In this poignant column, Dana Milbank talks about some of the people who died from covid-19. Here are a few excerpts:
After Donald Trump got out of Vietnam with student deferments and a spurious claim of bone spurs, he proposed that those who did serve in Vietnam were “stupid” and “losers,” according to various accounts. He mocked their sacrifice by saying he was a “brave soldier” in his “personal Vietnam” — avoiding sexually transmitted diseases.
We’re seeing the same thinking now with covid-19. After getting treated for his infection by a team of top-notch doctors using antidotes that are rationed or entirely unavailable to other Americans, President Trump shared a description of himself as “an invincible hero” — in contrast to all those wusses who are taking precautions against the virus.
“Don’t be afraid of it. You’re going to beat it,” Trump proclaimed in a video message Monday night after returning from the hospital. “Don’t let it take over your lives. … I’m better and maybe I’m immune. I don’t know. But don’t let it dominate your lives.” Tuesday morning, he exulted anew on Twitter that “we are learning to live with Covid,” which he falsely claimed is “in most populations far less lethal” than the flu. [….]
On Sunday, as Trump was joyriding around Walter Reed with his captive Secret Service detail, a group memorialized the pandemic dead by setting up 20,000 empty chairs, symbolizing 200,000 lives, on the Ellipse, facing the White House. As Trump staged photos at Walter Reed, the Twitter account @FacesOfCovidcontinued its grim work of collating obituaries of the deceased:
On Monday night, as Trump was filming his video (without a mask) telling Americans not to let the virus dominate their lives, the West Des Moines (Iowa) Community School District announced that Jennifer Crawford, a junior high school special-education assistant, had died of covid-19 complications.
On Sunday, Julie Davis, a beloved third-grade teacher at Norwood Elementary School in North Carolina, succumbed to the virus. Davis, 49, died two months after the district resumed some in-person classes. She decided to devote her life to helping children after the Columbine shooting.
[emphasis added]
Remember, these were over 200,000 real people who died of COVID-19. Many of these people died needlessly in part because Trump underplayed the pandemic’s lethality–and he’s still doing so.
