Trump’s Nonsense is Having Real World Impacts

Two things I’ve picked up in conversations with readers over the last couple days, both of which point to real world impacts of the White House’s either lackadaisical or disinformational messaging on the Coronavirus. One is elderly relatives resisting basic social distancing precautions because they’re hearing on Fox News that a lot of Coronavirus is just hype for politically interested reasons. Another is cases where medical professionals in red states are assuming or inferring that the Coronavirus isn’t as serious as the outbreaks of H1N1 or Ebola in recent years because the preparation they’re seeing locally isn’t as extensive or urgent. These are anecdotal examples. We can’t read too much into them. But they do point to real world impacts of the President’s nonchalance or claims that concerns about Coronavirus are being hyped for political purposes.