Early on in his handling of the pandemic, science seemed irrelevant to Trump. He said covid-19 was less of a problem than the flu; he said he had a hunch it would magically disappear. Then the death-toll began to rise and he discovered science could be a useful political prop that allowed him hours of free air-time for his non-stop re-election campaigning after he could no longer hold his rallies.
But as unemployment rose to depression-era levels, the economy began to sputter and the prospect of a quick stock market recovery began to fade, science suddenly became inconvenient. He considered disbanding the pandemic task force and then reconsidered when he found out it was really popular.
Ultimately, however, the need to put the country back to work, in order to keep his 'economic miracle' (i.e. tax-cut juiced economy) alive, made a slow reopening a real problem for him. The CDC's reopening guidelines were too restrictive for Trump's political timetable and "would never see the light of day". A watered down version of the guidelines were hastily produced, the Obama administration's science-based pandemic preparedness plan that a week ago didn't exist was miraculously found and found wanting, the scientists, including Anthony Fauci were lambasted, and the value of their work questioned.
Trump's untethered bravado was on full display today when he pronounced: "I just want to make something clear. It’s very important. Vaccine or no vaccine, we’re back. And we’re starting a process. In many cases they don’t have vaccines and a virus or a flu comes and you fight through it".
We were are now set on a course in which in many parts of the country, caution has been thrown to the wind. We can only hope that "science" was overly cautious and that things won't be quite as bad as feared.
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