Letters to the editor can be submitted to news@chronline.com.
We felt compelled to write this letter after watching the way President Donald Trump has been responding to the coronavirus. Trump said, at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that “anyone who wants a test gets a test.” Vice President Mike Pence said just the day before that “we don’t have enough tests today to meet with what we anticipate will be the demand going forward.”
His Secretary of Health and Human Services said the tests have to be prescribed — not everyone can have one. Hospitals from all over the country are requesting more test kits. A hospital in Kansas City had no test kits and had been requesting them — they finally were sent five (enough to test five people). Approval for a lab to test the samples must come from the CDC.
Trump has repeatedly contradicted our public health officials. At one press conference we watched on TV, Trump said a vaccine might be ready in three to four months or maybe a year as an outside number. The public health officials sitting at the same table had to remind him that they had told him it would probably be at least a year to 18 months.
The World Health Organization said that based upon the data received to date, the death rate from the coronavirus has been 3.4 percent. As more people are tested this rate will hopefully decrease, but the underlying number for deaths will not decrease, just the percentage. Trump told Hannity, “this is just my hunch” but he thinks the death rate is really less than 1 percent. Based on what?
Trump said at his rally in South Carolina that the coronavirus is just another “hoax” spread by the Democrats. But then he signed a bill from Congress approving over $8 billion to help fight the virus. Why approve any money for a “hoax”, let alone over $8 billion? When Pence was in our state this past week, he met with Governor Jay Inslee and public health officials and praised the work we are doing in this state. Trump said Pence should not have complimented our Governor, who Trump called “a snake.”
The flu pandemic in 1918 occurred just after the U.S. had just joined WWI and the government was trying to keep up public morale, so it downplayed the seriousness of the situation. Close to 100 million people died throughout the world, including 670,000 in the United States
We have better public health now and hopefully this virus won’t be as deadly, but this is a serious public health issue. We have to hope for the best, but we must plan for the worst. In addition to all the false information on the internet and Facebook, Trump is spreading misinformation, politicizing the issue, and pretending he is an expert. In doing so, he is putting more people in this country at risk of illness which can cause more damage to our economy. And the next virus might be much more deadly.
Frank and Susan Hackett
Onalaska
