In a grotesque and horrifying performance the other night, the president* insisted the coronavirus would "eventually go away". He followed up this assertion by saying if enough people get the disease and recover, there will be a "herd mentality" and the virus will be stopped.
We know Cheeto Jesus got this theory from a radiologist whose familiarity with epidemiology is seemingly rudimentary at best. It seems Dr, Scott Atlas' main claim to fame is his ability to appear on Faux News and spout his contrarian theories regarding Covid 19. Let a large percentage of the population get sick and recover and we will achieve herd immunity says Dr. Atlas. He advocates sheltering the most vulnerable from the disease, but is not very forthcoming about how to do that. Especially since many of our "essential" workers are minorities with co-morbidities which make them unusually vulnerable to infection.
tRump has seemingly bought into this theory. He brought Atlas into the White House to manage the pandemic response, meanwhile sidelining actual infectious disease experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx. New exposed documents from Atlas' team are instructing states with high rates of transmission to cancel any plans for statewide mask mandates. Even the CDC director has said masks are the single best way to combat the spread of the virus. However, if your goal is efficient spread of the disease, by all means, cancel any mask mandates, hold packed rallies indoors and endorse indoor dining at bars and restaurants.
The truly scary thing about this scenario is the possibility of millions of deaths among the most vulnerable populations, the elderly, the sick and those with pre-existing conditions. It may well result in more than 2 million otherwise preventable deaths. However, in tRump's mind that may be a feature, not a bug.
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