I have avoided wading into the politics of the pandemic as much as possible, but Trump’s recent pronouncements on the need to keep the economy rolling could have major implications for the course of the epidemic. At this point, it is really the governors of hard-hit states around the country who have stepped into the leadership void and taken strong action to limit the epidemic. To the extent Trump positions himself as the defender of the economy, then, when he agrees to follow the advice of the public health experts and the governors do their own thing, they become responsible for the downturn. If the public health intervention works and the number of deaths is limited, he will be able to say that Covid-19 really was just a bad flu and not worth ruining the economy.
I used to tell my students, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, but physicians get paid by the pound.” More broadly put, no epidemiologist ever got to send a bill to someone for preventing their disease. Public health and disease prevention have always been the underfunded, underappreciated cousin of the multi-trillion-dollar medical industry, yet clean air, clean water, and safe food arguably save more lives every year than all the hospitals in America. Understanding that fact requires an understanding of science and this anti-science President has continually sought to disparage the science of public health while undermines and cuts the budgets of the agencies responsible for our safety.
It is profoundly disturbing to see that, in the face of the gross mismanagement of this epidemic at the federal level and the evidence that the elimination of key staff for preventing and responding to emerging diseases may have contributed to the pandemic, a majority of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of it. It seems that his constant targeting of the public health experts throughout this disaster is simply part of his larger campaign to dismiss science and, once again, it seems to be working. For now.
I do believe it is important to find ways to keep the economy moving as much as possible. My post yesterday lays out a way we might move on from the current lockdown that protects public health. We desperately need leadership that respects science, is focused on the truth, understands and can respond to complex situations, and takes a leadership role to inspire the country in difficult times. Unfortunately, this President is constitutionally incapable of any of these things, although I’m never quite sure whether it’s incompetence or evil brilliance. In the end, the virus itself may be the thing that dismantles him. I hope my effort to find a silver lining is not misplaced.
Amazing post. It is interesting to read what other people thought and how it
relates to them or their clients, as their perspective could possibly assist you in the future.
Best regards,
Dinesen Cannon
Fauci’s approval rating far exceeds Trump’s at present, but that does not discount that Trump will try to set up the medical and scientific community to take the fall for the economy as gripping stories of death disappear from TV screens and in their place is the economic crisis.
Is it predictable? Yes.
Perhaps a “second wave” will appear in November making it difficult for Trump to claim America’s demise is the product of him giving too much latitude to medicine and science.
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What you suggest, though, presumes that the average citizen, said to have an eighth grade reading level, has enough knowledge about science, medicine and economics that it’s necessary to MANIPULATE them to blame medicine & science.
News reports state already, without any obvious nudge by Trump, that Fauci has received innumerable death threats and has a substantial number of body guards.
Or take a look sometime at the website for the Southern Poverty Law Group and read descriptions of all the domestic terror groups they follow, part of the spectrum of domestic instability.
Reading ignorant posts about the pandemic on social media by people I assumed were more sophisticated, I fear there’s no need for manipulation—that the aftermath we face will be an auto-combustion pitting the poor and yet made even poorer against the comfortable; the educational HAVE NOTS (who never understood or were taught how primitive tools like hand washing, and no contact were legitimate “go to” practices by “modern” science & medicine against a challenge said to be invisible and thus, to them, amenable to political “hocus-pocus” and other games)—who are unavoidably pitted against the educational HAVES who can process that in 2020 these actually are the primitive tools we have to stop a killer viral pandemic.
We have let some people sink so far down the socioeconomic ladder that the gap is dangerous. Our collective fault, I believe.
INCENDIARY METAPHORS: IS A VIRAL PANDEMIC A WAR?
Well, no.
We assume we are combatting a viral pandemic which is about science and medicine, but “go to” metaphors by media and gov’t leaders are that the pandemic is a “war” (but, no, reality tells us is there is no war, but will warmongers try to make it a war?), Trump is a “war President” (false), then the kind of talk that extends to chatter about the possibility of another “civil war” (governors pitted as outsiders or as favorites within the federal system to obtain resources; & red vs blue states), and then cap this all off with news that gun sales are at an all time high.
How many purchasers are angry, poor men (not women), down on their luck, depressed, unemployed or under-employed on their way to homelessness, not able to be their best selves, some not mentally healthy, probably a majority feeling a lack of social support and insecurity? What’s the motivation for buying the guns? Why buy guns in response to what is a viral pandemic? To me, a disconnect.
Do they believe prisoners will threaten them who were released to avoid the tight, communal spaces of jails/prisons from becoming hot spots for COVID-19? Afraid that police are calling in sick at high rates? What else?
But statistics show crime has fallen, except for burglaries.
TRUMP & MENTAL ILLNESS
We have a President who as a psychiatrist, I cannot help but notice exhibits behaviors of a mentally ill person, but male psychopathology is rarely recognized as such. Had Trump been female with the same psychopathology, a presidential candidacy would never have succeeded.
Try and have a conversation about that. A male attorney responded to my query saying Trump is “crazy like a fox,” that the guy is “so smart“ he does this deliberately to disorganize opponents—it’s an act. Outside the cameras, he’s normal. Nothing to be alarmed about.
I said nothing.
How many people believe a version of this, or don’t understand the 25th Amendment for removing an impaired President doesn’t work for removing a mentally ill President, but may work if a President becomes unfit by virtue of dementia or a stroke.
Having worked in male prisons and jails, male psychopathology exists and is found among leaders, CEOs, members of the C-suite, entrepreneurs, but this man’s glib explanation seemed more consistent with studies about how males judge each other as higher in their capacities or performance than corresponds to reality.
Males would much prefer to call themselves or other men dangerous, high energy, a visionary, drinks too much, self-absorbed, demanding, an individual with a difficult personality, has an anger problem, forceful if challenged, a bully, a risk taker, gambles compulsively, watch out for his mood swings, drives recklessly, uses people, explosive, a bit grandiose, has an overly high sexual appetite, uses drugs or alcohol to self-medicate, can’t relate to people—than to explore psychiatric diagnoses that are emasculating and carry stigma for both sexes.
Unfortunately psychiatry has not shed the same light on male psychopathology but instead has over-pathologized women, with virtually every major training program offering rotations or fellowships on “women’s mental health.” A comparable focus cannot be found in relation to men.
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What I notice across the board in this phase of the pandemic is ignorance, a need to place blame, a lack of curiosity and empathy for victims in other countries, no collective sense of responsibility rooted in being a citizen in a larger society with respect to what occurred, an unstated belief there should be a benign, all-knowing entity that protects us from everything, comparable to a belief in the continued presence of Mummy & Daddy although we are adults and they are gone, or fantasy figures, heroes, like Superman who will save us.
And a pandemic, given all we know, is a multisystem failure, not the failure of one man, some other country, a different President.
An insight that perhaps we collectively failed ourselves is not yet entertained.
Combating a threat invisible to the average person can make the measures instituted during the pandemic seem a scam, a game where everything is changing because we say it is so.
The problem of the under education of Americans is a serious problem. Most are ignorant about their rights, about the Constitution, about how their bodies work, state government, how wealth is created & regulated, and about science and medicine.
When we create glaring inequalities in social groups, it is assumed it does not come with social instability that is a danger.
The DOD has cited global gaps in wealth as a national security threat, but I’ve yet to read anything out of think tanks that the domestic gaps in access to resources will cause threats to our domestic tranquility.
That’s the danger I worry about in reading ignorant posts on social media by people whom I thought better of, but then realize we live in very different silos.
The existence of Information silos where its imperative that knowledge be shared creates disruption, suspicion, miscommunication.
Everyone should have been schooled by now on the primitive defensive tactics in confronting a viral pandemic.
When did the American people get the opportunity to watch or participate in drills for a pandemic similar to what some of us were put through in grade school during the height of the Cold War?
Yes, there were pandemic drills orchestrated under George W Bush said to be bone chilling that involved federal agencies, but no agency took the information to the public—only unrealistic promises about vaccines and comforting words that MERS and SARS were not that contagious.
Will the public believe us? Who will carry the blame for the economic fall out? I might want to look back at earlier playbooks like the 1917-18 Influenzae, and how the economic effects associated with MERS and SARS epidemics were handled.
I write because disaster presents an opportunity for CHANGE. I’m old enough to know that bad things in life almost always carry with them opportunity. I am fed up with the old America. Another US election will not bring the change we need, imo, but perhaps COVID will. A global teach-in about our connectedness.
My mind goes back to Viet Nam and how pain, death and social outrage brought with it necessary social change.
Then, I’m reminded that last week someone carted off $5000 worth of electronic equipment containing data important to me. After the brunt of the trauma, I know I will replace it with equipment that suits my needs now and the near future, not a year or so ago. Stasis is the enemy of change. I am being compelled, in this small way, to change, but at a cost to me.
A simple example with wider applications. After we are through grieving the losses, none of which I can presently say were individuals close to me, I’ve have lived long enough to be excited by what COVID might ultimately bring. Yes, even if it includes my own demise. Many people say they don’t believe in death as members of religious groups, but don’t really accept it as true. Death is its own opportunity for change.
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Perhaps there will be lawsuits or legislation by physicians and staff burned out working under C-suite execs alleging negligence by hospitals placing them in harm’s way without sufficient resources freeing physicians from their administrative lackeys who are killing the soul of medicine. I’d vote for that. What might you portend?
If Trump decides to dump on physicians for harms to the economy, let’s remind him that he’s the one that dissolved the WH NSC 40+ member panel headed by a DOD physician that was created by Obama to deal with threats like this.
What would happened if someone within the Trump-terminated WH NSC panel had intercepted news of a new corona virus pneumonia with a higher rate of infectivity and death originating in China?—a hotspot for concerns about zoonotic viruses jumping to humans.
But it seems there was no one at the WH with the proper skillset to interpret its significance due to Trump destroying vital infrastructure laid in place by a previous President.
Instead, we have Jared Kushner?