Getting Worse

Just when we thought it couldn’t get worse. I know we are all trying to be hopeful and positive and pull together to get through the coronavirus pandemic. We have seen the bravery of our health care workers and first responders and the leadership of some of our governors. But the colossal failure of presidential and federal leadership will change the country and our place in the world for years. The greatest country in history has been brought to its knees and is struggling to get back up and fight. We can’t figure out how to get people tested because we don’t have enough things like cotton swabs. We can’t get unemployment checks to the millions of people forced out of work. We are sending millions of dollars to businesses that shouldn’t be getting that money that should be going to small businesses that are desperate to survive. We have politicians overruling public health officials warning about the dangers of opening up the economy too soon and causing more sickness and death.

Nowhere is the country’s failure to rise to the crisis more apparent than from the podium at White House Briefing Room. Trump has said things that stretch from the ridiculous, wrong, self serving, laughable and dangerous. But yesterday’s briefing took us to new and freighting low. It was like Alec Baldwin doing his rip on Trump on Saturday Night Live. Trump always surrounds himself with public health experts and, of course, the most uninspiring man in America, Mike Pence. Doctor Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert, has even complained that these daily briefings, that can last up to two and half hours are “really draining” and taking him away from actually working on the problem. So yesterday, Trump brings up William Bryan, the head of science at the Department of Homeland Security. Bryan spoke about how tests show that sunlight and disinfectants, including bleach and alcohol, could kill the virus on surfaces in 30 seconds. No real surprise, we have all been spraying and using hand sanitizer to kill the virus. Virus usually subside in the summer months when there is more sunlight.

You could almost see the light bulb light up over Trump’s head. As Bryan sat down, Trump said, “Supposing we hit the body with a tremendous-whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light. And I think you said that hasn’t been checked, but we’re going to test it?…supposing you brought the light inside the body, either through the skin or some other way.” He wasn’t finished. This has the classic signs of a Trump statement including words like “tremendous” and “powerful”. The light bulb over his head then gets brighter. “And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute-one minute-and is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous (there’s that word again) number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that.” The reaction from medical experts and makers of disinfectant was swift and obvious. Exposure to ultra violatelight can cause skin cancer, and the makers of Lysol said their label warnings are serious, don’t drink it.

Trump, as he does regularly, walked back the statement saying later, “I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters…to see what would happen.” So he thought it appropriate to kid about a cure for the virus that has killed over 50,000 Americans with more dying every day. There seems to be no end to the madness. Let’s just hope people don’t start lining up for ultraviolet light treatments and Lysol injections. Just when we thought it couldn’t get worse.