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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsKrugman: The Deadly Delusions of Mad King Donald
New York Times
July 9, 2020
Paul Krugman
He wont give up on a failing pandemic strategy.
I dont know about you, but Im feeling more and more as if were all trapped on the Titanic except that this time around the captain is a madman who insists on steering straight for the iceberg. And his crew is too cowardly to contradict him, let alone mutiny to save the passengers.
A month ago it was still possible to hope that the push by Donald Trump and the Trumpist governors of Sunbelt states to relax social distancing and reopen businesses like restaurants and bars even though we met none of the criteria for doing so safely wouldnt have completely catastrophic results.
At this point, however, its clear that everything the experts warned was likely to happen, is happening. Daily new cases of Covid-19 are running two and a half times as high as in early June, and rising fast. Hospitals in early-reopening states are under terrible pressure. National death totals are still declining thanks to falling fatalities in the Northeast, but theyre rising in the Sunbelt, and the worst is surely yet to come.
A normal president and a normal political party would be horrified by this turn of events. They would realize that they made a bad call and that it was time for a major course correction; they would start taking warnings from health experts seriously.
A month ago it was still possible to hope that the push by Donald Trump and the Trumpist governors of Sunbelt states to relax social distancing and reopen businesses like restaurants and bars even though we met none of the criteria for doing so safely wouldnt have completely catastrophic results.
At this point, however, its clear that everything the experts warned was likely to happen, is happening. Daily new cases of Covid-19 are running two and a half times as high as in early June, and rising fast. Hospitals in early-reopening states are under terrible pressure. National death totals are still declining thanks to falling fatalities in the Northeast, but theyre rising in the Sunbelt, and the worst is surely yet to come.
A normal president and a normal political party would be horrified by this turn of events. They would realize that they made a bad call and that it was time for a major course correction; they would start taking warnings from health experts seriously.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/09/opinion/trump-coronavirus.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
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Krugman: The Deadly Delusions of Mad King Donald (Original Post)
Mike 03
Jul 2020
OP
A correction to Prof Krugman: the national death rate has started climbing
muriel_volestrangler
Jul 2020
#5
Laelth
(32,017 posts)1. "A normal president and a normal political party ..."
Hmm. Therein lies the answer to Krugmans querry, methinks.
-Laelth
PSPS
(13,603 posts)4. Indeed. It seems we're stuck with two parties: Democratic and Единая Россия
denem
(11,045 posts)2. Captain Ahab
Chasing a white GE.
brooklynite
(94,600 posts)3. The flaw in Krugman's analogy
Trump doesn't want to steer into the iceberg; he continually wants to leave the bridge to hang out with people in the first class dining room.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,322 posts)5. A correction to Prof Krugman: the national death rate has started climbing
Using the 7 day rolling average on https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ , we see:
Jun 28-Jul 04: 518
Jun 29-Jul 05: 516
Jun 30-Jul 06: 517
Jul 01-Jul 07: 556
Jul 02-Jul 08: 585
Jul 03-Jul 09: 625
625 is above any 7 day figure since Jun 19-Jun 25.
It's beginning to look a bit like a hockey stick ...