Coronavirus

This pandemic really shut down the whole world.

The sad part about Covid-19 is that it became more political than it did about being right or wrong. Let that sink in. Thousands of people died in the United States and yet all I saw were politicians using this movement for VOTES. Yes, we are voting for lives to be saved, but before that, politicians were using lost lives, for votes.

Let's recap the pandemic in a nutshell. The virus started spreading around November, hits the US hard around March, we shut down for like a month, then there's hope for a quaratineless summer, and now we just end up where we are now, 200 million deaths (according to Biden) 269,000 deaths later...

Obviously nothing truly improved, progress was made, but we are pretty much back to where we were in March (at least in NJ, worse in other places). I think what went wrong was we all took this virus seriously for the 14-28 days we were supposed to be in quarantine and then people just stopped caring. Not everyone, just the people in red states, which surprisingly correspond to some of the major Covid hotspots. Some of this mentality stems from the lost time and craziness that happened during this pandemic but for the most part, people seemingly kind of disregard the fact that people are still dying and that you can die.

Now, let us delve into the politics of the coronavirus (I shouldn't even have to mention politics when talking about a pandemic but that's where we are). So, before the pandemic struck the US, Donald Trump was in the process of being impeached, no one knew much about this virus, and it was an election year. To me, the idea that Donald Trump did a terrible job handling this pandemic comes down to a few things. Donald Trump did what he thought was right for America, the economy was at a low and people were going nuts at home, so he needed to reopen the country. What he failed at was not being racist. "Kung flu" or the "Chinese/Wuhan virus" are racist terms. So what if it came from China? This a serious crisis and if you're more focused on blaming China than the aspect of mandating everyone to wear a mask Trump, it shows your agenda (win the white vote). He also failed in being a leader. He looked well at briefings but as time went on, he basically started self-sabotaging his chances of winning a new term. In addition, he also hid information about the pandemic to the public to not cause a panic. Well we never panicked, we just went straight into the suffering.

Now on the flip side, here are some criticisms of how the media painted Donald Trump's handling of the pandemic. Let's start with the removal of the Pandemic Response Team. Donald Trump never met anyone from that team and he also didn't personally fire them. Regardless of the team being there or not, the government still had readily available people with great knowledge. It's not like they just stopped caring about pandemics or Donald Trump just didn't care about deadly viruses. In terms of Donald Trump not handling this pandemic well and not taking it seriously, one, the left or media also didn't take it seriously to start, and Donald Trump literally dealt with constantly changing information. Remember when Dr.Fauci said wearing a mask was not needed? Well a few weeks later, he announced masks now save lives. After that, Dr. Fauci became a political puppet which therefore invalidated whatever he said. He's a doctor first and foremost, don't make it more than that. This isn't a blame China paragraph but it's just putting things into perspective here. The media also said Trump's bread and butter of the economy crashed and that he should be voted out. Well, media, if there wasn't a pandemic, the economy wouldn't have gone to a recession and it was also booming before the shut down. One thing I hate about the media is what they say is partly true, but some of it is just taken out of context. Politicians from the right aren't afforded the same free passes as people from the left. Donald Trump did what he could do and handled it as best as anyone else could have in his position given his circumstances. Lives would have still been lost and he did his best to minimize that damage.

Side note, in terms of a mask mandate, it sounds perfect in saving lives, but it's not about mandating it. There are still people out there who won't obey it because they think they're invincible. Again, we don't live in a perfect society, we live in a pretty messed up one where the people who are against the "my body, my choice" movement are also crying "my body, my choice" in terms of masks. Yes, wake up, we're all hypocrites and in 2020, we lived in a toxic and garbage political climate and society.

Also, Democratic cities that have shut down, are not power moves by their Governors. They're not trying to destroy their economy or your business, they're trying to save lives and flatten the curve. There are forms of "success" in Republican states but calling Democrats uneducated or crazy for what they're doing is ludicrous. The virus is real, people are dying, and you do not want to experience that. Save lives now so that your business can prosper again later.

Whatever happens between Joe Biden's presidency and Donald Trump's presidency will not change what has already happened in 2020. 2020 will be in the books and there is already a vaccine ready to be used so by default, Joe Biden will undoubtedly do a better job than Donald Trump. But don't expect Joe Biden to end the virus as Democrats have been saying will happen.