Expert Accuses Trump Of “Negligent Homicide”
Virus Likely Spread At The Rally
Trump Putting Communities And His Own Supporters At Risk
Days after it was revealed that President Trump knew coronavirus was both airborne and lethal as early as February but did little to curb its spread, and days after experts widely condemned Trump’s crowded outdoor rallies, Trump has gone a step further in putting Americans at risk: he defied local ordinances and the pleas of Nevada’s governor to host a super-spreader event indoors.
Experts are condemning the move and the President’s continued determination to put lives at risk, even as nearly 200,000 people in the United States have lost their lives to a virus that shows no signs of slowing.
Last Night, Trump Held an Illegal Indoor Campaign Rally in Henderson, Nevada Where Attendees Were Not Required to Wear Masks or Practice Social Distancing
[Twitter, @JonLemire, 9/13/20]
Experts Bluntly Condemned Trump’s Illegal Rally In Nevada, Warn That People Are Going to Die Because of It
Dr. Jonathan Reiner, Professor Of Medicine And Surgery At George Washington University, Accused Trump Of “Negligent Homicide” And Warned That “People Will Get Infected And Some Of Those People Will Die.”
- “Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University, went a little further in an interview on CNN, comparing the act to ‘negligent homicide.’ Reiner added, ‘If you have a mass gathering now in the United States in a place like Nevada or just about any other place with hundreds of thousands of people, people will get infected and some of those people will die.” [New York Magazine, 9/14/20]
Ashish Jha, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health: “An Indoor Rally With Few Masks Is Deeply Unsafe. Not Sure Why Any Candidate Would Subject Their Own Supporters To Such Risk.”
- “The virus doesn’t care about your political views. What we know is that outdoors is much safer than indoors. People wearing masks much better than not. An indoor rally with few masks is deeply unsafe. Not sure why any candidate would subject their own supporters to such risk.” [Twitter, @ashishkjha, 9/13/20]
Dr. Peter Hotez, Co-Director Of The Texas Children’s Hospital Center For Vaccine Development: The Trump Administration Has “A Callous Disregard For Human Life.”
- “It’s almost unexplainable. This is the White House telling us that they really have a callous disregard for human life, or for the sanctity of human life. Let’s face it — this is not a rookie mistake, right… We’re eight months into this horrible epidemic where the United States is at the epicenter of. We have more deaths than any other country by a long shot… Yet the president continues to want to show he’s in defiance of science… It’s awful, it’s hurting the nation, and it’s literally taking lives.” [CNN, “New Day,” 9/14/20]
According To Georgia Tech’s COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool, There Is A 92 Percent Chance That An Attendee At A 100 Person Gathering In Nevada Has The Virus.
- “Similar to the June rally that ‘likely’ resulted in a local COVID-19 uptick, according to the Tulsa City-County Health Department director, it’s possible that the Nevada event will result in an increase in cases, considering that the state’s positive testing rate currently sits at 8.51 percent, well above the World Health Organization’s recommendations for reopening. According to Georgia Tech’s COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool, the likelihood that at least one attendee at a 100-person gathering in Clark County, Nevada, would have the coronavirus is 92 percent.” [New York Magazine, 9/14/20]
Three Weeks After Trump’s June 20 Tulsa, Oklahoma Campaign Rally, His Last Indoor Rally, The State Was Seeing A Record Number Of New Cases.
- “Oklahoma health officials reported a record number of COVID-19 cases in the state this week, three weeks after President Donald Trump held a controversial rally in Tulsa, Okla., on June 20. On Saturday, the Oklahoma State Department of Health (OSDH) reported 687 new COVID-19 cases had been confirmed in the last 24 hours. It was the second highest increase only coming after Tuesday’s 858 confirmed cases, per the Oklahoman. As of Saturday afternoon ET, Oklahoma had at least 19,779 confirmed cases of the virus, according to OSDH. According to a reporter for local news channel KOCO 5, the seven-day average of COVID-19 cases is nearly six times what it was in early April.” [Time, 7/11/20]