It Never Had to Be This Way: Trump Responsible for US Closing in on Half a Million Deaths to Coronavirus

Donald Trump’s Actions Are The Reason US Will Hit 500,000 Deaths

Roughly a year into the pandemic, the United States is about to cross a once-unthinkable milestone: more than a half a million lives lost to the virus. The death toll is higher than in any other country in the world, and is expected to rise in the wake of a deadly winter surge in cases.

It never had to be this bad. But Donald Trump spent almost a year attacking the experts, downplaying the virus’ risks, refusing to take decisive action to slow the spread, and openly encouraging Americans to flout public health measures. He ended his disastrous tenure by botching the roll-out of a life-saving vaccine, setting the country back months as cases rose and dangerous new variants began to percolate.

In the one month President Joe Biden has been in office, the federal government has already drastically shifted its approach to handling the virus. The Biden Administration is attacking the virus on all fronts — including by securing more doses of the vaccine and increasing shipments to states, working to deliver desperately needed aid to American families, investing in testing and analytics to identify new strains, and deploying troops to help get shots in arms. 

But because of Donald Trump’s negligence, Americans are still facing the fall out of this crisis — and there will be dark days ahead.

A Run Down of How Donald Trump Created a Catastrophe

The Trump Administration Botched the Roll Out Of A Life-Saving Vaccine

• DECLINED DOSES AND ABDICATED RESPONSIBILITY: The Trump Administration completely botched the roll out of two critically-needed vaccines as coronavirus cases surged and overwhelmed hospitals. First, the Trump Administration declined hundreds of millions of additional doses of vaccine from Pfizer, creating supply shortages. Then, the Trump Administration delegated the “last mile” of vaccine distribution to overworked, underfunded state and local health departments.
  
• STARVED STATES OF FUNDING AS THEY PLANNED FOR DISTRIBUTION: State and local health officials warned the Trump Administration that they needed more than $8 billion in funding to plan for the distribution of the vaccine, but until a coronavirus relief package was passed in late December, they had received only $340 million. In planning for the roll out of the vaccine, states struggled to build the supply chain necessary to get shots in arms — some lacked cold storage requirements, others vials or syringes.
  
• FAILED TO CONTAIN VIRUS SO HEALTH WORKERS WERE MONOPOLIZED BY CRUSH OF PATIENTS: The vaccine roll out began during a winter surge of the virus — the worst wave to date. As well over 200,000 new infections and thousands of new deaths were reported daily, the frontline workers who would usually be responsible for putting shots in arms were instead treating a crush of patients in hospitals.
  
• CREATED CHAOS AND MISCOMMUNICATION: The result of this abdication of responsibility was a disjointed rollout plagued with supply shortages, miscommunication, and general confusion. There was fractured communication between the federal government, states, and local officials, as supply shortages intensified in some regions, and doses were wasted in others. 
• PROMISED STATES AN ALREADY-DEPLETED SUPPLY OF VACCINE: The Trump Administration was not clear about whether or not states should maintain a reserve of doses to provide second shots to patients; meanwhile, the federal government’s own “reserve” was depleted even as the Trump Administration widened eligibility for the vaccine and implied states would be flooded with supply. Public health experts blamed the Trump Administration’s push to expand eligibility for vaccine shortages across the country, as it increased demand when there was little supply. 

The Trump Administration Let The Virus Get Out Of Control By Recklessly Reopening States And Encouraging Super-Spreader Behavior

• PUSHED “ETHICALLY PROBLEMATIC” HERD IMMUNITY: Donald Trump embraced a nonsensical declaration that encouraged letting the virus spread through healthy populations in an attempt to achieve herd immunity — even as experts agreed that the strategy would needlessly endanger Americans, and was “ethically problematic”. Trump’s own CDC found that spikes in infections among younger, healthier groups precede corresponding spikes among the elderly and vulnerable populations.
  
• HELD SERIES OF “SUPER-SPREADER” RALLIES AS CASES SOARED” Trump held a series of super-spreader rallies throughout the pandemic, their frequency escalating as the election approached, and as cases surged.  Trump held six indoor campaign rallies in February and March after he acknowledged on tape that he knew the virus was airborne. He then held an indoor campaign rally in Tulsa Oklahoma on June 20 as the state was in the midst of a coronavirus surge. He held 11 rallies in the last two days of his campaign alone. 
• • INTENSIFIED OUTBREAKS IN WEEKS FOLLOWING EVENTS: Trump’s rallies were often crowded, maskless events. Communities in which they were held generally saw intensified coronavirus transmission in the month following the events. Cases have also been contact-traced directly to the rallies — though the true number is hard to determine without the cooperation of rally-goers.
    
  • ALLOWED SOCIAL DISTANCING GUIDELINES TO EXPIRE AND PUSHED STATES TO REOPEN: On April 30th, President Trump allowed social distancing guidelines to expire. More than half the states moved to reopen — none of which met the Trump Administration’s own criteria. States that were among the first to reopen at Trump’s urging experienced deadly summer surges, in stark contrast with those that were slow to lift restrictions.
    

• FORCED AMERICANS BACK TO WORK WHEN IT WASN’T SAFE: As states reopened at Donald Trump’s behest, many (including Iowa and Texas) made it impossible for workers to collect unemployment benefits if they refused to go back to work for fear of their safety. The Trump White House and Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, pushed for policies that would make it impossible for workers to sue their employers if they got sick on the job. In doing so, Trump and Republicans obstructed a second-round of desperately-needed aid for months – forcing Americans who were desperate for a lifeline back to jobs where they could contract and transmit the virus.
  
• WAITED WEEKS TO IMPLEMENT SOCIAL DISTANCING MEASURES: Donald Trump’s White House waited until March 16th to issue social distancing guidelines, nearly two months after the first confirmed case of coronavirus in the United States. Epidemiologists Britta Jewell and Nicholas Jewell estimated that 90 percent of cumulative deaths in the U.S. during the first wave of Covid-19 could have been avoided if social distancing guidelines were implemented just two weeks earlier.

As The Virus Spread, Trump Refused To Shore Up Domestic Supplies Of PPE To Protect Americans

• REFUSED TO ADEQUATELY EMPLOY THE DEFENSE PRODUCTION ACT: The Trump Administration was reluctant to use the Defense Production Act to address shortages of protective equipment throughout the pandemic. In fact, much of the $1 billion that Congress allocated for the purchase of supplies through the DPA was instead shifted to military contractors during the Trump Administration.
  
• CREATED BIDDING WARS BETWEEN GOVERNORS AND HOSPITALS WHO DESPERATELY SOUGHT SUPPLIES: As a result of Trump’s failure to act decisively on PPE shortages early in the pandemic, governors, hospitals and municipal health departments across the United States were forced to compete on the open market for limited resources — as prices soared. The Trump administration provided little help, as FEMA routinely sent damaged, expired, or otherwise useless PPE to states struggling to get the virus under control.
  
• PROLONGED SUPPLY SHORTAGES: Seven months into the pandemic, nurses were still being forced to reuse N95 masks until they broke or were visibly dirty. By August, a survey of 21,500 nurses showed that 68% of them were still asked to reuse respirators. In October, an AARP analysis showed  that nursing homes in every single state were still reporting some form of PPE shortage. 
• ALLOWED VIRUS TO SPREAD AND THOUSANDS OF CARE WORKERS TO LOSE THEIR LIVES: Acute PPE shortages have had devastating consequences. Shortages of protective supplies can allow coronavirus to tear through medical facilities, jeopardizing both patients and care workers. By January 2021, more than 3,400 health care workers had died of coronavirus. Roughly two-thirds of them were Black people or people of color 

Donald Trump Refused To Build A National Testing Infrastructure That Would Have Allowed States To Identify And Contain The Virus

• FAULTY TESTS AND ABDICATION OF RESPONSIBILITY: When the CDC began its own testing regimen, the tests didn’t work and were restricted only to those who had been to China or who had had known exposure to the virus. Trump then delegated responsibility for testing downward to state and local governments when experts agreed that the country needed a robust, centralized testing infrastructure.
  
• FORCED STATES TO COMPETE FOR LIMITED TESTING SUPPLIES: Because Donald Trump failed to build a national testing infrastructure, states were ultimately forced to compete for limited testing supplies. As cases surged, testing supply shortages inhibited states from effectively identifying and tracing cases. Trump refused to invoke the Defense Production Act to increase supplies of testing materials like swabs until April 19th, weeks after shortages were first reported.
  
• PROLONGED TESTING SHORTAGES FOR MONTHS: Months into the pandemic, labs were still rationing tests and vying for limited materials. As cases surged in July, people were forced to wait hours to get a test and weeks for results — by which time the tests were rendered useless. Meanwhile, testing sites were more prevalent in wealthier, whiter areas than in underserved areas. 

Donald Trump Relentlessly Politicized Science, Attacking Experts And Bullying Independent Agencies For His Own Gain

• ATTACKED AND MUZZLED SCIENTISTS: While Donald Trump was in office, he relentlessly attacked public health experts and scientists who were trying to keep Americans safe. He called Dr. Anthony Fauci an “idiot” and “disaster” for warning Americans about the seriousness of the virus, and even blocked Dr. Fauci from making public appearances 
• PUSHED JUNK SCIENCE AND ELEVATED DISCREDITED DOCTORS: Amid his attacks on the experts, Donald Trump repeatedly pushed junk science and miracle cures, lifting up discredited doctors like Stella Immanuel. Trump also added Scott Atlas to the coronavirus task force.  CDC Director Redfield once said of Atlas: “Everything he says is false.”
  
• NEUTERED AND STRONG-ARMED PUBLIC HEALTH AGENCIES FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES: Trump neutered public health agencies, and bullied them into doing his bidding. He ordered the CDC to adjust testing guidelines to exclude people without symptoms (while Dr. Anthony Fauci was under anesthesia, no less), strong-armed it into changing school reopening guidelines, and had cronies like Michael Caputo and Paul Alexander change the reports of CDC scientists. He also forced the FDA to issue an Emergency Use Authorization for convalescent plasma against the advice of experts and pushed the agency to issue an EUA for hydroxychloroquine (which it later had to revoke). Throughout the crisis, Trump attempted to retool independent agencies for political purposes.
  
• MOCKED COMMON-SENSE SAFETY MEASURES. Trump also relentlessly mocked common-sense public health measures like mask-wearing that could have dramatically slowed the spread of the virus. Experts have found that mask wearing could save tens of thousands of lives — but rather than encourage Americans to wear masks, Trump ridiculed them and downplayed their effectiveness.

Trump Downplayed The Virus Despite Knowing Its Risks

• KNEW VIRUS WAS DEADLY BUT MADE FALSE PROMISES: On February 7, Trump told journalist Bob Woodward on tape that the virus was “deadly stuff”, airborne, highly contagious and “more deadly” than the Flu. But Trump lied to the American people, publicly downplaying the threat of the virus over 200 times since the beginning of the pandemic. He repeatedly promised, without evidence, that the virus would “just disappear.”
  
• GASLIT AMERICANS: Even after getting sick himself, Donald Trump gaslit Americans about the severity and longevity of the virus. He continued to insist that Americans were “rounding the corner” on the pandemic — even as experts warn that the United States was heading for a deadly and devastating winter that has since manifested. 

Even Before The Pandemic, Trump’s Mistakes Put Americans At Risk

• ENDED PANDEMIC EARLY-WARNING PROGRAM: Before the pandemic began, Donald Trump took a slew of actions that put Americans at risk. Two months before the coronavirus struck Wuhan, China, President Trump ended a pandemic early-warning program specifically designed to detect and respond to coronaviruses. Trump also eliminated a key CDC position focused on detecting disease outbreaks in China and cut the staff at the Beijing office of the CDC by two thirds.
  
• DOWNSIZED CDC’S EPIDEMIC PREVENTION ACTIVITIES: Trump downsized the CDC’s epidemic prevention activities in 39 countries — reducing efforts to prevent global disease outbreaks by 80%, and Trump disbanded a National Security Council pandemic response unit in 2018.