Navigating Coronavirus — September 1

In today’s email, there’s new reporting on how Trump ignored warnings from his own coronavirus task force as he rushed reopening, as well as his new dangerous disinformation and junk science campaigns. We also take a look at how Trump’s push to reopen schools have now led to mass outbreaks among children and college students.

Read on for today’s Navigating Coronavirus…

It’s been 187 days since President Trump said we’d soon have zero cases in the U.S. We now have 6.2 million cases and more than 187,000 deaths.

THE LATEST

Message guidance on the latest developments with President Trump’s handling of the crisis.

TRUMP IGNORED EXPERT WARNINGS AS HE RECKLESSLY PUSHED STATES TO REOPEN CAUSING THE WORST OUTBREAK IN THE WORLD.

This summer, Trump deliberately put American lives in jeopardy. Recently released documents reveal that he regularly ignored warnings of worsening outbreaks in reports provided by his own coronavirus task force, instead opting to downplay the dangers of the virus to manipulate states to reopen before it was safe. His decision let the virus spread out of control — we just surpassed 6 million infections in the U.S. and more than 180,000 Americans have died.

• NEW REPORT >> Yahoo: “Even as President Trump spurred states to lift lockdown measures and resume normal economic activity in the early summer, reports from his own White House coronavirus task force were presenting regular evidence that infections were rising in many parts of the country.”

Trump’s pattern of ignoring science hasn’t let up. He continues overruling experts and dismissing data, while promoting unproven treatments and junk science. Now, upon the advice of one of his top sham pandemic advisors, the White House is starting to implement a deeply concerning strategy: herd immunity.

• SCARY STUFF >> “New Trump pandemic adviser pushes controversial ‘herd immunity’ strategy, worrying public health officials”
• MORE >> “The administration has already begun to implement some policies along these lines, according to current and former officials as well as experts, particularly with regard to testing.”

Here’s what actual experts are saying:

• World Health Organization COVID-19 lead >> “If we think about herd immunity in a natural sense of just letting a virus run, it’s very dangerous. A lot of people would die.”
• Emergency room physician on CNN >> “2 million Americans could die in effort to achieve Covid-19 herd immunity”

TRUMP IS SPREADING DISINFORMATION TO MINIMIZE THE DEATHS OF AMERICANS.

After last week’s coronavirus-free fantasyland at the GOP convention, Trump has continued to distort reality by amplifying a QAnon conspiracy theory to downplay the COVID-19 death toll. Trump’s failures have cost American lives, and now he is misleading the public to try to make himself look better.

• CNN: “Twitter removes QAnon supporter’s false claim about coronavirus death statistics that Trump had retweeted”
• Washington Post: “Trump picks up where Fox News left off, with new coronavirus death-toll conspiracy theory”
• Trump is even trying to use the Department of Health and Human Services for a propaganda campaign to make the state of the pandemic seem rosier, according to Politico.

The World Health Organization is also taking notice of Trump’s antics… They’ve issued warnings against rushing a vaccine and ignoring the pandemic.

RUSHING A VACCINE >>

• SHOT: “Trump considers fast-tracking UK Covid-19 vaccine before US election”
• CHASER: “WHO officials cautioned countries rushing to develop coronavirus vaccines, saying emergency use authorization must be done with great care.”

IGNORING THE PANDEMIC >>

• SHOT: “4,000 People Died From COVID-19 While The RNC Pretended The Pandemic Is Over”
• CHASER: “WHO warns that ‘no country can just pretend the pandemic is over’”

TRUMP DEMANDED THAT SCHOOLS REOPEN — NOW KIDS ARE SICK AND SCHOOLS ARE HOTSPOTS.

Trump has consistently downplayed the dangers of coronavirus to young people — even falsely claiming that kids are virtually immune. He spent the summer insisting that schools reopen, and forced the CDC to loosen guidelines to add to that pressure. Now, as states start to catch their breath from the summer surge, outbreaks among children and on college campuses are creating new virus hotspots.

• HIGH RATES OF CHILD CASES, HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS >> NYT: “U.S. Coronavirus Rates Are Rising Fast Among Children”
• “As some schools begin in-person classes, data compiled by the American Academy of Pediatrics from the summer show that cases, hospitalizations and deaths from the coronavirus have increased at a faster rate in children and teenagers than among the general public.”
• MORE >> NYT: “‘Not completely benign’: Why children are not as safe from infection as commonly believed.”
• COLLEGES ARE NEW HOTPOTS >> NYT: “Nearly half of the top 20 metropolitan areas where new cases per capita rose the most over the past two weeks are college towns, home to the reopened campuses of large public universities.”
• MORE >> CNN: “36 states report a total of 8,700 COVID-19 cases at colleges and universities”

IN THE STATES >>

• IOWA: “Iowa’s exploding COVID-19 outbreaks at state universities in Ames and Iowa City are now disasters that can only be fully measured on a global scale.”
• ALABAMA: “Administration officials at the University of Alabama reportedly have ordered the school’s professors to keep quiet about the coronavirus amid an outbreak that infected more than 500 students during the first week of classes.”
• CALIFORNIA: “Just one week after the start of the fall semester, California State University (CSU), Chico is canceling all in-person classes and telling students to vacate on-campus housing over a “rapid and alarming” coronavirus outbreak on campus.”

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Navigating Coronavirus is a joint project of Governing for Impact, Groundwork Collaborative, The Hub Project, and Navigator Research.

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