Coronavirus has come to Trump country [View all]

[brooklynite]

Washington Post

After months of quarantine and restrictions, a health care worker and a large group of her friends went out for a meal at a recently reopened restaurant in Florida.

She and 15 others have tested positive for the coronavirus, infections she blames on that meal.

Stories like this are what epidemiologists feared as states pushed to reopen after months of efforts to contain the virus: lax oversight and a failure of people to use protective measures such as masks in places where the virus had not receded.

What makes this story particularly telling, though, is where it occurred: Jacksonville, recently chosen by the Republican Party as the site of President Trump’s formal acceptance of his party’s nomination for November’s presidential election.

The party’s convention was originally going to be held in its entirety in Charlotte. Trump forced a change of plans, though, out of frustration that North Carolina mandated social-distancing measures intended to slow the spread of the virus. Jacksonville was more amenable to the sort of energetic crowd he wants to see. It was also more amenable to that large dinner party.