The World Health Organization reported two cases of the Nipah virus and warned that it kills 40% to 75% of the people it infects. It can also be used as a bioterrorism weapon.
Although there have been only two outbreaks, and none in the US, Nipah is considered a public health threat because of its high fatality rate, potential for human-to-human transmission and the absence of approved vaccines or treatment.
So how would Donald Trump come to our rescue if it or when, not if, any pandemic hits the U.S. again? The answer is poorly given his brutal cuts to medical research and his dismal Covid-19 performance.
Trump recently announced cuts of $4 billion in medical research funding at universities, hospitals, and other scientific institutions. Researchers have had to drop crucial projects and many consider switching fields due to Trump’s cuts and layoffs. The cutscanceled 383 clinical trials affecting research into COVID-19, cancer prevention and heart and brain disease.
Not to mention that Trump has sent our best medical scientists to China, weakening our ability to fend off pandemics and rapidly propelling China’s medical advancement beyond ours. The assault on our health will continue until Congressional Republicans find the integrity and courage to stop him.
Trumps ruinous actions and failure to stop the Covid pandemic during his first presidency is alarmingly similar to what he’s doing today. At the end of his first administration, America had 4.2% of the world’s population, 25% of Covid cases and 19% of Covid deaths. Shamefully, he abandoned over seven decades in which America played the leading global role in fighting infectious diseases, including Ebola, tuberculosis, malaria, yellow fever, AIDS, avian influenza and Zika. It was an unconscionable abdication of responsibility. He ignored the Defense Production Act, which gives the president the responsibility to force production and distribution of materials needed to arrest a pandemic.
In 2014, President Obama coordinated world leaders to stop the Ebola virus at its source, sending more than 3,000 health officials to West Africa as part of a 10,000 team. Cases fell by 80% from peak levels. He also led the fight against Ebola at home, resulting in just 11 cases and two deaths in the United States.
In sharp contrast, Trump abdicated his responsibility to the states, telling governors they’re on their own to find the critical equipment needed to fight the Covid, admonishing them that the federal government is “not a shipping clerk.”
Having failed to control the spread of COVID, Trump turned to massive misinformation and blamed Obama, governors, Democrats, the media and, most bizarrely, the World Health Organization, from which he recently withdrew.
Trump predicted the mortality rate “within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero” and would “disappear like a miracle” and that everybody “infected is getting better.” His BS led Americans to abandon caution and suffer more infections and death.
This man checks all the boxes that medical professionals use to diagnose a sociopath. Whether his claims are lies or delusions doesn’t matter. Either way, he is out of control. Why the hell do we keep him as our President?
Although Trump can’t help himself, the Republicans in Congress know exactly what they’re doing. They can stop the carnage, but they don’t because the value their Congressional and anatomical seats above their constituents and the country at large. So their complicity will be repeated when, not if, the next pandemic hits.
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