February 21, 2021
Yet another grim Covid-19 milestone and hopefully it’s the last one of them. Just about exactly a year ago the death toll from the pandemic was still only a few dozen people. According to CNN, the first person we lost was a woman in California on February 6. Today that number will surpass 500,000. It’s been said that a single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic. But even that cold-blooded observation minimizes the cruelty and ineptness with which the ‘former guy’ led the response to the greatest threat to public health in a hundred years.
TRUMP: I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down…
BOB WOODWARD: Yes, sir.
TRUMP: …Because I don’t want to create a panic.
Many of us around here recall how he badgered Governor Cuomo who was trying hard to manage the rapidly expanding caseload and body count. His promotion of unproven therapies. His impatient demands to prioritize saving the economy above saving lives. We’re glad those dark days are mostly behind us, but people are still succumbing to the virus and will be for some time to come. Cases and fatalities have been dropping for weeks and, God willing, will continue to do so as the vaccine rollout continues.
