The US just hit its third highest ever peak of new coronavirus cases,
multiple states are registering their own daily records and three are now taking the extraordinary step of imposing quarantines for citizens from pandemic hotspots. The world's most powerful nation lacks a coherent national strategy to meet another cresting viral crisis, the capacity or even the willingness to take steps that might stop it.
It is also led by a man who is suggesting by his actions and attitudes that he doesn't care that much about the unfolding tragedy.
Trump, who has previously predicted a "miracle" would occur or the virus would just disappear in the warmer weather, again declared falsely Wednesday that the danger had passed -- even with the nation racing towards another deadly summit of infection. In his latest misleading effort to create a picture of normality,
Trump welcomed Polish President Andrzej Duda to the Oval Office.
"This is the first after Covid, after the start of the plague as I call it," Trump told his visitor, who was happy to play along after being given a huge political gift of a visit a few days before a national election and approvingly noted "the end of the coronavirus."
But the coronavirus pandemic in the United States is like watching a "public health train wreck in slow motion," said Dr. David Blumenthal, president of The Commonwealth Fund, in an Alliance for Health Policy and Commonwealth Fund webinar on Wednesday.
"It can be frustrating and perplexing," he added. "But now is the time to stop dwelling on the past and to start looking forward, and to ask ourselves how we can seize the moment, learn from experience and make things better."
Instead, the President's attitude appears to have crossed into callous indifference.
Trump has long denied the worsening situation over his failed gamble of pushing for aggressive state openings to revive the economy on which his reelection hopes may depend. He has constantly flouted guidance on mask wearing and social distancing, insisted on being pretty much the only entity in the Western world holding indoor events that
risk turning into deadly super-spreaders and has failed to hardly ever mention the victims of the pandemic.
His behavior has brought about the extraordinary spectacle of a President running for a second term ignoring a massive national crisis that has killed tens of thousands of Americans and has no end in sight.
Trump reached for his familiar tactics of distraction on Wednesday, all but accusing Democrats of supporting unidentified demonstrators who he said want to haul down statues of Jesus Christ, as he stepped up they culture war tactics he adopted during the nation's national reckoning on race.
In a Wednesday news conference, Trump largely ignored the huge and worsening national crisis. But he delivered his latest evidence-free prediction of stunning medical advances on vaccines and therapeutics not yet supported by any evidence.
"I think you're going to have a big surprise, a beautiful surprise, sooner than anybody would think."
Vice President Mike Pence, the head of the White House coronavirus task force who hasn't held a public briefing with top health officials in weeks, apparently sought to spin the situation when he traveled up to Capitol Hill for lunch with Republican senators.
South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said Pence mentioned lowered mortality rates from the virus and said that the provision of emergency protective equipment in hospitals was in good shape.
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