Science Magazine Editor Pens Scathing Critique Of Trump's 'Shameful' COVID-19 Lies

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/science-magazine-trump-shameful-covid-19-lies_n_5f5d013ec5b6b48508013278

The editor in chief of Science magazine, one of the world’s leading academic journals, published a harsh denouncement of President Donald Trump on Friday, laying into him for lying to the American people and demoralizing the scientific community about the deadliness of COVID-19.

In his editorial for Science, which has been in publication since 1880, Herbert Holden Thorp addressed Trump’s admission that he intentionally downplayed the coronavirus to journalist Bob Woodward, as revealed in Woodward’s upcoming book, “Rage.”

“We can hear Trump’s own voice saying that he understood precisely that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 ... was deadly and spread through the air,” Thorp wrote. “As he was playing down the virus to the public, Trump was not confused or inadequately briefed: He flat-out lied, repeatedly, about science to the American people. These lies demoralized the scientific community and cost countless lives in the United States.”

Thorp argued that Trump’s comments to Woodward demonstrated that he clearly understood the lethal, airborne nature of COVID-19, as well as the virus’s ability to affect both young and old.

In public, however, Trump compared it to the common flu, pushed to reopen schools and accused Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert in the U.S., as “a little bit of an alarmist.” Fauci recently said that he was “depressed” at America’s inability to control the virus.

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[Cha]

1. Rt.. TY Science Mag Editor!

[MustLoveBeagles]

2. K&R

[dalton99a]

3. Trump knows exactly what he is doing

In an interview with Woodward on 7 February 2020, Trump said he knew that COVID-19 was more lethal than the flu and that it spread through the air. “This is deadly stuff,” he said. But on 9 March, he tweeted that the “common flu” was worse than COVID-19, while economic advisor Larry Kudlow and presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway assured the public that the virus was contained. On 19 March, Trump told Woodward that he did not want to level with the American people about the danger of the virus. “I wanted to always play it down,” he said, “I still like playing it down.” Playing it down meant lying about the fact that he knew the country was in grave danger.

It also meant silencing health officials who tried to tell the truth. On 25 February, Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), said, “It’s not so much a question of if this will happen anymore, but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness.” She was right and Trump knew it. But he shut her down. He also tried to control messaging from Anthony Fauci, the nation’s foremost leader on infectious diseases. Trump’s supporters insisted that Fauci and Messonnier were not being muzzled, but now we have clear evidence in emails that they were.

Trump also knew that the virus could be deadly for young people. “It’s not just old, older,” he told Woodward on 19 March. “Young people, too, plenty of young people.” Yet, he has insisted that schools and universities reopen and that college football should resume. He recently added to his advisory team Scott Atlas—a neuroradiologist with no expertise in epidemiology—who has advocated for a risky and misguided course: somehow isolating the older and more vulnerable while allowing the virus free rein among young people. The opening of colleges and schools has accelerated the spread of the virus and will mean untold suffering among both students and the people to whom they are now spreading the virus.

Trump was not clueless, and he was not ignoring the briefings. Listen to his own words. Trump lied, plain and simple.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/09/11/science.abe7391?rss=1