Covid: Trump’s guilt, Birx’s complicity

On October 26, Business Insider reported on the testimony before Congress by Dr. Deborah Birx, the former White House COVID-19 response coordinator thus:

In testimony to the House select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis Birx said that former President Donald Trump’s approach to the pandemic led to a massive number of preventable deaths. Over 130,000 lives could’ve been saved if Trump’s White House followed the science, she said.

But where was the response coordinator as this was happening and Trump was misleading the nation and proposing surrealistic treatments? On the dais, mouth and eyes wide shut, or on Fox News praising the president for his keen understanding of science.

The neutering of many scientists and scientific institutions is yet another expression of the systemic causes of the Covid-19 debacle.  You cannot spend four decades dismantling and discrediting the government as the Republicans had done, and expect anything but pandemonium when a virulent disease begins to overwhelm health institutions and kill hundreds of thousands.