President Donald Trump reportedly has been privately suggesting an eyebrow-raising solution to the COVID-19 outbreak consuming the nation: Let it keep doing that.
The Washington Post reported on Saturday that during a Situation Room meeting on the pandemic in March, Trump asked White House coronavirus task force member Dr. Anthony Fauci, “Why don’t we let this wash over the country?”
Two unnamed sources told the Post that Fauci was stunned by the question.
“Mr. President, many people would die,” the doctor reportedly told Trump.
Other unnamed officials said that Trump has “repeatedly” (in the Post’s words) asked the same question in the Oval Office.
Trump reportedly began mulling over the idea after hearing about the United Kingdom’s now-abandoned “mitigation” strategy that would let COVID-19 spread throughout the country with few movement restrictions imposed on the population in the hopes of building a “herd immunity” against the virus.
However, a study by medical advisers to the British government found in mid-March that the strategy would “likely result in hundreds of thousands of deaths,” prompting the U.K. to drop the plan.
The same study also predicted that 1.1 to 1.2 million Americans would die if the strategy were adopted in the U.S.
freakincampers on April 11st, 2020 at 22:29 UTC »
Remember Trump mentioned someone asked him why we couldn't just let the virus "run it's course".
I guess that person was Trump.
whileoceaniasleeps on April 11st, 2020 at 22:23 UTC »
He thinks he's a king in everything but title. He doesn't give a fuck about the American public, we're just numbers to either convenience or inconvenience him depending on the situation. He gets to mail in a ballot, we don't. He and his rich buddies get coronavirus tests because they're rich and "that's just been the story of life." Who cares about hundreds of thousands of people dying, we're just an obstacle to be sacrificed for his economic and political prospects and "washed over."
Twoweekswithpay on April 11st, 2020 at 22:07 UTC »
This, from a guy, who "always called it a pandemic, well before anyone else was." This kind of thinking is why we waited "70 DAYS!" to begin any kind of response.