Originally posted at Medium. Find the original article here: https://medium.com/@epicdylan/public-policy-disaster-drumpf-takes-a-pooh-on-the-coronavirus-8024474e9cd9
I hate to open an article with such an acerbic title, or with such obvious political overtones, but let’s not beat around the bush here: politicians around the world are letting down the people they are supposed to serve. The Chinese response to the virus has been wildly disproportionate to the information they have released to the rest of the world. This is unacceptable because it puts billions of people at risk, and while it can be claimed that Xi Jinping is only obligated to serve the needs of his people, the obvious counterargument is that the development of treatments for this disease is contingent upon the free flow of information to researchers around the world. We never know where the next great idea is going to come from, but we do know that policies such as that adopted by the Chinese are bad in every way, shape, and form because they destroy communication.
The American response has largely been to ignore the virus. If the Chinese response is unconscionable, the American response is unthinkable. To have the world’s most advanced R&D teams sit idly by while the most dangerous pandemic in the past century gears up and spreads, unnoticed, through American cities is the disaster liberals have been expecting ever since the orange buffoon took office back in 2017.
In the United States, when Republican politicians hold office, the only action that will occur — on any major policy front — will be the action taken by the market. Thus far, US companies have engaged in a bureaucratic tussle over patents and vaccines and accomplished essentially nothing that could possibly even remotely benefit any of the massive percentage of the American population who will probably contract this disease over the coming months.
Rumor has it that only four states currently have testing kits, so the small proportion of the population who have contracted the disease and tested positive for it is probably explained by the fact that we Americans have failed to even prepare to diagnose the disease in the first place. In conjunction with reports of a suspicious increase in pneumonia deaths at various American hospitals, it’s becoming more likely every day that YOU will personally end up contracting this disease.
Unfortunately, the action the Drumpf administration has taken thus far consists only of a poorly-conceived attempt to save face as the largest disaster in American public policy since 9/11 unfolds. Reports about The Donald’s anger at the collapse of the stock market square easily with the man’s ironic obsession with his public image amid a nation of people who are livid with him for simply refusing to do the job he was elected for. This is the same thing that happened in the 1980s with the AIDS epidemic after Reagan cut funding to the CDC. Bush’s big gaffe, Katrina, pales in response to the Trump failures with regard to every natural disaster since he took office, and it is becoming quite clear that Republican politicians are unbelievably bad at foreseeing and preparing for preventable disasters.
This situation is grim, and worse, it was entirely preventable. Follow me for the next couple of weeks as I explain the physiology of COVID-19 and look at a few basic ways we can all improve our immune response and shore up our bodies’ natural defenses to improve our chances as more and more of us contract this disease from ordinary public life.
I don't usually write about politics, mainly because I have nothing nice to say about any of it. Anybody here interested in reading more political work from yours truly? I try to spice it up, but like I said, it's a new look for my writing, so I'm definitely open to feedback. Cheers! And, stay safe out there.
