notes edit
- the only path to the far side of this pandemic was for everyone to do his or her part to slow the spread BRUNI
- DT and the RepParty are trying to distract you from their catastrophic failure. The president faced harsh criticism for his sluggish response to the outbreak. BOUIE
- The US is in a weaker position than other countries to confront the #coronavirus because it is the ONLY ADVANCED COUNTRY that does NOT have universal health coverage, and the only one that does NOT guarantee paid sick leave. KRISTOFF
- Their samurai-warrior leaders and honor culture were not able to compete in a world dominated by science. The Atlantic
- The president himself did not want the disease talked of too widely, did not want knowledge of it to spread, and, above all, did not want the numbers of those infected to appear too high. He said so himself, while explaining why he didn’t want a cruise ship full of infected Americans to dock in California. “I like the numbers being where they are,” he said. “I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault.” DT, just like the officials in Wuhan, was concerned about the numbers---the optics of how a pandemic looks. And everybody around him knows it. The Atlantic
- scientists not allowed to do their job; public-health officials not pushing for aggressive testing; preparedness delayed, all because too many people feared that it might damage the political prospects of the leader. I am not writing this in order to praise Chinese communism—far from it. I am writing this so that Americans understand that our government is producing some of the same outcomes as Chinese communism. This means that our political system is in far, far worse shape than we have hitherto understood.
- a new personnel-vetting team...to ensure that only people certifiably loyal work for the president.
- DT fired the individuals who testified honestly during the impeachment hearings...a signal to others about the danger of truth-telling.
- loyalty cult, no one told him...would not be prudent...risk losing the president’s favor...being fired...very few truth-tellers...those people who would dare make the president angry have left the upper ranks of the Cabinet and the bureaucracy already.
Timeline prep edit
The number of deaths in the United States from the coronavirus disease is 4,400. One thousand nine hundred and forty one are in New York state, two hundred and sixty seven in New Jersey, two hundred and fifty nine in Michigan, two hundred and thirty nine in Louisiana, two hundred and twenty five in Washington state, one hundred and eighty four in California and one hundred and thirty nine Georgia. Every other state except for Wyoming has at least one death attributed to the virus.