Winning!

March 22, 2020

The US today became the number one country in the world in terms of the early rate of Covid-19 contagion.

In other words, we are winning the race to fail our citizens in this flattening-the-curve effort, compared to all other affected countries including China, Italy, and Spain.

By time-shifting the confirmed-case curves to synchronIze the pandemic effect from different start dates in each country, scientists are able to normalize and fairly compare the rate of contagion in various countries.

Today, the US sped past all other countries on the curve. A dubious honor but, still, winning!

Today Donald Trump suggested that the cure should not be worse than the problem, unoriginally mimicking a Fox News piece. Trump threatens to not extend the 15-day social-distancing curriculum. So that business as usual can resume.

This would be laughable if it were not so cynical, diabolical, and unconscionable.

First, business as usual remains impossible.

Second, what precautionary downside could.possibly be worse than death, which without a vaccine or treatment regimen is the inevitable end for the most vulnerable Covid-19 sufferers?

Economic apocolypse for the US, careening into the 2020 election.

A certain defeat in November for Trump.

That, my friend, is the real problem: Trump's personal and political peril.

Not the real possibility of millions of US deaths over the next several months.