Paging Dr. McConnell!



Mitch, you need to step up now. You need to do this for your legacy’s sake, for your party’s sake, and – oh, yes! – the sake of your country. We have a man in the White House who, as the number of Covid-19 cases increases wildly, tries to pretend the disease is beaten, and when he can’t do that he says it’s no big deal, all evidence to the contrary. At every moment he undercuts the message sent by his own medical experts, which is in large part responsible for the current situation.

And now it seems that his campaign has decided that the new message is we can “live with” the huge increase in cases – which doesn’t show any sign of slowing down, of course. In other words, we can all live with the increase, unless of course we happen to be one of the unlucky ones who dies. And as I’ve documented in this blog, just being hospitalized with Covid-19 can put you into physical, mental and economic hell for a long time afterwards, where you might question whether it might have been better to have died.

Goldman Sachs (that hotbed of left-wing radicalism!) recently estimated that a universal mask mandate in the US would save the US 5% of GDP, vs. the lockdowns that will probably be inevitable without it. You yourself are now touting the importance of masks, but Trump has a long way to go before he does that. Meanwhile, Texas, Florida and Arizona would greatly benefit from such a mandate now – as well as a number of other states where cases are rapidly increasing. If Trump were to do a 180 and start actively supporting masks, rather than actively undermining their usage, that alone would have a huge impact on people’s health and the economy in general.

Trump (and Pence) also have a long way to go on testing. It’s simply criminal that, after Trump and Pence made assurance after assurance – starting in March or even February – that anyone who needs a test can get one, sick people are sitting in their cars for more than 8 hours in Phoenix, waiting to be tested (while Pence is repeating that everyone who needed a test could get one easily). And two weeks ago, Trump shut down the last 13 federal testing sites, including seven in Texas (not that they need them in Texas now, of course!). Sure we’re doing a lot of tests now, but we need more than ever. And a full reopening is going to require regular testing of probably all workers in offices, stores, restaurants, nursing homes, factories, hospitals, etc.

Mitch, this man is making the situation worse by the day, not better. The time has come for you to sit down with him – face mask and 6 feet separation, of course – and tell him the truth: He’s already destroyed whatever re-election prospects he had, and it’s probably too late for the GOP to maintain control of the Senate in November.

But it’s finally time for both you and him to think about what’s good for the GOP and the country in the long term. Just requiring face masks and solving the testing problem (let’s also throw in solving the contact tracing problem, for good measure) will save many lives, and will allow both you and the GOP – I’m not sure about Trump – to be able to hold your heads up high a year from now and say you did the right thing, better late than never.

The worst part about the current bad news is that we’re not even in the fall yet. I read recently that, in all seven of the flu epidemics that the US has suffered since the 1700s (especially the 1918 pandemic), there was a second wave that was much more devastating (of course, we’re not in the second wave now – it’s just that the first wave is now hitting states that it neglected to hit earlier. The virus doesn’t want to leave anybody out!). As Dr. Redfield of the CDC said (before Trump tried to shut him up at a news conference a couple months ago), the second wave will be much deadlier partly because it will coincide with the normal fall flu wave. So we urgently need masks, testing and tracing for the fall, as well as for now.

If you and the GOP don’t change course very soon – which involves putting the hammer on Trump in some way, although it shouldn’t require removing him completely – you will be forever remembered as the party that did nothing to fix the problem, when decisive action could have greatly ameliorated it. Your grandchildren will try to change the subject when somebody asks about you at school. Is that what you want?


The Numbers
As I have since Saturday, I’m omitting the usual table of projected deaths, because I think the current very low reported deaths figures probably reflect the July 4 holiday weekend, not a significant new drop in deaths (although I wish that were the case!). Since the effects of the weekend closing usually last a couple days into the week, I probably won’t resume the projections until Wednesday. But the numbers below are all up-to-date.

I. Total deaths
Total US deaths as of yesterday: 132,993
Increase in deaths since previous day: 422
Yesterday’s 7-day rate of increase in total deaths: 3% (This number is used to project deaths in the table above; it was 3% yesterday. There is a 7-day cycle in the reported deaths numbers, caused by lack of reporting over the weekends from closed state offices. So this is the only reliable indicator of a trend in deaths, not the three-day percent increase I used to focus on, and certainly not the one-day percent increase, which mainly reflects where we are in the 7-day cycle).

II. Total reported cases
Total US reported cases: 3,041,129
Increase in reported cases since previous day: 57,974
Percent increase in reported cases since yesterday: 2%
Percent increase in reported cases since 7 days previous: 13%

III. Deaths as a percentage of closed cases so far in the US:
Total Recoveries in US as of yesterday: 1,325,516
Total Deaths as of yesterday: 132,933
Deaths so far as percentage of closed cases (=deaths + recoveries): 9% (vs. 9% yesterday)
For a discussion of what this number means – and why it’s so important – see this post. Short answer: If this percentage declines, that’s good. It’s been steadily declining since a high of 44% in mid-April.


I would love to hear any comments or questions you have on this post. Drop me an email at tom@tomalrich.com

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