Posts published in “COVID”

Why Do Some People Embrace Mask Wearing to Stop the Coronavirus?

Why Do Some People Embrace Mask Wearing to Stop the Coronavirus?

By John R Guardiano on May 31, 2020

Hint: it has nothing to do with science and reason and everything to do with politics and feelings.

I noted here at ResCon1 that there is no compelling scientific evidence that wearing a mask stops the spread of the coronavirus.

And in fact, masks can be positively counterproductive because they give people a false sense of security, “thereby leading them to take fewer precautionary measures that actually do help stop or prevent the virus’s spread.”

Yet, masks are all the rage, with some states, like Virginia, now requiring that masks be worn in all public places, including restaurants and retail stores. Why is this?

Again, it has nothing to do with science because the science is clear: As Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) emergencies program explained at a media briefing in March:

There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit. In fact, there’s some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly.

According to the WHO today, “If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with COVID-19.”

Association. Still, some people have argued that because masks are commonplace in certain countries or jurisdictions that have done a relatively good job of containing the spread of the coronavirus, masks must, therefore, be effective. But this is silly. Association, obviously, is not causation.

In these same places where masks are commonplace and the coronavirus is relatively contained, people may eat healthy and hearty breakfasts and refrain from drinking alcoholic beverages. Does this mean that healthy and hearty breakfasts and the absence of alcoholic beverages stop the spread of the coronavirus and thus should be mandatory?

In truth, there are too many other potential explanatory factors at work to explain why some countries and regions have been better able to avert or avoid the coronavirus.

Mask wearing populations may be more fastidious and disciplined about social distancing, which is effective at stopping the spread of the coronavirus. Or they may suffer fewer medical complications and co-morbidities. Maybe they’re a younger demographic.

This matters because the victims of COVID-19 are overwhelmingly the elderly and those with with underlying medical ailments and chronic diseases.

Feelings. But despite the utter lack of scientific and empirical evidence to support mask wearing, masks have a cult-like following, and for several reasons, I think.

First, there is the understandable belief that they might do some good and, therefore, are worth the annoyance and imposition.

A member of my own family expressed this sentiment well. “If stuck in a room for 12 hours with a person who has COVID-19,” he writes, “wouldn’t you feel better if that person had a mask on?”

That’s a fair and legitimate question, and I suppose the answer is: Yes, I would. But our feelings can be deceptive. They can give rise to a false sense of hope.

That’s why public policy should not be based on feelings. Public policy should be based on facts, logic and empirical evidence.

Masks are like chicken soup. They may make us feel better; but neither a mask nor chicken soup is effective at stopping or combating a virus.

If your sore throat feels better by eating chicken soup, then by all means do so. But please don’t think that chicken soup will heal your sore throat or free you of a viral infection, because it won’t.

By the same token, if wearing a mask makes you feel better or safer—or if it gives you the sense that you’re doing something helpful in this pandemic—then by all means, wear a mask. But please don’t think that your mask will do anything to stop the spread of the coronavirus, because it won’t.

Symbolism. Another reason public health officials push masks is because they see them as a powerful symbol to remind people that we are still in a pandemic and thus need to be extra careful.

In this view, it really doesn’t matter whether the mask actually stops the spread of the coronavirus. What matters is that it gives people pause, causes them to think, and induces them to act appropriately.

This is the position of Dr. Anthony Fauci, who heads up the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. Back in March, Fauci admitted that people should not be wearing a mask.

“There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask,” Fauci told 60 Minutes.

When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better, and might even block a droplet. But it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think it is.

And often, there are unintended consequences. People keep fiddling with the mask, and they keep touching their face.

Fauci has since changed his position and says he now thinks people should wear a mask. However, his reason or rationale for changing his position is telling. It’s not that the science behind wearing a mask has changed, because it hasn’t.

Instead, Fauci says, the masks are a powerful “symbol” to prod people to do the kinds of things that they should be doing—mainly social distancing—that will protect people and the public health.

Politics. Some people, moreover, are smitten with masks because they view masks as public rebuke to President Trump, who has declined to wear a mask.

Worse yet, in the view of these anti-Trump political partisans, the president even castigated one reporter for trying to be “politically correct” when that reporter refused to remove his mask while asking Trump a question in the White House rose garden.

In this view, wearing a mask is a way to thumb your nose at Trump.

This, in fact, is why Biden has conspicuously taken to wearing a mask: It’s a way for him to identify with and bond with his left-wing supporters. And forcing all Americans to wear a mask is a way to isolate Trump and have the citizenry en mass thumb them their collective noses at him.

“What could be more delicious!” think Biden’s “progressive” partisans.

A similar and sometimes overlapping group of anti-Trump “progressives,” meanwhile, supports mandatory mask wearing as a means of keeping the citizenry fearful and the country in lockdown.

These “progressives” understand that when Americans are fearful and America is in crisis, it is much easier to impose sweeping statist measures that will “fundamentally transform” America along socialist and redistributionist lines.

Indeed, for the left, the mask is a convenient political tool that will help them to impose their statist agenda on an otherwise resistant citizenry.

The bottom line: there are several reasons, ranging from the benign to the malevolent, that people support mandatory mask wearing despite the lack of scientific evidence that masks stop the spread of the coronavirus.

But regardless of the reason or rationale, the groupthink that now dominates our politics, our media, and our culture—to wit: that wearing a mask is a self-evident good that will protect us and the public health—is counterproductive and untrue.

And no matter what you think, we all should agree: truth, science and reason should trump feelings, sentiment and wishful thinking.

Feature photo credit: New York Post.

Social Distancing, Yes; Mask Wearing, No.

Social Distancing, Yes; Mask Wearing, No.

By John R Guardiano on May 25, 2020

“The debate over whether Americans should wear face masks to control coronavirus transmission has been settled,” declares the New York Times‘ Knvul Sheikh. “Governments and businesses now require or at least recommend them in many public settings.”

Sheikh is right about the requirement or recommendation to wear masks in many public settings, but wrong about how the debate has been settled.

In truth, the masks do little or nothing to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, and actually cause real harm: by giving some people a false sense of security, thereby leading them to take fewer precautionary measures that actually do help stop or prevent the virus’s spread.

Social distancing, for instance, makes good public health sense. Yet, how many times have we seen people donned up in full mask-covering mode standing just inches away from a friend or colleague who is talking, gesticulating, or jointly texting on their phone?

I’ve seen this image many times. These people no doubt think they’re safe and doing the right thing because they are wearing a mask, but nothing could be further from the truth.

The mask, of course, does not protect the mask wearer. Instead, the mask theoretically protects other people from being the infected by the mask wearer if the mask wearer is an unknown or asymptomatic carrier of the coronavirus.

(A known or symptomatic carrier of the coronavirus would presumably be self-quarantined and not out and about in a public setting.)

I say theoretically because the logic or rationale behind the requirement to wear a mask depends on dubious assumptions that don’t stand up to practical, everyday scrutiny.

Makeshift Cloth Masks. First, the studies and analyses that say masks can prevent the spread of the coronavirus involve surgical masks. But most people aren’t wearing surgical masks. Instead, they’re wearing makeshift cloth masks, which are inherently subpar and leaky.

“Fabric masks also allow air in around the sides, but lack non-woven, moisture-repelling layers. They impede only about two percent of airflow in,” said May Chu, a clinical professor in epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health in an interview with LIveScience.

N95 surgical masks, reports Live Science, “effectively prevent viral spread [by filtering] out 95 percent of particles .03 microns or larger.”

However, because N95 surgical masks are in short supply, even for the medical professionals who most need them, and because they are difficult to properly wear or fit, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “does not recommend them for general use.”

As for airflow outward through a mask, whether surgical or nonsurgical, studies report marginal benefits at best.

“The evidence for the efficacy of surgical or homemade masks is limited, and masks aren’t the most important protection against the coronavirus,” LiveScience notes.

“To me, it’s not harmful to wear these masks, but it doesn’t look from this study, [April 3, 2020, in the journal Nature Medicine], like there is a whole lot of benefit,” said Rachel Jones, an associative professor of family and preventative medicine at the University of Utah…

The recommendations that everyone wear masks are because “any kind of impediment is better than nothing,” Chu said. But fabric masks are not expected to be as protective as surgical masks, she said…

“There’s been enough research done to be able to confidently say that masks wouldn’t be able to stop the spread of infection, that they would only have a small effect on transmission,” added Ben Cowling, head of the Divison of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Hong Kong University.

“We shouldn’t be relying on masks to help us get back to normal.”

“Another April study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine,” writes Mark Siegel, a clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health, “revealed that the force of sick patients’ coughs propelled droplets through both surgical masks as well as cloth masks.”

The CDC,” Siegel explains,

based its revised mask recommendation on studies that found asymptomatic spread was far more common than had been thought. But there have been no studies on masks’ effectiveness in preventing it [emphasis added].

Although the coronavirus is highly contagious, it is much less so than, say, measles, which can linger in the air for two hours after a cough. a sneeze or even speech.

By contrast, the Covid-19 virus has not been proved to be aerosolized. Coronaviruses often enter the body through the eyes, and frequent hand and face washing and social distancing is much more effective than masks at preventing that.

Moreover, as Sheikh acknowledges:

“Many people also wear masks incorrectly, letting them dangle off the tips of their noses, or concealing just their mouths.

People also tend to readjust face masks frequently, or remove them to communicate with others, which increases their risk of being exposed or infecting others, he said.

He is Dr. Eli Perencevich, an infectious disease physician at the University of Iowa and the Iowa City Veterans Affairs Health Care System. Dr. Perencevich recognizes the problems inherent with masks, which is why, as Sheikh reports, he advocates the use of face shields instead.

Face shields, unlike masks,

protect the entire face, including the eyes, and prevent people from touching their faces or inadvertently exposing themselves to the coronavirus.

Face shields may be easier to wear than masks, he said, comparing them with wearing glasses or a hat. They wrap around a small portion of a person’s forehead rather than covering more than half their face with material that can create the urge to itch.

Importantly, face shields are far more sanitary than masks, which are supposed to be disposed of or regularly washed, but often aren’t. Indeed, mucus and germs can and do accumulate on the mask, thus putting the wearer at risk of other viral infections.

“The nice thing about face shields,” by contrast, “is that they can be resterilized and cleaned by the user, so they’re reusable indefinitely until some component breaks or cracks,” Dr. Yu said. A simple alcohol wipe or rinse with soap and hot water is all it takes for the shields to be contaminant-free again.

Dr. Yu, Sheikh notes, is a dermatology resident affiliated with Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Siegel agrees: face shields make a lot more sense than masks. “When I worked on a coronavirus ward, I felt much safer because I also wore a plastic face shield, which blocks viral particles from even reaching the mask,” he writes.

Science Says. But my point here is not to argue for face shields instead of masks. My point is that people who (often self-righteously) insist we wear masks do so not because the science impels them to. They do so because it makes them feel good.

In truth, the science behind mask wearing is weak and lacking. The science behind social distancing, hand washing, and good hygienic practice, by contrast, is strong and compelling.

Which is why I avoid wearing a mask whenever I can while still practicing social distancing. The latter makes individual and public health sense; the former does not.

Feature photo credit: The Catholic Weekly.

Federalism and the 50 States Are Key to Combatting the Coronavirus and Reopening America

Federalism and the 50 States Are Key to Combatting the Coronavirus and Reopening America

By John R Guardiano on April 26, 2020

“The key remains: together as ever as one. We have to push as one for solutions to protect our families and our fates. So what do you say? Let’s get after it.”

—Chris Cuomo, Cuomo Prime Time, Apr. 21, 2020

This is Cuomo’s schtick. He begins his prime time show every night on CNN with a blessedly brief and snappy introductory monologue that culminates in his plea for Americans to work “together as ever as one” to combat the coronavirus.

Politically speaking, what Cuomo means is this: we need a unitary national effort as opposed to 50 disparate state efforts, and a public policy oriented around “science” and what the public health “experts” say and counsel.

It sounds so high-minded, commonsensical, and appealing. But Cuomo is wrong and he has it precisely backward:

Far from a unitary national effort, we need 50 laboratories of democracy combating and responding to the coronavirus in various ways that reflect the very real regional and demographic differences in the spread of the virus itself.

Scientific Understanding. Moreover, our scientific understanding of the coronavirus is not some settled piece of Biblical scripture that compels “The Ten Scientific Commandants.”

To the contrary: our scientific understanding is rapidly changing and evolving as we learn more about this new or novel coronavirus. Hence the provisional name nCoV before it was named SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19.

“Over 2.43 million people around the world have contracted COVID-19,” the disease caused by the virus, and there are more than 1.6 million active cases,” reports Business Insider.

However, ongoing research on and about these patients has revealed that many of our best original assumptions about the virus weren’t fully accurate—or in some cases misguided.

After China confirmed the first case of the mysterious “pneumonia-like” illness at the end of December, for example, it turned out someone else likely started spreading it there in November.

Symptoms of COVID-19 also turned out to be far more expansive and peculiar than anyone initially realized. Even our understanding of how the virus transmits itself from one person to the next has changed.

But even if our scientific understanding of the coronavirus were fixed and settled, this understanding needs to be applied within a larger-scale analytical framework that considers the tradeoffs involved in various public policy options.

The goal of social distancing, remember, was never to eliminate the coronavirus and protect everyone from infection. That is well-night impossible.

Instead, the goal was to “flatten the curve” and thereby slow the spread of the virus, so that our hospitals and healthcare providers were not overwhelmed to the breaking point as happened in northern Italy.

And that, thank God, has been achieved. New York City and its surrounding suburbs were pressed to the breaking point, but they did not break.

Indeed, despite the genuine and well-founded fear that there might be too few ventilators and that rationing would ensue, the truth is: no one who ever needed a ventilator was ever denied a ventilator. New York, consequently, has actually given away some of its ventilators to other more needy states.

This is a remarkable achievement, which, two or three weeks ago, no one thought possible. It doesn’t’ mean we should abandon social distancing because all is well and the coronavirus is a thing of the past.

However, it does mean that we need to begin making reasonable accommodations to the reality of the virus and start reopening the U.S. economy.

We cannot wait for a vaccine, which, in the best scenario, is 12 to 18 months away. “The fastest vaccine ever developed for a viral infection is the Ebola vaccine, which took five years,” notes Avik Roy in the Wall Street Journal.

If we wait that long to reopen the U.S. economy, there will be no U.S. economy to open. America will lie in ruins. As George Gilder explains:

The health-care system saves lives; the economy provides everything we need to live. The damage being done to the economy—if sustained—could easily cost more lives world-wide than the coronavirus.

Federalism. The genius of the American political system is federalism and decentralization, and it is the answer to our dilemma between, on the hand, protecting the public health and, on the other hand, protecting our economic livelihood and survival.

Federalism allows each of the 50 states to balance these competing concerns and decide for themselves which precise accommodations to make for the coronavirus. This is appropriate and wise.

It is appropriate because the coronavirus is having widely disparate effects on different states and regions, all of which have different and divergent demographics.

Sixteen states, for instance, each have fewer than 100 COVID-19 deaths and, together, account for just 634 deaths versus 54,021 for the country as a whole. Another 24 states plus the District of Columbia have between 100 and 1,000 COVID-19 deaths.

Some 40 percent of the deaths have occurred in New York. New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey account for nearly 60 percent of the virus’s fatalities, observe NPR’s Elena Renken and Daniel Wood.

“The curves are flattening; hospital systems haven’t come close to being overwhelmed; Americans have adapted to new etiquettes of social distancing,” writes Bret Stephens in the New York Times.

“Many of the worst Covid outbreaks outside New York (such as at Chicago’s Cook County Jail or the Smithfield Foods processing plant in Sioux Falls, S.D.),” Stephens points out, “have specific causes that can be addressed without population-wide lockdowns.”

We also will learn from what each of the states do—what works well and what doesn’t—and can adjust our efforts accordingly. That’s the advantage or wisdom of having 50 laboratories of democracy as opposed to one sole and exclusive federal policy or decision-point.

Competition and experimentation in governance breed excellence. Monopolistic federal government control, by contrast, breeds mediocrity and failure.

Public Policy. Of course, public policy must continue to be informed by our rapidly evolving scientific understanding of the coronavirus

In fact, says Avik Roy:

The starting point for a more realistic strategy is the key fact that not everyone is equally susceptible to hospitalization and death due to Covid-19. There is considerable evidence that younger people largely avoid the worst health outcomes.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, those over the age of 65 are 22 times more likely to die of Covid-19 than those under 55.

That is not to say that younger people are invulnerable…

Still, the much lower incidence of death among younger people warrants a reconsideration of our one-size-fits-all approach to stay-at-home policies, especially outside the hard-hit tri-state region of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

Georgia and Oklahoma are the first states to begin reopening their economies, and good on them for it. Governors Brian Kemp (R-Georgia) and Kevin Stitt (R-Oklahoma) made careful and deliberative decisions based on the data and informed by the science.

Georgia and Oklahoma aren’t abandoning social distancing. Instead, they’re incorporating social distancing into the workplace and social settings to allow residents and businesses to get on with their lives. All Americans will learn and benefit from these pioneering efforts.

The key remains: together as ever, not as one, but as 50 distinct and sovereign states. We have to push not as one nation, but as many states or jurisdictions, for potential solutions.

What do you say? Let’s get after it. Georgia and Oklahoma already are doing so. Let’s watch, observe, learn, and follow.

Because of Racialist Thinking, Dems Like Biden Were Slow to Recognize and Confront the Coronavirus

Because of Racialist Thinking, Dems Like Biden Were Slow to Recognize and Confront the Coronavirus

By John R Guardiano on April 23, 2020

Ellen, one of my most loyal readers, says I make an unfair assumption when, in my last post, I wrote:

What’s more, it is highly doubtful that Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, or any other Democratic presidential wannabe would have responded any earlier or more effectively [to the coronavirus pandemic], given their obsession with “racism,” “bigotry,” and “xenophobia.”

This obsession likely would have prevented a Democratic president from acknowledging Chinese culpability early on and then confronting China.

But as I pointed out in the piece, I don’t think this requires any great leap of faith or logic, given what Biden, Sanders, and other leading Democratic officeholders said (and did not say) when the coronavirus first emerged as a public health concern here in the United States—and “given the Democrats’ obsession with ‘racism,’ ‘bigotry,’ and ‘xenophobia.’”

I should have included that first italicized thought in the piece, and have since updated the post accordingly. Still, even without that specific thought, the argument—and the evidence—is there, I think.

Democrats MIA. Simply put, back in January and February, when it became increasingly apparent that the coronavirus was a ticking time bomb waiting to happen, top Democrats, like Trump, were slow to recognize the problem. Dave Seminara observes in the Wall Street Journal, for instance, that:

Democratic candidates held five televised debates, lasting nearly 11 hours from Jan. 14 through March 15. They offered no policy proposals that haven’t already been enacted and said little about the virus in the four events in January and February…

At no point during any of the debates did a Democratic candidate suggest that the country should have been locked down or taken other social-distancing measures sooner.

As Arthur Conan Doyle observed: “It is easy to be wise after the event.”

On the other hand, it it is true that, as Tony Blinken observes, Biden said this in the Feb. 25, 2020, Democratic presidential debate:

I would be on the phone with China and making it clear: “We are going to need to be in your country. You have to be open; you have to be clear; we have to know what’s going on. We have to be there with you.” And insist on it—and insist, insist, insist.

Blinken is Biden’s senior foreign policy adviser. He served as Deputy Secretary of State and Deputy National Security Adviser for Obama.

In this Biden campaign video, Blinken makes a compelling indictment of Trump for being soft on China. However, his case for Biden’s prescience re: the coronavirus is much weaker.

Yes, Biden made this one tough comment about insisting on access to China. However, to the best of my knowledge, it is one comment made in isolation, and it lacks follow-through in anything else Biden has said.

Moreover, a month before Biden sounded off (once) against China, Trump already had established his coronavirus task force, while declaring COVID-19 a public health emergency.

Trump already had imposed his so-called China travel ban; and, two days earlier (Feb. 23), he had requested a $2.5 billion supplemental specifically to combat the coronavirus.

Biden, meanwhile, reports Robert C. O’Brien in the Wall Street Journal

criticized the president’s “xenophobia” and “fear-mongering.” He stressed that “diseases have no borders.” It took until April 3 for Mr. Biden to do a 180 and come out in support of the president’s travel restriction.

O’Brien is Trump’s National Security Adviser.

Democrats’ obsession with “racism,” “bigotry,” and “xenophobia” is a real problem: it distorts their thinking and prevents them from seeing clearly looming threats, both domestically and internationally.

And even the toughest-minded Democrats can’t help but be adversely affected because they have to work within the confines of a political party obsessed with, and paralyzed by, racialist thinking and racialist modes of analysis.

Note, for instance, that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s first response was to attack Trump’s China travel restrictions as “just an excuse [for the president] to further his ongoing war against immigrants.”

Biden, moreover, bizarrely is being accused now of “racism” and “xenophobia” because of a perfectly legitimate campaign ad that says Trump “rolled over for the Chinese.”

Massachusetts Democrat Seth Moulton, likewise, withdrew his support of a bipartisan congressional resolution condemning China’s coronavirus response “following criticism that it played in President Donald Trump’s attempts to blame China for the global pandemic,” reports Boston.com.

Moulton is a Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq War and a promising national security hawk within the Democratic Party. Yet, even he felt compelled to apologize (!) for supporting this bipartisan Congressional resolution condemning China’s communist dictatorial regime.

Incredible—but, sadly, unsurprising. Moulton faces a “progressive” primary challenge and knows he must toe the line. The far left, after all, rules the Democratic Party and composes the lyrics which Moulton, Biden, and other center-left Dems must sing—or else.

Then, of course, there is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who downplayed the threat of the coronavirus during a Feb. 24 walking tour of San Francisco’s Chinatown, ostensibly because she wanted to combat… yes, you guessed it: “racism” and “discrimination”!

The bottom line: although Trump was slow to recognize that the coronavirus was a public health emergency which required strong and decisive preventative action, there is little reason to think his Democratic opponents, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, would have responded any earlier or more effectively.

And a big reason for this is the Dems’ inability to forthrightly confront threats when doing so might invite the wrath of the PC police and bring down upon them the dreaded, albeit utterly false, charge of “racism,” “bigotry,” and “xenophobia.”

Consequently, they cannot be trusted to protect America and defend Americans.

Feature photo: CNN.

Because of His Response to the Coronavirus, Trump’s Prospects for Reelection Are Better Than You Think

Because of His Response to the Coronavirus, Trump’s Prospects for Reelection Are Better Than You Think

By John R Guardiano on April 22, 2020

The big high-stakes political battle that’s now playing out in the media, and in some early presidential campaign commercials, is this:

Did President Trump act quickly and vigorously enough to confront the growing coronavirus pandemic and thereby save American lives, or was his response belated, tardy, and lacking—and, therefore, responsible for unnecessary and needless American deaths?

Trump’s reelection obviously hinges on how this question is adjudicated in the minds of the voting public.

Here at ResCon1 we have been highly critical of the president’s response to the coronaviru s, arguing that his failure to act early and decisively has “endangered American lives and forced the United States to take even more draconian measures than otherwise would have been necessary.”

This is true, but arguably too harsh: because there are other salient considerations that must be weighed:

First, is it fair to fault Trump for his belated and tardy response, given that no one else—including the mainstream media and all of the Democratic presidential candidates—sounded the alarm either?

Yes, it is fair: because the president is the president. He’s supposed to be attentive to threats to the safety and well-being of the American people. He’s supposed to know more than the media and more than the rest of us.

U.S. taxpayers, moreover, spend tens of billions of dollars annually on intelligence personnel and intelligence capabilities precisely to give the president and other policymakers early warning of impending threats.

And in fact, as we’ve noted here at ResCon1, parts of the Trump administration were trying to inform the president early on (back in January) about the coronavirus. Yet Trump seriously downplayed the risk of a pandemic—in large part because he was too credulous of the assurances given to him by his “friend,” China’s dictator, Xi Jinping.

On the other hand, Trump administration actions re: the coronavirus are far better than Trump’s statements about the coronavirus. Indeed, while the latter are often contemptible the former are usually laudatory.

The media (ResCon1 included) tend to fixate on Trump’s statements, which are usually impulsive, scattershot, and misguided. But Trump administration actions are usually more focused and on target.

Thus Trump established a presidential task force Jan. 29 to tackle the coronavirus; and, two days later, he declared COVID-19 a public health emergency. On Feb. 23, he requested a $2.5- billion supplemental specifically to combat the virus.

Then of course, there is Trump’s so-called China travel ban, implemented Jan. 31.

The word “ban” is really a misnomer: because many categories of people traveling to and from China are excluded from its strictures. Consequently, as the New York Times reported April 4, nearly 40,000 Americans and authorized travelers have come into the United States from China since the “ban” was enacted.

Still, by limiting and restricting the entry of Chinese nationals, and by advising Americans against traveling to China, Trump was acknowledging that a serious public health problem had originated there, and he was buying us time to prepare for the fight ahead.

‘Racism’ and ‘Xenophobia’. It’s also important to note that while Trump was responding to COVID-19, Democratic politicians, liberal journalists, and the mainstream media were criticizing him for being unduly alarmist and “racist.”

As we noted here at ResCon1, for instance, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the travel restrictions “just an excuse [for Trump] to further his ongoing war against immigrants.”

The 2020 Democratic Presidential nominee, Joe Xi, likewise, criticized the president’s “xenophobia” and “fear-mongering,” reports White House National Security Adviser Rober C. O’Brien in the Wall Street Journal. Biden “stressed that ‘diseases have no borders,’” O’Brien writes.

(But if diseases have no borders, then why, according to Pew Research, does 93 percent of the world’s population now live in countries or territories that limit or ban travel in part because of the coronavirus?)

O’Brien catalogues five other “fateful coronavirus decisions” that Trump made. These include:

stopping entry of foreign nationals from Europe;
initiating a national social distancing campaign to dramatically slow the spread of the virus;
pushing for innovative use of therapies (such as remdesivir) to fight the virus;
issuing CDC guidelines that recommend the personal use of cloth masks to stop the spread of the virus; and
initiating public-private partnerships to dramatically ramp-up production of ventilators and other personal protective equipment needed by patients and healthcare providers.

In short, even though Trump’s rhetoric has been lacking, and even though he was slow to recognize the true depths of the problem, he has, nonetheless, acted forcefully and vigorously to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

What’s more, it is doubtful that Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, or any other Democratic presidential wannabe would have responded any earlier or more effectively, given what they said (and did not say) when the coronavirus first emerged as a public health concern here in the United States, and given their obsession with “racism,” “bigotry,” and “xenophobia.”

Indeed, this obsession likely would have prevented a Democratic president from acknowledging Chinese culpability early on and then confronting China.

Ventilators. We also should note that one one crucial matter, the supply of ventilators, Trump has been proven right and his critics monstrously wrong.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, for instance, complained loudly and often that his state needed 30,000 ventilators; and that Trump and the federal government needed to step up and help.

Otherwise, he gravely warned, ventilators would have to be rationed, and patients who needed ventilators might not get them.

Well, as it turned out, New York did not need anywhere near 30,000 ventilators; and the Trump administration did a genuinely masterful job of managing the supply of ventilators to ensure that no patient nationwide who ever needed a ventilator was ever denied a ventilator.

National Review’s Rich Lowry reports this story in full, and it is well worth reading in its entirety. Suffice it to say: Trump has gotten a lot of bad and undeserving press over the ventilators when, in fact, he should be getting praise and plaudits.

Poor Spokesman. Of course, a big reason Trump doesn’t get the credit he sometimes deserves is because he is such a poor spokesman on his own behalf; yet, he feels compelled to hog the limelight.

Trump would be much better off if he said less and let his very able team—Vice President Pence, Drs. Fauci and Birx, CDC Director Robert Redfield, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin et al.—do more of the talking and explaining.

Also, Trump sometimes seems to be at war with his own administration; and this, too, contributes to an overall sense of policy incoherence and confusion.

If Trump were a more disciplined and organized administrator, he’d get better and more consistent policy results, realize greater media plaudits and recognition, and achieve higher poll ratings.

In short, while it is easy to criticize Trump, it is important to view him and his administration in a broader and more inclusive context, and to consider the plausible alternatives.

For starters, the Trump administration, thankfully, is much more than just Donald Trump. And even Donald Trump is more than just his Twitter feed and bombastic statements.

For these reasons, a fair-minded and holistic assessment must give our president (or at least his administration) higher marks than most think might be warranted.

However, the story of the Trump presidency is still unfolding; it will have many twists and turns; and the American people will decide its fate on election day, Nov. 3, 2020.

Stay tuned.

Feature photo credit: WisPolitics.com.