Trump Touts His Coronavirus Pressers As a “Ratings Hit”
Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and member of Donald Trump's coronavirus task force, has dire warnings about the possible death toll from the disease. Speaking to CNN's State of the Union on Sunday, Fauci warned that based on the current trends between 100,000 and 200,000 Americans could die as a result of the pandemic. Fauci said, is "very, very unlikely" but "not impossible" the death toll would go up to 2.2 million, as one model on a course of complete inaction indicated—America has, after all, taken some action, even if less than countries like South Korea and Singapore.
On Friday, the U.S. overtook China, where the outbreak began and which has since instituted severe lockdown measures, as the nation with the most confirmed cases of coronavirus, following a surge in New York described at one hospital as "apocalyptic." As of Monday, the U.S. has more than 140,000 documented cases of COVID-19. In less than 48 hours over the weekend, the American death toll doubled, reaching 2,572 recorded deaths by Monday, according to Johns Hopkins. No other country has more than 100,000 confirmed cases yet.
But those aren't the numbers Donald Trump is most interested in. On Sunday, he dedicated several tweet threads to his own TV ratings, quoting at length from a New York Times article that touted not only the "ratings hit" for Trump's coronavirus press briefings, but also calls for networks to stop airing them live. In another tweet, he wrote, "Because the 'Ratings' of my News Conferences etc. are so high, 'Bachelor finale, Monday Night Football type numbers' according to the @nytimes, the Lamestream Media is going CRAZY. 'Trump is reaching too many people, we must stop him.' said one lunatic. See you at 5:00 P.M.!" In still another, he added, "The Lamestream Media wants us to fail. That will NEVER happen!"
The Trump administration began giving press briefings again to give daily updates on the coronavirus outbreak, during which the president has been making misleading or flat out wrong claims. He hyped a drug called hydroxychloroquine, claiming that it prevented COVID-19—a man in Arizona drank fish tank cleaner, which contains one form of chloroquine, and died shortly after. At another point, Trump point claimed that China was covering up evidence of the disease as early as September 2019, months before the first known case. Referring to this last factually wrong statement, Fauci told Science magazine, "I can’t jump in front of the microphone and push him down."
The New York Times quoted veteran journalist Ted Koppel, who wrote "The question, clearly, is whether his status as president of the United States obliges us to broadcast his every briefing live. No. No more so than you at The Times should be obliged to provide your readers with a daily, verbatim account." Other media figures make the same case. At Vox, Matthew Yglesias argued, "Airing Trump’s daily 'briefings' live misinforms people and undermines public health officials." And James Fallows at the Atlantic called the briefings "Trump campaign rallies with scientists rather than local-government officials as the supporting cast."
Meanwhile, Trump is still refusing to order companies to start manufacturing essential equipment like ventilators, gowns, gloves, and N-95 face masks, despite invoking the Defense Production Act which gives him the power to do so. Local governments and hospitals are becoming so desperate for the equipment that they're putting out calls for private donations, hoping that residents can contribute whatever they can for first responders. Last week, a nurse at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York died from COVID-19—his coworkers were livid that he hadn't been supplied with enough personal protective gear while on duty.
New data from one of New York's largest coronavirus testing providers suggests things are far from improving. Julia Ioffe on the shape of the pandemic inside what one doctor is calling the "epicenter of the epicenter."
Originally Appeared on GQ
