Part 1 The Coronavirus Pandemic
By Nancy Thorner & Bonnie O'Neil -
How will historians judge Donald Trump’s Presidency? It often takes time, sometimes decades, to decide the effectiveness and efficiency of a president.
Unpopular during their time in office, some presidents were later revered, when their actions could be more fairly and accurately evaluated.
The opposite is equally true, popular residents’ decisions have later proved disappointing.
Abraham Lincoln is an example of a president whose efforts were not fully appreciated until after his death. Knowing this, our citizens and especially media sources need to take a deep breath, and at the very least wait until the deadly Virus is no longer a threat, before beginning the typical Blame Game that cost President Trump a second term.
Consider President Herbert Hoover, who unfairly became the face of the Great Depression, and his posthumous reputation was "haunted" by the economic strife that was not there when President James Monroe and thus breezed through his years in the White House, because the economy had recovered.
Covid and Trump
President Trump and his term in the White House will forever be associated with the Coronavirus Pandemic. His enemies blamed him for not handling it more effectively, but facts challenge that accusation. President Trump worked hard to save lives, with decisive and quick actions.
It is important to remember when the Covid Virus hit our shores most of us had not seen before anything close to the harm it caused. We would have to go back in time to when polio, diphtheria, and/or scarlet fever killed millions, to have a comparison of how Covid was causing problems and fear World-wide.
In the beginning, few in Congress, physicians, and/or hospital medical experts had many suggestions and/or effective advice as to how our citizens could be protected from this new, deadly virus, other than to stay home, avoid contact with others, and basically become hermits. That works for a while, but such action creates new problems because of isolation. For children, in-school classes were curtained. This is still the situation in the Chicago Public School System, even though science tells us that children are the least ones to carry the disease and that schools are safe to open.
The challenge became how to avoid being infected with the Virus, how to save lives of those who unfortunately were infected, as well as how to keep our nation functioning and businesses from collapsing, when citizens needed to basically “shelter in place” to avoid being contaminated with the deadly Virus quickly spreading through the States.
If President Trump had accomplished nothing more during his Presidency, his quick, decisive, and smart response to the Virus deserve our applause. His actions minimized the number of deaths and destruction to our nation.
Trump's response attacked
Those who have criticized President Trump for its spread appear to have forgotten, perhaps intentionally, essential facts that indicate his quick response saved lives, helped businesses survive, and rescued our nation’s economy from a serious deep collapse. His opponents were hoping by the time of the 2021 election, fewer voters would remember the following:
- From the first outbreak of the Virus on our shores, President Trump had our nation’s two top experts regarding the Virus on television daily for weeks, explaining aspects of the deadly virus, how it spreads, and how best to protect ourselves from it.
- President Trump realized the Virus would likely hit our cities and states at different times and in different ways, depending upon a variety of obvious differences from State to State. Therefore, President Trump wisely advised each State to enact their own precautions to protect and help their citizens.
- He had provided the nation with as many facts possible and then tasked the individual State leaders with determining their own timing as to when, how, and what would be best for their State.
Unfortunately, voters seem to have forgotten all that President Trump did in responding positively to contain the Coronavirus, when prior to Nov. 3rd, 2020 the mainstream media and challenger Joe Biden spun the Covid narrative to imply that Trump was a failure in reacting to Covid and thus was responsible for all deaths.
Several States paid little attention to Trump and the expert’s warnings, as they allowed parades of people to march closely together down their city streets protesting whatever the grievance of the day. Those parades obviously became super-spreaders of the Virus, as well as causing related deadly incidents.
President Trump offered a variety of ways to help and assist our States, during the crisis, but, incredibly, some Democrat state officials refused his offer of help.
Why would any official refuse finances that would be an asset to their citizens? Would a Democrat official put people at risk for a political outcome helpful to him/her Party?
Did their refusal cause unneeded deaths? Will those officials who refused help be granted another term by their citizens?
Politics enter the fray
Facts indicate politics caused some unnecessary deaths of American citizens, when specific States and/or media sources refused President Trump’s offer of help.
Most objective people’s response to the refusal of some states to accept help from President Trump was that politics should never have had any part in either magnifying or minimizing information about Covid. Saving lives should have been far more important than politics. Will the problem ever be fully and objectively investigated to better understand what we did right and wrong, to learn and thus be better prepared for a similar disaster in the future?
What will future historians reveal?
As the years pass and perhaps more information is revealed on this subject, who and/or what will historians blame for so many deaths? Will blame be applied to China for knowing they had an outbreak of a deadly virus but remained deathly quiet and thus allowed the spread to most every other nation? not just in the USA, but throughout the entire World?
Will historians commend Trump for his immediate response to the Coronavirus once it hit our shores? How many lives were saved by President Trump having experts on TV for weeks providing the nation with facts and advice as to how best to protect our citizens from this deadly Virus?
Knowing the danger and suffering of citizens without having access to necessary products, and the resultant long term financial problems a shutdown would cause to businesses across the nation, President Trump sent financial aid to essential businesses to keep them from closing and thus not deprive citizens of needed products.
Certainly Trump's “Warp Speed” efforts to produce a vaccine saved thousands of lives. So, where was the applause for his swift action? Not only was he not given credit by most media sources, some had the audacity to blame him for not doing more?
Where were these angry people when China kept silent and allowed their citizens to travel throughout the World, infecting people wherever they landed?
To this day, it appears this new Virus originated in Wuhan City, China, yet its origin continues to be disputed in the Blame Game that caused untold numbers of deaths and heartache. Associating the virus with China is now likewise frowned upon.
Failure of W.H.O.
Even today, the source that is tasked with the responsibility of proving and providing the World with facts on this and other diseases, remain silent on much of why, how, and who is at fault in allowing the massive spread throughout the World.
Why haven’t the World Health Organization officials provided us more information? The USA and other countries pay the W.H.O. for this type of information.
In July, amid the deadly coronavirus pandemic, President Trump formally notified the United Nations of America’s intention to pull out from and stop funding the agency, accusing the WHO of being “ a puppet of China.”
However, as one of the first official acts of the Joe Biden presidency, he signed an Executive Order to rejoin the World Health Organization.
Only time will tell what the result of Biden’s reversal of Trump’s WHO decision will mean for this nation.
