The 39-year-old woman above was named Natasha Ott, and she broke my heart.
After daily being consumed by articles and tweets about the sociopathic behavior of Donald Trump and the coming tsunami of Coronavirus infection and death, I came across an article from NOLA.com (New Orleans) about how Ott died of what appears to be COVID-19 on March 19. She felt symptoms on Monday, March 10, but out of concern for others she chose not to use up one of only 5 test kits that her medical clinic employer had. A little more than a week later she was dead of pulmonary failure.
As I daily read how Donald Trump continues to light a flame under the Coronavirus wildfire, I, like you, am stricken with a sense of helplessness and dread for what is to come.
Trump appears to malevolently and sociopathicly only take actions that exacerbate the spread of the virus, going back to January when he could have gotten World Health Organization test kits and slowed down the spread of the virus. NPR has documented that he didn't want "the numbers [of infected]" people to go up because it might spook the stock market and hurt his re-election. To this day, he is still making sure testing is rationed only to those with full-blown symptoms and shortages are still reported around the nation.This means the "spreaders" (those infected but without symptoms) will continue to transmit the virus undetected.
Trump has responded to the dire need of front line healthcare workers who are becoming infected by the lack of adequate supplies of protective personal equipment, medical supplies (and respirators to save the most seriously ill CV patients) with indifference at best, but actually calculated cruelty and the casual infliction of what amounts to be death sentences. He has told healthcare workers to wash and reuse their masks, or relegate them to using bandanas. He has told governors to find their own respirators, and then bid against them because he thinks companies should make a good profit.
This is a diabolically sick man. He has also refused to force industry to convert to making much-needed medical equipment such as respirators, by not using the Defense Production Act to make them retool as they did in war time. Why? Because even though COVID-19 is spreading at a rate comparable to Italy, he wants companies to make a profit.
The big three auto companies just shuttered their plants for now. All he has to do is ask.
The HuffPost this week ran a commentary, "I’m A Doctor. The US Response To Coronavirus Has Been Nothing Short Of Criminal. With every crucial delay, with every blunder and misstep, the toll is going to be measured in lives lost.” Dr. Dipti S. Barot wrote, "my colleagues are marching into war with plastic water guns and papier-mâché bombs, lambs to the COVID-19 slaughter." Trump is leading the lambs to the slaughter, ill-equipped and with an unnecessary wave of infections that probably could have been kept somewhat level with planning and test kits.
On March 20, BuzzFlash ran a commentary, "The Fatalistic View From an ER Nurse on What's Ahead."
She wrote, resigned to her fate:
"We're going to get infected, we're going to die and get ICUed at a rate a few times above other subgroups, we're going to charge in without the resources or support we need to do our jobs.
It's just what we do. It's not like we're going to stop… especially now.
I have made a strange sort-of peace with it, because nobody cares. Oh, I mean- some people care. You probably do, reading this. But you can’t use the Defense Production Act to turn around in an emergency and make enough PPE to protect us."
Like most Americans I worry about the health of those around me, but I do not have the courage of these healthcare providers, their sheer determination to do service to try and save lives.
Soon enough, I come across another indication that Trump is determined not to do anything to prevent the CV surge from becoming a tsunami, and I am angry. I am angry that the elites, particularly the media, are doing nothing to express the outrage that Trump, unfit for office due to a sociopathology that is unrelenting and his diversionary hold on the DC press corps, should immediately be removed from the White House.
No, there is no legal option now and self-quarantining and shelter-in-place laws make us the perfect prey of Trump achieving his authoritarian dream, but the relative silence in the face of Trump's lethal inaction, the media amplification of his disinformation, the numbed and fatalistic response of the lambs, us, makes me feel as though there is no leadership to dislodge Trump -- and that the only tool we have is massive outrage, the media finally deciding not to be his megaphone and calling for his resignation, and the combined sense of community Americans are showing in the face of a complete societal and economic implosion. It is Stephen Bannon's dream, with which Trump agrees, the destruction of the American administrative state.
I think of a front line nurse trying to save the life of a Coronavirus patient with only a bandana or reused mask as he or she knows that they will become infected. I think of Natasha Ott who may have lost her life because there were too few COVID-19 test kits, by Trump's heinous design. I think that there are still too few test kits and spreaders are still increasing infections, and I take a deep breath and wonder if I truly am in a nightmare.
Buzzflash is thankful for its community of readers and commentary writers. You are a solace in these darkest of times. You are also the force of national community that can rise up against Trump, in anyway possible.
The exuberant face of Natasha Ott will be with me these coming weeks and so will you , as the Coronavirus cases exponentially increase. In this community, may we find comfort amidst our worst fears, and the will to act to replace Donald Trump with decisive, informed, and committed leadership
