PRESIDENT HAS DONE MORE THAN CAUSE AMERICAN’S DEATH: PART IV

…Ripe squash in Florida being sent to be buried.

American deaths and the loss of millions of pounds of meat and produce.

I previously had mentioned that President Trump had told Sean Hannity of Fox News,

‘We pretty much shut [the coronavirus] down coming in from China.”

Susan Rice, the former Obama National Security Director, said:

“You can’t hermetically seal the United States off from the rest of the world”.

The travel plan from the president only referred to Chinese citizens coming from China. 

Other international citizens that had been to China and cargo coming from China, both were still coming into the US.

Ms. Rice referred to Trump’s travel ban as “A swiss-cheese travel ban.” 

It stopped nothing that could have transmitted the virus.

But more important, by the time of the travel ban, there were already 30 US cities in

26 different counties, where the outbreaks were known to be. 

It was already likely that it was spreading in many additional places,

silently moving from person to person with each touch,

hand shake, and the touching of door knobs.

And let’s not forget, most likely, those standing in the lines at US airports.

The epidemiologists call this kind of transmission: “the community spread”.

The president had done nothing to stop “community spread”.

“Once community spread is underway, then introductions through travel are not the main threat.  The volume of cases that will emerge locally is always dramatically higher than the

volume that will arrive from overseas.  Putting up a travel ban is like locking the door after the robber is already inside”.  This from Mr. Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development

Regardless, any opportunities for early action, gained by a travel plan, the opportunities were totally botched.  “If the travel ban did anything, it potentially brought us a few weeks to get ahead of the curve.  We did not use those weeks to any good effect.  And for Trump to say how brilliant that was, is belied by the obvious reality that we are now the world’s hot spot.  So it’s a load of bullshit.  Trump’s lies are killing us.”  this from Susan Rice.

But the death of Americans, as bad as it is, is just the beginning of the pandemic’s results.

The closing of restaurants, hotels, businesses and schools has left some farmers with no buyers for more that half of their crops.  In addition, the four largest meat packers for pork and beef have all been closed down due to their workers being massively hit with COVID-19.

Due to the lock-down, thousands of gallons of fresh milk have been dumped into lagoons and into manure pits.  An Idaho farmer has dug ditches for a million pounds of onions. 

In Florida, tractors criss-crossed bean and cabbage fields, plowing perfectly ripe vegetables back into the soil.

The amount of waste is staggering.  Many farmers say they have donated part of their

surplus to food banks and Meals on Wheels programs, which have been overwhelmed with demand.  But there is only so much perishable food that the charities with limited numbers of refrigerators and volunteers can absorb.

The amount of damage and the total costs from the president’s lack of early response will never be known, but we will be able to count the dead that came from COVID-19.

Trump did not cause all of the cost & damage, but it seems well understood that the United States was late by up to two months before this administration got serious for dealing with the virus.

Copyright G. Ater 2020