So Trump Wants To Re-Open The United States For Business
First, he’ll have to stop obsessing on the election and get over the hump.
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“We must reopen the country for business!”, is the clarion call of the President of the United States. I follow Donald Trump on Twitter and I must say, he’s like a dog with the leash in his mouth. He’d really like to get out for a walk, and he wants us to take him to the park.
But we’re not even close to being ready to open for business. The press reports a great deal of discomfort about opening up our schools, churches, shops, theaters, restaurants, and our hotels. Oh, hotels. You mean like, “Trump Hotel”? I wonder if Trump doesn’t harbor a conflict of interest or two.
Trump may want to go out shopping with his wife (maybe not), but it’s clear to everyone else that he’s not done his homework. Not even close. He spent six weeks in January and February downplaying the oncoming pandemic. The Guardian has documented those six weeks of the negligence of the president with all of his unpleasant details. They show that the Trump Administration and the government of South Korea had two entirely different attitudes in their response to the virus.
While Trump was golfing, vacillating, and not taking the data seriously, the South Korean government was marshaling every available resource to deal with the coronavirus. The South Korean government gathered the best minds from government, business, and schools to create a test within 2 weeks of their first confirmed case and they got really busy testing people for the coronavirus. Once tested as positive, those people were isolated until the virus was cleared. Here is a chart to demonstrate the results of their work:
Notice that the “hump”, the point at which the South Koreans saw the peak of active cases, occurred nearly two months ago. South Korea is a country of 50 million people. Yes, they are a smaller country, but they also have fewer resources than the United States. And as The Guardian notes, the United States and South Korea both had their first confirmed case on January 20th. Now see the same chart, but for the United States:
