On October 5, despite the 200,000+ people who have died due to COVID-19 under his administration, President Donald Trump tweeted “Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life… I feel better than I did 20 years ago!” This statement completely disregards what science experts advise and is a blatant disrespect towards the lives lost due to this wildly contagious virus.
According to the CDC guidelines, everyone should be wearing a mask in public and practicing social distancing in order to decrease the number of cases of COVID-19 in the United States. With over seven million cases in the United States, Donald Trump’s message to our country about this deadly virus is bound to be harmful when our leader should be doing his best to help us escape this apocalyptic nightmare we’ve entered. I’m going to have a lot to say about this topic, but essentially: people are still dying, Donald.
It should not be lost on Americans that, when Donald Trump contracted COVID-19, he had access to the best medical care. This virus disproportionately affects poor communities, as those individuals do not have the money to try experimental drugs and treatments. By the way, one of these experimental treatments used stem cells donated by a woman who chose to have an abortion. Yes, the president who claims to be pro-life used fetal tissue to ensure that he recovered from COVID. To be clear, I’m pro-choice, but the irony that President Trump is directly benefitting from abortion is infuriating. He is manipulating his Republican audience by parroting their platform so that they continue to support him.
President Trump is generalizing his experience with COVID despite the fact that he had far greater than average medical care. His supporters — who so blindly subscribe to his every word — can now use this Tweet as leverage to ignore CDC guidelines, which will inevitably worsen the spread of this virus. Already, over 50,000 new COVID-19 cases are reported per day. As we reach the seven-month mark of quarantine, people have decided they’re tired of following quarantine practices, giving us record high numbers of COVID cases in many states.
President Trump’s Tweet spells disaster for the coming months as those of us who listen to science experts continue to try to curb this virus. Of course, with his top-of-the-line treatments, he “feel[s] better than [he] did 20 years ago!” The rest of COVID victims likely cannot say the same. His experience with COVID is not the majority’s experience with COVID. People have lost their parents, children, friends, neighbors, and coworkers. When other countries have nearly eradicated COVID-19, it’s frustrating to have a president perpetuating “fake news” about the virus.
Some people still believe this is the greatest country in the world, but if we can’t find some compassion for those who have lost their lives to this horrific virus, how great are we really?