Good News or Bad News?

 The Coronavirus pandemic marches relentlessly onward and how it is addressed varies from one place to the next!

On Monday, hours before Johns Hopkins University recorded the 200,000th confirmed American death from COVID-19, President Trump addressed a mostly maskless crowd of supporters and told them that the coronavirus pandemic "affects virtually nobody!" [sic]

The president, who has been recorded admitting to intentionally playing down the pandemic, stands out among democratically-elected world leaders for his sunny — and frequently misleading — spin on the outbreak. 

By Contrast, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson had a gloomy forecast for his country on Tuesday, announcing that the nation has reached "a perilous turning point" in the resurgence of the virus and that new restrictions on social interaction could "remain in place for perhaps six months," with "significantly greater restrictions" to follow if deemed necessary.

While I'd obviously rather live in a country where the pandemic genuinely affected virtually nobody, we know that isn't true; Johnson's description of his country's second wave, with colder months looming, is far more accurate, and hearing him tell his people the hard truth was, frankly, refreshing. 

On this side of the Atlantic, new models predict that at least another 200,000 Americans could die between now and the end of the year, while the coming flu season could further deplete resources and available hospital beds. Some best estimates — which are included in an impressive new analysis of the months ahead by the health publication STAT — predict life won't go back to any kind of maskless normal until "at least 2022," and that's if a vaccine campaign kicks off in earnest by the start of next year.

Trump, of course, has every reason to try to make things sound better than they are: he has an election to win in November, after all. But experts warn that "attempts to paint a rosier picture of the situation could make it worse," STAT reports." If politicians prematurely declare victory, it sends the message that people no longer need to wear masks or distance from others" — something that is already happening, as evidenced by Trump's guidance-flaunting supporters. 

His administration rarely shares what might be considered bad news, opting instead to claim, in contradiction to CDC testimony, that a vaccine will be ready to distribute by next month. As Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told STAT, "It's really important for leaders not to sugarcoat things when they are not going well." 

Lives depend on it.

The way I see it anyway!