by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
My sister and I and our cousin had a special trip planned for the third week in March of this year. We were going to Nantucket, Massachusetts, to do some exploring into our far-distant family history and to enjoy a week or so away from home. We had our plane reservations and had rented an entire house on Nantucket to serve as our accommodations and base of operations while we were on the historic island.
But then, in late February, word began circulating, slowly, about the impending pandemic that was headed our way out of China. Donald Trump told America on February 26th that there were fifteen cases of something called "coronavirus" in the United States, but that it was under control and that by next week the number would be down close to zero.
And who wouldn't believe Donald Trump?
Two days later (on February 28) I was visiting at my sister's home, and we were swapping emails with our cousin. We were all starting to get worried about the talk of a pandemic. In one of the emails that we bounced around that night, I made this prophetic observation:
Within a day or two after that, sometime in the first week of March, we began the process of cancelling our trip. Nothing has been "normal" since that time.
By the first week in March all of America was beginning to cancel plans, pull children out of school, and begin survivalist procedures like hoarding hand sanitizer, toilet paper, and stockpiling groceries. We were filling our tanks and keeping them full, and the true paranoids were out buying even more guns and ammunition.
And gradually, as the stock market plunged, businesses and schools began closing, and panic-buying emptied grocery store shelves, our government started to admit that we might have problem on our hands.
The numbers of people worldwide and in our country who were infected began climbing and deaths mounted. It was quickly learned that the United States was perhaps the least prepared industrialized nation in the world to face the oncoming medical catastrophe. Donald Trump had disbanded the specialized team that previous administrations had created and funded to deal with just such an emergency, and it was quickly revealed that emergency medical equipment - things like life-saving ventilators and face masks - were in woefully short supply.
We were in a real mess, and "no one in the federal government was dealing with the situation in a realistic manner."
Throughout the entire mess, now two months on down the road, Donald Trump has been injecting himself into the story and complicating the crisis with over-simiplicifations, outright lies, and crackpot theories.
And now we learn that Trump was aware of the impending crisis more than a month before it became generally known among the American public. Trump was briefed on the spreading pandemic twice during the month of January - and then he went out and golfed, and held his trademark hate rallies, and kept the news from us.
Trump knew in January!
He probably just did not want to worry us unnecessarily.
What a guy!
Now, with over a million cases playing out in the United States alone - and with nearly 70,000 deaths in the United States alone, the big push in Washington, DC, and many state capitals is to get people out of the safety of their homes and back into the workforce.
People need haircuts dammit!
And still "no one in the federal government is dealing with the situation in a realistic manner."
Just wishing it away doesn't seem to have worked.
Perhaps it's time for a new government!
Citizen Journalist
My sister and I and our cousin had a special trip planned for the third week in March of this year. We were going to Nantucket, Massachusetts, to do some exploring into our far-distant family history and to enjoy a week or so away from home. We had our plane reservations and had rented an entire house on Nantucket to serve as our accommodations and base of operations while we were on the historic island.
But then, in late February, word began circulating, slowly, about the impending pandemic that was headed our way out of China. Donald Trump told America on February 26th that there were fifteen cases of something called "coronavirus" in the United States, but that it was under control and that by next week the number would be down close to zero.
And who wouldn't believe Donald Trump?
Two days later (on February 28) I was visiting at my sister's home, and we were swapping emails with our cousin. We were all starting to get worried about the talk of a pandemic. In one of the emails that we bounced around that night, I made this prophetic observation:
"What's worrisome is knowing that no one in the federal government is dealing with the situation in a realistic manner."
Within a day or two after that, sometime in the first week of March, we began the process of cancelling our trip. Nothing has been "normal" since that time.
By the first week in March all of America was beginning to cancel plans, pull children out of school, and begin survivalist procedures like hoarding hand sanitizer, toilet paper, and stockpiling groceries. We were filling our tanks and keeping them full, and the true paranoids were out buying even more guns and ammunition.
And gradually, as the stock market plunged, businesses and schools began closing, and panic-buying emptied grocery store shelves, our government started to admit that we might have problem on our hands.
The numbers of people worldwide and in our country who were infected began climbing and deaths mounted. It was quickly learned that the United States was perhaps the least prepared industrialized nation in the world to face the oncoming medical catastrophe. Donald Trump had disbanded the specialized team that previous administrations had created and funded to deal with just such an emergency, and it was quickly revealed that emergency medical equipment - things like life-saving ventilators and face masks - were in woefully short supply.
We were in a real mess, and "no one in the federal government was dealing with the situation in a realistic manner."
Throughout the entire mess, now two months on down the road, Donald Trump has been injecting himself into the story and complicating the crisis with over-simiplicifations, outright lies, and crackpot theories.
And now we learn that Trump was aware of the impending crisis more than a month before it became generally known among the American public. Trump was briefed on the spreading pandemic twice during the month of January - and then he went out and golfed, and held his trademark hate rallies, and kept the news from us.
Trump knew in January!
He probably just did not want to worry us unnecessarily.
What a guy!
Now, with over a million cases playing out in the United States alone - and with nearly 70,000 deaths in the United States alone, the big push in Washington, DC, and many state capitals is to get people out of the safety of their homes and back into the workforce.
People need haircuts dammit!
And still "no one in the federal government is dealing with the situation in a realistic manner."
Just wishing it away doesn't seem to have worked.
Perhaps it's time for a new government!
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