We have come a long way in the short time since Donald Trump blithely announced that the 15 Covid-19 cases that had been reported thus far would start to decline to zero and that by magic the virus would disappear by April. Yesterday, the US reached a grim milestone, overtaking China to become the country with the most number of people who have tested positive for Covid-19.

The US now has more confirmed cases of coronavirus than any other country with at least 82,404 positive tests.

According to the latest figures collated by Johns Hopkins University, the US overtook China (81,782 cases) and Italy (80,589).

The grim milestone came as President Donald Trump predicted the nation would get back to work “pretty quickly”, after 3.3 million layoffs.

More than 1,100 people with Covid-19 have died in the US.

All together now: “We’re #1! USA! USA!”

I wrote earlier that we are living in a strange time when things seem normal immediately around us while the news on a larger scale is alarming. Nathan J. Robinson echoes that sentiment and says that only those who know someone who has been seriously and adversely affected by the Covid-19 disease can fully appreciate the seriousness of the situation. He goes on to say that the pandemic has undermined many of the myths that sustain right-wing ideology and nowhere is this clearer than in the crackpot idea floated by Trump, his economic advisors Larry Kudlow, and their conservative allies that we need to ease up on the restrictions in order to ‘save the economy’.
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Donald Trump’s initial response to the pandemic was to deny its potential for causing serious harm and instead, on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, claim that the initial 15 cases would quickly dwindle to zero or magically go away in the spring. He and his supporters claimed that the fear was all a big campaign by his enemies to harm his presidency and re-election. Then when things started to look undeniably serious, he asserted that the US would be able to tackle it alone, even to the extent of rejecting the tests that the WHO had produced in favor of developing ones here. That led to a delay because the US tests did not initially work. Experts estimate that the US lost about four to six weeks of time due to this inaction, an eternity in pandemic time. South Korea and the US both reported their first cases on the same day but reacted quite differently, with the South Koreans moving very aggressively on testing and containment.
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Now that Donald Trump has broached the possibility of quickly easing the restrictions that he thinks are harming the economy (which in his mind is the stock market), other right wingers are joining in support, using a curious argument.

Joining the president, a growing chorus of American television pundits, business leaders, tech investors, cryptocurrency enthusiasts, and right-wing influencers have decided to convince the American people that possibly dying from the coronavirus is a small price to pay for economic health.

No clearer was this utilitarian calculus articulated than by Texas Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight on Monday night following Trump’s White House briefing. Patrick suggested that Americans over 70 would be happy to die for the good of the American economy.

“Those of us who are 70 plus, we’ll take care of ourselves. But don’t sacrifice the country,” Patrick said. “No one reached out to me and said, ‘As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that America loves for its children and grandchildren?’ And if that is the exchange, I’m all in.”

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