Hospitalizations and COVID-19 outbreaks increase in at least five cities following Trump rallies

Trump events are being called superspreader events as states see increases in the days following the events. According to USA Today, more than 120,000 people have attended Trump campaign events in the past nine weeks. While it’s impossible to confirm whether the rallies were a direct source of infection, the trend of cases following Trump rallies seems like no coincidence. Contact tracing can determine if someone who later developed symptoms was at the rally, but not if they acquired an infection from it.

The only break Trump took from continuing his rallies since August was for his own COVID-19 diagnosis. Despite Trump’s diagnosis, his events practice no social distancing and photos of them depict barely a mask in sight. Additionally, Pence continues to campaign and meet with large crowds despite having been in close contact with individuals confirmed to have COVID-19. Did he quarantine at all per recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)? No, of course not.

How can we expect the Trump administration to protect the American people from this pandemic when they refuse to protect themselves? The White House has no plan and has openly expressed its lack of concern for one. “We’re not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics,” White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.

Trump ignorantly maintains that the reason the U.S. is seeing a rise in cases is because we are testing more. “If we did half the testing, we’d have half the cases,” he said during a rally in Wisconsin. But COVID-19 is not something that will just go away if we ignore it—it’s a deadly virus that has not only increased in the number of infections but in hospitalizations nationwide. According to The COVID Tracking Project, coronavirus hospitalizations are up more than 33% over the last month. Yet these numbers mean nothing to Trump, who continues to tweet and rant that COVID-19 is not that serious.

“That’s all I hear about now. Turn on television, ‘Covid, Covid, Covid Covid Covid.’ A plane goes down, 500 people dead, they don’t talk about it. ‘Covid Covid Covid Covid.’ By the way, on November 4, you won’t hear about it anymore,” Trump said during a rally in North Carolina, according to Vox. He later reiterated the statement almost identically in Ohio—and let’s not forget his favorite spot, Twitter.

Trump’s inability to address the virus as the president is one thing, but consistently encouraging his supporters to not follow safety measures is beyond irresponsible.

The CDC has put campaign rallies under the “highest risk” category for COVID-19 spread. According to the Center for American Progress, rallies in Pennsylvania, Florida, and North Carolina ignored CDC recommendations including social distancing and mask-wearing, and even violated some local and state restrictions on gathering. To the Trump administration, however, the spread of the coronavirus is not as important as campaigning. “It’s a trade-off between doing what’s right for public health or what benefits re-election,” Todd Belt, professor and director of the Political Management Program at The George Washington University, told USA Today. “And over and over, the greater concern for this White House is re-election.”

First published on Daily Kos.