population) x 70% (estimated herd immunity) x 0.26% (estimated current symptomatic and asymptomatic case fatality rate) = 600,600 (total US fatalities).

    Current US fatalities: 97,483 (from Worldometer)

    Yes, the formula is a simplification. That’s its primary virtue. You can easily change the numbers to better fit your own view of the pandemic. For example, you might object that probably only about 4% of the US population has been infected. At this point, the number is just a guess, but it’s certainly true that the number is small. If that becomes the focus of your math, then we have much further to go before we get to herd immunity, and we’ll have many more deaths in the process. But, if the CDC’s most recent case fatality rate estimate is accurate, then we’re probably about a sixth of the way through it.

    Will we get a vaccine before we get herd immunity? History says no, so I’m hopeful but skeptical. I’m more hopeful that improved treatments will reduce the fatality rate, on our way to herd immunity. That, of course, would reduce the total number of US fatalities at the pandemic’s end.

    P.S.
    Last week, several Australian scientists published a preprint entitled “In silico comparison of spike protein-ACE2 binding affinities across species; significance for the possible origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.” (https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.06199)

    This is a preprint, so it hasn’t undergone peer review. The paper uses molecular modeling techniques. There’s no experimental work. There’s no biochemistry.
    I’m not qualified to critique the paper. Here’s the last sentence from the abstract: “Overall, the data indicates that SARSCoV2 is uniquely adapted to infect humans, raising questions as to whether it arose in nature by a rare chance event or whether its origins lie elsewhere.”

    In other words, biomolecular modeling and bioinformatics suggest that a natural origin of the virus is extremely unlikely. It’s more likely that the virus was engineered in a laboratory, and that it was specifically engineered to infect humans.

    Obviously, this is a controversial conclusion, especially since the argument is almost entirely based on computational methods. I’ll be very curious to see whether this paper ever gets published in a peer-reviewed journal.

  15. We’re past the peak — how tragic?
    By Rich Lowry
    Published May 22, 2020
    http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0520/lowry052220.php3

    In which he points out that the media is doing its best to obscure any positive news and accentuate any negative news, especially in the “open” states, including misreading the numbers on cases, tests, and deaths.
    What a surprise.

  16. In a worst case, there are several candidates for a Planned Pathogen (PP) protocol to reduce the viability of the virus and mitigates its progress. Also, we can control a national pandemic through following rational and practical practices that identify high risk and people at risk then respond in a limited, focused fashion as needed. Barring new information from Wuhan and the pathogen’s evolution since, the new normal is likely the old normal.

    That said, the latest guidance from military scientists in Wuhan is 3 m social distancing, 6 if you follow the precautionary principle. So, avoid “greenhouse” effects, wear a mask, goggles, and seal open wounds, and, perhaps, a full body condom.

  18. Pulling this from another thread, because it’s very relevant, and besides some of the comments were funny.

    Barry Meislin on May 22, 2020 at 10:26 am said:
    Related (on COVID_19):
    “Why do some COVID-19 patients infect many others, whereas most don’t spread the virus at all?”
    https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/374778/
    * * *
    Jack Amok Lost Bluth • 18 hours ago
    Our politicians these days don’t understand enough biology to know who should use which bathroom. Expecting them to understand how RNA works is, well…

    socratease • 21 hours ago
    If only we had a federal agency manned by experts dedicated to investigating communicable diseases that could look into this phenomenon and gain some insight that would help us deal with the disease.

    kimsch taxpayer22 • 21 hours ago
    I saw a “plan” to reopen schools that was absolutely ridiculous. It had no moving classes, all desks pointing the same way, no group work, every child eating box lunches at their desks, no PE, buses with one child per row alternating sides (so like 14 kids per long bus, yeah, right), staggered arrival and departure times to avoid any “crowds”, no library, etc. Totally unworkable and unnecessary.

    (To me, this sounds pretty good, even if unnecessary — worked very well back in the day.)

  20. Well this is a good start and Fauci’s comments today are further good news but lord Fauci is a weaselly character. He gives talking out of both sides of your mouth a new gold standard.

  24. Trump’s instincts have long been beating those who try to play 3-D, 4-D, or 5-D dimensional chess.

    It would be good to get a list of actual policies Trump’s been recommending, or suggesting might be good, and see how many of them ARE good.

    He’s actually been doing GREAT. And, thanks to his highly-criticized Jan 31 travel ban, he’s saved thousands of US lives.

  25. physicsguy ” Yes. Georgia is showing an uptick in cases starting about a week ago…”

    As in many states (including GA), that’s being driven by a Significant increase in the amount of testing. Increased testing is bound to reveal an increase in the number of infections (cases) given the large proportion of asymptomatic or nearly so carriers. Taken in isolation, that means pretty much nothing at this point.

    The numbers that matter anywhere there is increased testing are number of hospitalizations and number of deaths. The number of known infections is now largely irrelevant as a measure of the “seriousness” of the viral spread anywhere that testing is ramping up in any significant way.

  26. Griffin on May 22, 2020 at 11:02 pm said: Well this is a good start and Fauci’s comments today are further good news but lord Fauci is a weaselly character. He gives talking out of both sides of your mouth a new gold standard.

    not really.. there are two types of expert… the real expert who puts their kneck out and the faux expert our halls are full of who prefer to wait till the last second before making their bets… they both appear to be experts, but one of them is a heck of a lot more right as they are putting their neck out and such risk breeds success over time.. the others are well practiced at waiting till the issue is committed then go with that… guess which side the left favors and gets a lot more of? if no one is going to penalize you for guessing who wins the horse race a meter before the finish line, then why make the bet before the race starts?

  27. Artfldgr,

    I meant good news in the sense that too many people live and die by what this charlatan Fauci says so if he says something like yesterday that is a positive.

    At this point we have to take what we can get.

  28. Artfldgr – that was a very good description of the two types of experts.
    The second is kind of like the supposed leader (“principled” politician) who looks to see where the crowd is going and jumps out to get in front of it.

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