As COVID-19 Spikes, the GOP Turns a Blind Eye

The United States is seeing its worse COVID-19 spike since the pandemic began in March. For the past 12 days, the U.S. has seen over 100,000 new confirmed cases. Texas and California both surpassed one million confirmed cases. Even in the Northeast, where, after a particularly disastrous outbreak in April, the states were able to stave off a second outbreak, cases are climbing up steadily once again. Throughout this crisis, the Trump administration and top Republican officials have been turning a blind eye.

47 states (Maine, Hawaii, and Vermont are the exceptions), are seeing new cases rise and staying high. The outbreak is particularly bad in the Midwest, where the Dakotas, the Rust Belt, Illinois, and Minnesota are seeing skyrocketing numbers of new confirmed cases, even though testing rates are lower than those seen in the Northeast.

To put it plainly, Republican-led states have been seeing worse outbreaks than Democrat-led states. Among the top 15 states with the worst outbreaks, only four (Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Colorado) are not completely Republican-controlled (Kansas has a Democratic governor, but the GOP holds a veto-proof majority in the state legislature, making much of the governors’ moves, if any, moot).

This likely has to do with how the GOP as a whole has downplayed the COVID-19 pandemic, an issue I already outlined in this old post back in July. In essence, the GOP continues to ignore the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, causing thousands to lose their lives to this humanitarian crisis. The effect of this could not be clearer.

In El Paso, Texas, a Republican-appointed court struck down the city’s mandate to force a shelter-in-place order in the city, claiming it to violate the state’s COVID-19 measures. Even though El Paso’s hospitals and morgues are completely full, the GOP continues to deny the city to implement its own measures to help curb the spread of the virus.

In Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, a staunch supporter and ally of the president, has downright refused to enact even a single measure to protect the state’s large elderly population, even though the state is seeing an alarming increase in case numbers. He has refused to enact a mask mandate and has even decided to remove measures that stopped people from visiting nursing homes (and thus spreading the virus to an extremely vulnerable sector of the population).

North Dakota Republican Gov. Doug Burgum has gone so far in asking asymptomatic positively-tested nurses to continue their jobs at hospitals. (I don’t think any more description is necessary for explaining why that is a hugely irresponsible move.)

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has refused to pass the HEROES Act, a bill passed by the Democratic-held House that would budget over $2.2 trillion in coronavirus aid and relief, including giving stimulus checks to all Americans. He has instead tried to push for a much smaller, $500 billion relief bill that would do little in helping normal Americans. Instead, the bill gives tax cuts to large corporations, and disproportionately affects low-income families. More about that can be read here. Negotiations continue on Capitol Hill between the parties, and though a consensus seems unlikely, if a bill isn’t agreed upon before December 11, we could see a federal government shutdown, which would be catastrophic given the nation’s current state.

Aside from trying to focus the public’s attention on a potentially effective vaccine developed by Pfizer, the President and his administration have done little in the way to try and curb the spread of COVID-19. Not only has he not attended a coronavirus task force meeting in months, he routinely ignores the increasingly dire reports from top medical experts about the pandemic and is causing frustration among government agencies, as reported by the Washington Post.

The lack of communication and leadership vacuum is causing state and local governments to consider dramatic action to curb virus spread. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has said that if the city’s positive test rate hits three percent, in-person learning will be suspended once again (the current rate is 2.54 percent). Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has also closed nonessential businesses and placed limits on group gatherings. The Navajo Nation—the largest American Indian reservation in the U.S. and which spans four states (Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico)—has imposed its own restrictions on movement and gatherings within the reservation.

America cannot wait until January 20 for a coordinated COVID-19 response. The lack of leadership and minimization of the virus by top-level Republican officials will cause tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Americans to lose their lives in the next two months.

The next two months will be a painful two for America. With Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up, the nation looks dead set for a collision course with a huge COVID-19 spike and we will likely see hospitals overwhelmed with many more dying.

Please do your part to help minimize the spread of coronavirus by wearing a mask at all times outside your home, washing your hands frequently, maintaining social distancing from others, avoiding group gatherings, and disinfecting surfaces often. With your help, we can make this map gray and end the pandemic once and for all.