Photo by Andrea Booher/ FEMA News Photo
By Paul V. DeMarco
Guest Columnist
We’ve just marked the 20th anniversary of one of the worst days in American history. We remember the horror and heroism of that day and all those we lost. We also recall the strong sense of unity that Americans showed in the aftermath of the attack: the countless Americans who gave blood, held vigils, and supported the grieving. Over the next several months, our national mood gradually returned to a bickering normality as the divisions that we had put aside resurfaced. But many of us recollect with pride how we as a nation responded to that dark day.
In the winter of 2020, Americans became aware of another assault, not as sudden, but one we quickly realized would dwarf the number of casualties from Sept. 11. COVID was a second attack on the homeland. It could have been framed as such by our President Trump and used to galvanize the nation.
To be fair, George Bush had it easier than Trump. All of us over a certain age can tell you where we were on 9/11. Few of us can remember where we were when we first heard the word “COVID.” But the difference between the men is that Bush responded quickly to solidify the national moment. The image of him with a bullhorn exhorting weary first-responders as they sifted grimly through the rubble at Ground Zero is iconic. “I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you!” he told them.
The COVID pandemic, of course, did bring us together in many ways. The images of medical teams clapping for COVID survivors being wheeled out of the hospital, neighbors banging pots and pans to celebrate healthcare workers, and nurses with tears in their eyes after losing COVID patients have created a sense of shared struggle. Too many of us have a mental scrapbook of the family and friends we have lost. Mine includes three of my patients. For more than a year and a half, we have been arranging our lives around the virus, caring for one another, and grieving together.
But the unity we have shown during COVID has been despite Trump, not because of him. He had several opportunities for an “I can hear you” moment, but he missed them all. He initially tried to wave away the pandemic and then downplayed its seriousness. Despite the bubble in which he exists, he managed to contract COVID. And because he spent years denigrating the mainstream media, many of his supporters ignored medical experts’ advice to wear masks and get vaccinated.
When he was hospitalized, the nation held its breath. Fortunately, he recovered quickly and returned to the White House after only three days. He released a video that evening in which he could have changed course and brought us together. Here was a moment to trumpet American exceptionalism. What if he had said “I’ve been too cavalier about the coronavirus and I paid for it. I might have died like so many other of my fellow Americans. If a president can end up in the hospital, so can you. Even if you are young and at low risk, take precautions for the elders in your life. Let’s demonstrate American greatness by ending the pandemic quickly.”
But instead he rambled. He minimized. He talked about what a good leader he was. The line that made the headlines was “One thing that’s for certain: don’t let it dominate you. Don’t be afraid of it. You’re going to beat it.”
In the subsequent 11 months, approximately 400,000 Americans have died.
Another misstep in Trump’s messaging was his failure to publicize his own vaccination. Many high-profile politicians including Mike Pence, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris widely distributed images of their vaccinations, as did a host of athletes, musicians, and other celebrities.
Donald and Melania Trump were vaccinated sometime in January prior to leaving the White House, and released no photos. This is surprising since Trump’s Operation Warp Speed was a spectacular success. It was the Manhattan Project of public health, something about which Trump and all of America can be proud. Our nation’s ability to simultaneously develop and produce a vaccine saved precious time and countless lives.
But Trump has undercut the success of Operation Warp Speed by his half-hearted endorsement of the vaccine. Since losing the White House, he has continued to send mixed messages. At a rally on August 21 in Cullman, Alabama, he was booed when he suggested that the crowd get vaccinated. He quickly backpedaled. “You’ve got your freedoms, but I happened to take the vaccine.” In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on Sept. 3, he said he “probably won’t” get a booster shot.
We will never know how much better it could have been. A different approach by Trump, or a different president, could have prevented much suffering. In an interview with Bob Woodward on Feb. 7, 2020, Trump indicated that he knew early on how deadly the virus was but didn’t want to stoke panic. That was a grave miscalculation. Unlike Bush, he underestimated the American people, and for his lack of confidence, we have paid dearly.
Paul DeMarco is a physician who resides in Marion, SC. Reach him at [email protected]. A version of this item previously appeared in the Florence Morning News.
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Paul, in editing that, I made an assumption — which is always dangerous.
You had written, “In the intervening 11 months, approximately 400,000 Americans have died.” I changed “intervening” to “subsequent.” Is that correct?
But I have another, more substantive, question. Are you sure there have been 400,000 COVID deaths since then? I tried to check it, but didn’t find a good month-by-month source…
By the way, Paul expressed some concern that this would be sort of dated, since we’re well past the 9/11 anniversary. That’s OK. On the actual day, my blog was in the midst of migration, so it wasn’t a good time for posting.
One other point: Paul says, “Few of us can remember where we were when we first heard the word ‘COVID.'”
Well, it’s not as distinct as my memory of 9/11 — which I might have written about had I not been so busy trying to save the blog ten days ago — or learning of JFK’s assassination, but I think I do remember.
I was on one of my walks all over downtown — on of my last ones, since I don’t work downtown anymore — and listening to NPR on my phone, using earbuds. I think I was walking down the length of the Horseshoe when I heard the announcer say “covid.” Realizing he was using a term for what we had been calling the “novel coronavirus,” and not being able to make it out, I backed up the audio. I still wasn’t sure what he said, and I think I backed it up again. I wasn’t really sure what he was saying, of course, until I saw it written, later…
That would have been February or March 2020. Going by the photos on my phone, my last walk across the USC campus was on March 18, 2020…
Of course, I had been concerned about COVID for weeks before I heard that term for it.
I think the most worrisome thing I heard in those early days was when someone — I’m thinking it was a health writer at the NYT, on a podcast — warning of something HE was worried about at that early point. He was worried that, as happened with the Spanish Flu pandemic a century earlier, the problem would subside, and we would relax our vigilance, and a second, far deadlier wave would hit us in the fall.
Of course, that happened — although I’m not sure that was the second wave. It may have been the third.
And here’s a hard question I ponder from time to time — how many waves has it been NOW? I lose count…
And WHY do I lose count, as wave after wave breaks upon our shore?
Well, there’s one major cause: widespread stupidity…
Brad, thanks for the edit. I went back to double check on the COVID mortality figure and it is accurate. At the time of Trump’s COVID diagnosis in early October 2020, US deaths were at approximately 200,000. The Johns Hopkins website reports today we are at 676,076. The CDC produces a monthly count: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm
In an interview during the 9/11 tragedy, Trump called into TV station WWOR and when asked if his building had suffered any damage, stated that he now owned the tallest building in Manhattan. He then turned his attention not to the people that had died, but the decision to close the New York Stock Exchange.
That was a lie. He didn’t have the tallest building in Manhattan. But Trump lying to take advantage of a situation has been one of the key hallmarks of his life. That’s who he is.
We aren’t united. We’ve have never been united regarding COVID.
It’s bitter. It’s hateful. There is a huge, massive divide. It’s not getting better. It might subside, but it’s not getting better.
We are as divided as we were at any point since the CIVIL War in in some ways even more divided than we were then.
Trump’s arrogant, self centered approach to COVID was no different than his self centered approach to everything he ever did.
Concert for New York,October 20,2001
Wow; I am so moved – I walk off, to look for America. Still have, perhaps too much, Kerouac in me. It took me 4 days to hitch hike to Saginaw: after leaving the Navy, it took me 11 days to hitch hike to Utah. I needed that peace of having nothing – I really miss that simplicity sometimes; sometimes.
This has been played so much, but still …
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Dg-g7t2l4&w=560&h=315%5D
According to NPR, On Friday October 2, 2020 Trump tweeted that he he and his wife had tested positive for coronavirus. According to the Realclearpolitics website (which I track daily) there were 212,702 deaths in the US from COVID. As of September 2, 2021 there have been 659,927. These figures are a bit higher than most other sources. So the 400,000 figure Paul cites is pretty close.
By the way we’re now above the death toll from the 1918/19 flu.