He didn’t clamor up a beanstalk to find the Giant. In fact, the Giant invited him into his circle, hoping to use his medical credibility to bolster his own standing. The Giant had screwed up in a gigantic way as only a giant could in dealing with a major medical adversary that had slipped into his kingdom. The Giant, who by the way was named Donald, constantly advertised his own power and was certain that a tiny organism like the Corona virus would be unable to resist the giant’s strength. The virus would be no match for him and his armies of followers and would simply disappear in time without causing much damage to the country or the economy. (The economy was the Giant’s favorite project and he spent considerable time touting his prowess in building the strongest economy of all time, at least when he wasn’t sleeping or on the golf course.)
So Donald the Giant told the country in February that the Corona virus was not a significant enemy and would disappear after one person had died from the virus. Then a few weeks later, he said it would vanish after about fifteen people had been killed. And the Giant kept underplaying the viruses’ potency, making no preparations to fight the virus because he believed his own words, bolstered by his ignorance. He started having daily press conferences to follow the course of the virus, with some of his medical counselors on the podium to provide medical information and credibility. Fauci and Birx. The deaths continued to grow and parts of the Giant’s kingdom were shut down by its governors.
Fauci and other medical counselors continued to warn the Giant that the virus was a powerful adversary and was not going to just go away. In fact, the virus was going to increase its attacks on the Giant’s subjects, sickening and killing them. Still, the Giant refused to believe the warnings of his medical counselors, deciding that he knew more than they did and that his gut feelings were more important than their scientific expertise. So the Giant kept telling his subjects he had everything under control and that even if a few people became sick and possibly died, the virus was still going to magically disappear. At the worst, it would be gone by the warmth of April.
Yet it is still here in May. And all along the Giant refused to mobilize his legions to prepare for the onslaught of the virus, neglecting to develop adequate testing, neglecting to have adequate protective equipment for those fighting the virus, though he did suggest treatment with hydroxychloroquin which made death more likely. The Giant kept saying there was enough testing though Fauci contradicted him. He then said the virus would disappear and not come back in the fall and Fauci again disagreed with him in public.
It reached a point where it seemed that Fauci was no longer welcome up on the podium with the Giant because his words had more resonance than Donald’s with Donald’s subjects. And then the Giant began coming out with all kinds of cockamamie ideas to fight the virus like injecting disinfectants and ultraviolet light. Still, there were not enough tests available.
And Fauci and the medical advisors provided a timeline for the states to reopen which the Giant ignored, so anxious was he to get the economy going. Subsequently, the Giant’s approval ratings started dropping while Fauci’s soared. There was a petition to rate Fauci as the sexiest man alive which must have really hurt the Giant who claimed he was the smartest and believed he was the sexiest and most powerful man on the planet. And in his inner sanctum, the Giant raged and raged.
But the virus did not care a whit as it kept spreading and killing more and more Americans, disregarding the Giant’s remarks about it disappearing. And as the states began opening up to boost the economy and the Giant’s electoral chances, there are still not enough tests to open up safely. Fauci remains admired, the Giant blamed by many of his subjects for not taking the virus seriously at the beginning and lessening the number of deaths.
Resurrecting Democracy
www.robertlevinebooks.com
Caricature by DonkeyHotey Flickr
Political junkie, Vietnam vet, neurologist- three books on aging and dementia. Book on health care reform in 2009- Shock Therapy for the American Health Care System. Book on the need for a centrist third party- Resurrecting Democracy- A Citizen’s Call for a Centrist Third Party published in 2011. Aging Wisely, published in August 2014 by Rowman and Littlefield. Latest book- The Uninformed Voter published May 2020