We Must Stay the Course Despite Trump Abandoning the Pandemic

I think that most of the articles that I have written on the COVID-19 pandemic over the past few months have been centered on Trump’s failed response to the crisis or him negatively reacting to the worst public health crisis that many of us have seen in our lifetimes.

I have written a couple articles on what it is like to have the virus as I had it for several weeks and I have written articles on the new normal during this crisis and others on people who do not wear masks and exhibit selfishness and other pandemic and COVID-19 related issues, but the majority of my articles on this crisis have been on Trump and his inadequate response.

I felt that it was important to give the American people some sort of direction for us to go in as we enter our 17th week in this pandemic (since a state of an emergency was declared in the United States) and with seemingly no end in sight anytime soon. I felt that we should try and find our own way through this crisis as the leaders of our country and specifically, the President of the United States seem to have moved on.

COVID-19 isn't going away, even if Trump wants it to

We all would love for this virus to go away and for things to go back to normal but that is not the case as it stands now. We want people to stop dying and for our country to be healthy and happy again and I believe this is the goal of all people in this country, but where we are with the virus as of today does not allow for that.

Trump does not care that we are still in the middle of the pandemic and is choosing to ignore it altogether as it stands now and move on to other things and this is irresponsible and quite frankly, stupid. I say this because of the fact that the virus is getting worse, not better as time goes on and more are getting the virus now than they were when the pandemic first started.

We who know what this virus is and what it does know the truth and while we do not like this whole thing, we are realists and know that this thing is not over and will not be for some time. This country has been devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic in so many ways and we the people know this and know enough about infectious diseases to know that it is far from over, but sadly, Trump does not.

Trump desperately wants the pandemic to vanish so that he can focus on his rallies and his various political agendas and because of this he is moving on without caring that things are not “great” as he claims to think they are and we are not “In good shape” when it comes to progress made with the virus in our country.

It would be great for us to be able to move on from all of this and get back to life as we knew it pre-COVID, but the reality is that we are a long way from being able to move on from this disease and the associated pandemic that has ravaged this nation and it is time that Trump accept this reality as it is not going anywhere anytime soon.

The pandemic that was called a “hoax”, apparently is not one

Early on in this pandemic, Trump went on national TV and called this virus things like a “Hoax” and a “Harmless flu” and as recently as a few days ago he once again repeated false statements like that “99% of cases are harmless” and these type of remarks are not only false, but they are irresponsible and dangerous and send the wrong message.

This virus is no hoax and to say so is unbelievable. Trump saying these things shows that he does not take this as the serious threat that it is and simply does not care about the impact of this illness. This is why we is willing to move on from the pandemic and claim “Mission accomplished”, he simply feels that if he says that we have won, then people will believe him.

As the old saying goes, if you say something enough times then people will believe you and that is why he says things like it is a hoax and other things relating to the virus, he knows people like his supporters will buy it and it will give him leverage to call, game over.

This thing is no hoax. The COVID-19 pandemic is very real and moving on from it would be a huge mistake, yet that is what Trump wants to do and is trying to do as things are getting worse with the rise in cases and hospitals becoming full and this is the wrong thing to do.

This is not the time to move on, this is the time to begin to close places down again and be vigilant.

The talking point that Trump pushes of this being a hoax is a dangerous one and one that has caused many to not take this thing seriously and wear a mask or social distance or generally follow the guidelines. Trust me, this thing is not a hoax and Trump saying that it is puts us in a position where we may not get out of this pandemic, or at least anytime soon.

Saying that it is a hoax minimizes the crisis and perhaps that is what Trump is trying to do, so that we can move on from this pandemic and he can get on with his re-election campaign and his other things like his anti-immigrant, anti-women’s rights, and other draconian policies.

Let me assume you again, this is not a hoax and saying that it is will not help us move on from it in a safe and responsible way.

Trump got impatient and pushed re-opening too soon

Trump wanted things to open back up and they did in many places and then the cases exploded more than they were when this thing first started. He was so eager to move on from the pandemic even back when the pandemic first was starting, he was done.

We were a week in and he was minimizing it and saying that it would go away in a few weeks and here we are months later and our cases have reached more than 3.2 million and we are approaching 135,000 deaths with more to come over the coming days, weeks, and months.

This could have been prevented if he took it seriously and locked us down upon the discovery of the first case and had mandated the use of masks, social distancing, and other safety measures back at the beginning of the year, but instead he chose to ignore it and then we got more cases and more deaths and have been suffering since.

Then it came down to where he finally got with the program and declared a state of emergency and accepted that we needed to close down the country and have stay-at-home orders and so we did and the curve was starting to be flattened and then Trump got impatient with his precious economy being shut down and pushed for us to reopen the country.

Thus, here we are.

America, we must stay the course until we defeat COVID-19

We know that Trump wants to wash his hands of the pandemic and to be done with it but that is not the way that it works. Just because he is done with the COVID-19 crisis, that does not mean that the COVID-19 crisis is done with us and will go away. In fact, in many ways, the crisis has just begun and the virus is merely starting to have an impact on our nation and rear it’s ugly head in our communities.

It is because of this fact that this is not going away anytime soon that we must stay the course and take the necessary steps to slow the spread and protect our people from this virus and the devastating effects of it, no matter what Trump wants to do or what pleases him.

I compare it to a football game where your team is ahead big when it is late in the fourth quarter. You do not quit the game just because you may feel that the team you are beating does not have a chance to comeback and get bored with the game. No, you finish the game, you play the entire sixty minutes and complete that fourth quarter.

The same is true here. It is not mission accomplished when your citizens are still sick and dying. It is not game over when the game is at halftime. It is not the end when in many cases, there are more infections and deaths than there were in the very beginning.

However, if your name is Donald Trump then when you get fed up and impatient with something then you try and move on from it and you want to move on from it especially when it interferes with your re-election plans and gets in the way of things you are trying to do and that is where we stand now with the pandemic and Trump moving on.

We cannot move on though.

Our country must fight this virus and find that vaccine and stay the course until no American is infected with it and we have it under control. As it stands today, we do not have this even close to under control and we need to get it under control because it has taken too many lives, cost too many jobs, and caused so much pain for our nation.

Finally, the way forward, the right way and not the Trump way

The way out of any problem is through.

A philosopher once said that the only way out is through and he was right when he said that and this is how we get through this pandemic, we get over this whole situation by going through it.

Trump wants to just ignore that it still exists and be done with it, but that is not how things work with situations like this, you cannot simply wish them away like he wants to do. The way that this is resolved is by real leadership and by working for solutions, rather than by calling things “fake” and going after the experts, and by pretending the problem is not there.

This is what Trump likes to do.

He likes to claim “Mission accomplished” before the battle has even begun and he claims this when he has done nothing to make the problem better and has done everything to make it worse. This situation calls for real leadership and making tough choices and we have neither with Trump in charge and it is why we are at where we are at.

This pandemic is here today and will be here for some time and the way that we solve things is by acknowledging that the problem is as serious as it is and that it is upon us, and then working for real solutions and smart resolutions to this crisis.

I believe it is by doing this that we get out of this and save lives in the process, not by saying “It is over” and moving on long before the problem has been eradicated and long before the pandemic has left us because rest assured, we are a long way from that happening.