During Monday’s night’s White House COVID-19 briefing, I watched with horror as President Donald Trump dismissed the advice of medical professionals and told the nation, “We can’t have the cure be worse than the problem,” signaling that he is willing to sacrifice the lives of millions of Americans in order to save big business and Wall Street.
As he has done for weeks, he minimized the gravity of our current public health crisis and assured us that we’ll be back to normal “very soon, much sooner than people would think.”
Trump has seen the estimates that millions of Americans could die if we don’t make critical interventions, yet for him, the loss of life is an acceptable price to pay. Consistent with that position is a troubling new political talking point made by Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick suggesting that grandparents should be willing to sacrifice their own lives to protect the economy for their grandchildren. Is this who we are? Is this our new patriotism?
Trump knows that if we don’t take decisive action now, our health care system will be overwhelmed, people will die unnecessarily, both those infected with the virus and those who are unable to get the care they need for other medical conditions. He knows that there are not enough ventilators or enough hospital beds. He knows that health care workers, who are on the front lines of this battle, don’t have basic equipment they need to diagnose patients or to protect themselves.
Most importantly, he knows he has the power to do something about this. He can slow the spread of the virus by issuing stay-at-home orders. We have all seen the charts showing how slowing transmission of the virus or “flattening the curve” can prevent our health care system from being overwhelmed.
By slowing the spread, we buy precious time to increase production of diagnostic tests, ventilators, PPE and other essential supplies. It gives us time to stand up additional hospital beds. Trump can use his powers under the Defense Production Act to mobilize manufacturers to produce the supplies needed, but he has yet to do so.
He knows all this, and yet is making a calculation to do as little as possible, believing that the grave price we will pay is worth it in order to protect the economy.
The choices we make now will define who we are as a nation. Americans stand ready to do what it takes to face this challenge, to save our loved ones, our neighbors, our health care workers and our country. We can emerge from this pandemic united. We can rebuild our economy. We can stand proud that in a time of crisis, we came together, and each of us did what we could for the benefit of all of us.
We can act to change this, together.
(Cinde Warmington lives in Concord.)