4.26.20: We Have Failed to Meet the Moment

Here's a statistic that Chuck Todd presented that illustrates clearly the tragedy of this virus:

12 weeks - 53,000+ deaths from COVID-19
12 years - 58,000+ U.S. military deaths in Vietnam.

When asked about the death totals, the president responded that he thought they did a 'great job,' and then goes on to explain to that it could have been millions. However, the reason it is not millions has very little to do with the actions of the administration. Aside from closing the borders, the administration has been sheepish about employing the Defense Production Act to supply hospitals and healthcare works around the country, and then have not put a national testing/ tracking plan in place to mitigate risk to the U.S. population.

What we're left with are mixed messages and ludicrous ideas from the president while his aides and medical experts try to clean up the mess. And from what we saw today during the interview with Dr. Birx, she is succumbing to the professional challenge of staying outside the Trump alternative reality bubble. After doing her best to once again dodge the question of her response to the president's comment about injecting disinfectant with he was 'still digesting information,' she gave one of many elliptical answers, particularly not clearly countering the president's other suggestion of using light and ultraviolet light to combat the virus.  Andrea Mitchell called her out on this very point and also said that right now, the credibility of the medical experts are in fact on the line. When asked about whether she would recommend that states reopen, like Georgia is doing, she talked about advising governors and state officials with granular data on each county, in effect a none answer. At present, Dr. Birx is completely cowed by the president.

The headline that Mr. Todd gleaned from the interview is that we will not be able to dramatically increase testing without a break through moment. That breakthrough moment has to come from what Dr. Michael Osterholm called the 'wild west' of testing. After the CDC dropped the ball on developing a test, the FDA opened it to the market so many of the test being developed are inaccurate. As Dr. Osterholm explained, the testing is a disaster because of this and it is preventing large-scale capability, saying that we have 'failed to meet the moment.'

Also, Mr. Todd asked Ms. Mitchell to weight in on the politics of it all on the part of the administration, but we'll say this: everything thought and hence answer the president has is through the political lens as opposed to a lens of governing, which he has never had interest in doing. Politics also played a part in Georgia's reopening as Stacey Abrams explained. Governor Brian Kemp (R-GA) is reopening his government, she said, because he is following the president's 'liberate' tweet campaign to the states. Vice President Mike Pence is also playing politics when he said that by Memorial Day (end of May) the coronavirus will be largely behind us. All three of these men, Ms. Abrams explained, are doing a disservice to the country with their words and actions, or inaction as the case may be.


Panel: Andrea Mitchell, NBC News; Dr. Vin Gupta, University of Washington Medical Center; Stephanie Ruhle, NBC News