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The New York Times carried the headline, "Let's Call It Trumpvirus," with the subhead, "If you're feeling awful, you know who to blame."
And the first line of the piece begins---"So, our Coronavirus Czar is going to be...Mike Pence. Feeling more secure?"
A closer look at the politics of coronavirus.
Are we a ship of fools?
And an update on its spread.
Be informed.
#Trumpvirus
Gail Collins, writing her opinion in the New York Times, says mockingly,
"I know full well the importance of presidential leadership', the vice president said as soon as he was introduced in his new role."
"Totally qualified," Collins said, "The first criterion for every job in this administration is capacity for praising the gloriousness of our commander in chief."
"When you think of Mike Pence," Collins continued, "you maybe don't think about Pandemic Fighter Supreme."
She says, "Our president had been going crazy over a problem that involves both declining stock prices and germs. This is the guy, after all, who thinks shaking hands is barbaric."
Collins continues, on and on and on, naming various people in the Trump administration who are not qualified to do their job---whatever it is---but stays focused on her Trumpvirus theme.
What she fails to recognize---for obvious reasons---is that Dr. Marc Siegel, professor of medicine at New York University, says,
"I've been handling these emerging contagions for about 20 years now, and I have to tell you, I've never seen one handled better."
Siegel praised the Trump administration's personnel selection for its coronavirus task force, headed by Vice President Pence.
He said they've been doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing.
But Gail Collins and millions like her don't care. It's not really about sick people, it's about people on the far Left trying to advance a sick worldview and its agenda.
Dr. Siegel also said,
"We're relying on China for 90% of our ingredients for pharmaceuticals. That hopefully will change as a result of this because we're going to end up with tremendous shortages of basic drugs, including antibiotics and blood pressure medication if this continues much longer in Wuhan."
He said, "This is a wake-up call that we must make more of our pharmaceuticals here in the United States."
Collins, however, is more than happy to point out what's wrong with everybody---except her, and what's wrong with Trump's response to the virus, offering no solutions except bringing back Obama.
To be sure, there are differing beliefs on the matter. Ironically, Collins' tirade against Trump and anyone remotely associated with him better define her than them.
The politics of coronavirus.
It's hard to pinpoint exactly how or where it started, but the political blame-game over the coronavirus has proven highly contagious, spreading rapidly among Democrats and Republicans as it infects the 2020 election discourse.
The New York Post reports that "Chinese scientists knew about the coronavirus and its deadly effects as early as December---but were ordered by government officials to suppress the evidence."
The Post notes that "in late December, several genomics companies tested samples from sick patients in Wuhan...and noticed alarming similarities between the illnesses and the 2002 SARS virus."
The researchers alerted Beijing of their findings and ---and on Jan. 3, received a gag order from China's National Health Commission, with instructions to destroy the samples.
Rather than hunkering down to contain the virus, Wuhan officials went ahead with their annual potluck dinner for 40,000 families.
The cover-up continued when representatives from the US Centers For Disease Control and Prevention visited Wuhan Jan. 8, where officials intentionally withheld information that hospital workers had been infected by patients---a telltale sign of contagion.
The Post says, "News of the virus' highly contagious nature didn't surface publicly until Jan. 20. Wuhan was locked down and a mass quarantine ordered three days later."
Coronavirus was first politicized in Wuhan, China with an attempt to cover it up---If you can't see it, it doesn't exist.
American politicization looks a little different---but it's the same.
Several presidential candidates are trying to make "political hay" out of this very serious matter.
Sunday, Joe Biden accused President Trump of being ill-prepared, criticizing him for putting VP Pence in charge calling it "outrageous the way they proceed," telling ABC's This Week, "This is incompetence on the part of the President of the United States at the expense of the country and the world."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren also targeted the Trump administration on Sunday, tweeting, "Mike Pence paid more attention to politics than science and gravely worsened a health crisis in Indiana. I can't think of a worse person to put in charge of dealing with coronavirus."
This was a direct attack on Pence's biblical pro-life beliefs.
VP Pence took the higher road on his television appearances on Sunday, making an honest effort to unify rather than divide, but the media would have none of that.
Pence could hardly escape the political angle with CNN's Jake Tapper talking about the #Trumpvirus campaign underway.
Tapper noted that Donald Trump, JR. had lashed out Friday at his father's critics, saying, "Anything that they can use to try to hurt Trump, they will."
JR. said, "For them to try to take a pandemic and seemingly hope that it comes here and kills millions of people so that they could end Donald Trump's streak of winning, is a new level of sickness."
That comment prompted Tapper to say this to VP Pence: "I don't expect you to criticize the President's son, but you don't think that Democrats want people to contact this disease do you?"
Pence wisely replied: "I think that was Don Jr's point, that there has been some very strong rhetoric directed at the president by some members of Congress and political commentators."
The ship of fools.
The "Ship of Fools" is an allegory, originating from Book VI of Plato's Republic. It's about a ship with a dysfunctional crew. The allegory is intended to represent the problems of governance in a democracy.
There's the shipowner, larger and stronger than everyone in the ship. He has natural instincts, but he isn't perfect.
The sailors are quarreling among themselves over the captaincy of the ship, each one thinking he should be captain, though they have never been taught, nor have they ever learned the skill.
The shipowner is always surrounded by them. They beg him to turn over the ship to them, but he remains steadfast. Finally, they immobilize the worthy shipowner with drugs or drink or by some other means and take control of the ship.
They have no concept of what a real captain would look like. He would be thoroughly familiar with the seasons of the year, the stars in the sky, the winds---but as for now, one in the crew is going to steer the ship---whatever it takes to get control.
This being the case, it's a natural occurrence that those on board would think the one most highly qualified would be nothing more than a stargazer, a chatterer, of no use to them---as they sail along in their ship of fools.
Who is the shipowner?
Who is the captain?
Who are the crew?
Be Informed. Be Vigilant. Be Discerning. Be Prayerful.