Donald Trump’s smoke machine has been running full blast, puffing out misinformation to play down the danger of the Coronavirus epidemic in an effort to reverse the stock market’s plunge and increase his chances of re-election. But neither the COVID-19 virus nor the stock market are paying attention to what Trump has to say about the epidemic and increasingly the public isn’t either.
COVID-19, like all forms of microbial life, is following its own biological imperative. It enters and takes over the cells of a living host, in this case a human host, in order to reproduce itself. The agenda of humans (staying healthy), let alone the agenda of the president (staying in office), is absolutely irrelevant to that imperative.
Rearview Mirror
Stock markets have their own imperative. Though sometimes stampeded by panic or giddy optimism, their job is to objectively price securities based upon economic indicators. A pandemic, which can severely restrict trade and travel, disrupt supply chains, and discourage large gatherings, has the capacity to adversely affect everything from manufacturing and retails sales to athletics and tourism. That, in turn, affects the profitability and value of companies listed on securities exchanges, which causes their share prices to drop.
Even the American public, a large segment of which has hitherto uncritically bought the rubbish Trump’s been selling on issues large and small, seems less willing to do so on this issue. It’s too early to tell from opinion polls, but I’d wager that public health professionals have earned a lot more trust when dispensing advice about the risks posed by the coronavirus than Trump. Perhaps truth in public discourse does matter after all, at least when it comes to a choice between life and death.
Worldwide, approximately 130,000 people have tested positive for the disease since the first cases were reported last December, and nearly 5,000 have died. It has spread to every continent except Antarctica. In the U.S., there have been almost 1,400 reported cases and at least 38 deaths. Statistics to date show a 3.4% death rate as measured against diagnosed cases with the bulk of fatalities among the elderly and frail.
The disease is highly contagious, is expected to continue spreading rapidly, and is not known to be subject to seasonal variation (like the flu). There are, as yet, no vaccines to treat it, and public health officials expect it will be at least a year before one is available that has been tested and is deemed safe and effective for general use. For the moment, the best that can be done to slow its spread is testing, quarantine, social distancing, and basic hygiene measures like hand-washing.
Yet since the first confirmed case in the U.S. on Jan. 21 raised alarm, Trump has tried to reassure Americans that the coronavirus isn’t really a big deal, can be easily contained, and will soon be cured. In speeches, press conferences, and tweets, he has made a number of statements about the virus which are uninformed, misleading or downright wrong. Here are just a few examples:
He opined that President Xi Jinping would be successful in controlling the virus in China, where the world’s most serious outbreak began late last year, “especially as the weather starts to warm & the virus hopefully becomes weaker, and then gone.”
He thought the virus was “a problem that’s going to go away.”
He compared it to “the regular flu that we have flu shot for” and predicted “we’ll essentially have a flu shot for this in a fairly quick manner.”
As to the reported 3.4% virus mortality rate, he pontificated, “Well, I think the 3.4% is really a false number.”
And, of course, he blamed the Democrats for “politicizing the coronavirus. This is their new hoax.”
In an Oval Office televised address Wednesday, Trump said he was taking steps to make “antiviral therapies available in record time” and, without any factual basis, promised that these treatments “will significantly reduce the impact and reach of the virus.”
Perhaps sensing that no one was paying attention to him, particularly since his prognostications were at odds with those of his own public health officials, Trump named Vice President Mike Pence as the point person for coordinating and “messaging” the administration’s efforts to stem the virus, except that no one appeared to be listening to him either.
The real attention has been focused on advice coming from career scientists in the administration, most notably Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984 and advisor to six presidents. From HIV/AIDS to Ebola and Zika, Fauci has been the country’s leading voice on epidemics and a dedicated civil servant.
His candid warnings on the danger of a coronavirus pandemic and the measures needed to curb it have been a welcome antidote to Trump’s drivel.
That Fauci hasn’t been muzzled by a president who hates to be told he’s wrong is an indication that Trump realizes the danger the epidemic poses to his incumbency (though when appearing at staged media events with Fauci and other public health officials, he looks sullen as if resentful they’re contradicting him and stealing the show).
Trump isn’t the only one who’s had difficulty keeping a PR lid on the coronavirus. In China, a country where criticism is tightly controlled through censorship and arrest, many Chinese have taken to public media to express their anger at the government’s slow reaction to the epidemic and its initial attempt to squelch news of it.
So if issues of life and death really do matter enough to cut through the smokescreen of “fake news,” why is climate change getting a pass? After all, in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence and enormous cost to life and property arising from catastrophic weather events, Trump has persisted in maintaining that climate change is not caused by burning fossil fuels and that measures to stem it would only interfere with economic growth.
The answer, perhaps, lies in the fact that climate change does not threaten everyone imminently or in the same way. The impacts are episodic, regional and disparate, such as coastal and river flooding, “tornado alley,” East Coast hurricanes, and West Coast droughts and forest fires. Moreover, these weather events aren’t new. They’ve just become more frequent and severe over time. And highly organized civil emergency and relief agencies have become adept at intervening to help prepare for them or mop up in their wake.
Yet both disease epidemics and climate change have one thing in common. Understanding and controlling them requires rigorous application of scientific techniques, not political spin.
In devising sound policy on public health issues, therefore, national, state and local leaders should put aside their own political interests and rely upon scientists who either know the answers or have the expertise to discover them. Because when it comes to nature, there simply is no such thing as “alternate facts.”
Elliott Epstein is a trial lawyer with Andrucki & King in Lewiston. His Rearview Mirror column, which has appeared in the Sun Journal for 10 years, analyzes current events in an historical context. He is also the author of “Lucifer’s Child,” a book about the notorious 1984 child murder of Angela Palmer. He may be contacted at epsteinel@yahoo.com
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