"Right now we are heading to 50,000 and according to the projections we will end up with 60,000 by the end of the pandemic." President Donald Trump (April 20, 2020)
I have read and re-read that quote a dozen times. I have tried to determine if maybe the president meant "the end of April" instead of "the end of the pandemic." I believe he actually meant to say "the end of the pandemic."
I can't get my head around this statement or why he would say it. Perhaps he thought his audience was deaf or unable to grasp the intricacies of a calendar. Long shot explanations, perhaps, but better than the alternative, which is that the president feels it is perfectly fine to tell absurd lies about this pandemic's cost in lives.
Does he feel it necessary to just invent far fetched hokum for a television audience or is this what he considers his "cheerleading" role? Why would anyone step to the podium and dispense obvious nonsense on national television? He didn't have to volunteer these numbers. Nobody forced him to say it. He just decided, for whatever reason, that Americans needed to hear this. In retrospect, when the pandemic is finally held at bay (perhaps two years from now), his prediction yesterday will stand as brazen delusion or cynical nonchalant lying.
The Model (Singular)
For the last 10 days or so, the front-and-center model has been the University of Washington's version. Evidently the White House has adopted this particular model as its de rigueur projection. The model is convenient in two respects. It artificially truncates the "end of the pandemic" to August 4th, and it projects the lowest number of deaths up until August 4th.
First of all, kiss the 60K fatality projections of this model goodbye, as they were based on stay-at-home and social distancing through the (artificial) August 4th end date. The super-capitalists have jumped the gun and will re-open businesses in some of the worst possible states in a few days. Second, that 60K number did not account for Easter transmission surges, protest transmission bursts, and the overall inanity of a good chunk of the American public.
Sixty thousand was mythic the entire time. The virus isn't going on vacation August 4th. That date was just a MacGuffin. It's true that I'm going out on a prediction limb here. Who am I, a poor, ignorant professional gambler, to argue against President Trump and the University of Washington? It's possible that the fatality figures will drop off a cliff and a miracle occurs. But no, realistically, that is not what's going to happen. That 60K figure was a mirage. And our reality is a long arduous trek.
April 21, 2020
Bob Dietz
