What Lies Beneath

There’s nothing left at the grocery store

I can’t find bok choy no more

There’s just white people things

Like pasta, cheese and corn

Where the hell’s the rice?

Why’s it three times the price?

Hong Kong singer/dancer Kathy Mak’s viral video parody of “Torn”

As Donald Trump makes up facts faster than an improv comedian on speed, COVID-19 is taking lives and having its way with global business. What is happening overseas has a dramatic impact here in the good old USA. If the fear factor that is leading to a roiling litany of stay-at-home consumers does not stop – travel and shipping restrictions, major commercial events shutting down (SXSW is just the latest), businesses sending workers home, schools closing (parts of Seattle are on that list), government regulations are keeping people off the streets and closing factories around the world – the rippling slam to the global economy just might sputter into a sustained recession.

The out-and-out lies from the Trump administration, his desire to contain and censor the Centers for Disease Control, have made the fear factor here so much worse. A lack of transparency, a virtual certain knowing, even among his base, that Trump is lying, has only amplified fear. Just about everything that passes through his lips on topic are total fabrications, intended to assure Americans (they have the opposite effect) and restart the stock market rise – see my March 5^th Politicizing an Epidemic blog – which even he sees as a necessary precondition for his reelection.

The imminent supply of a million-unit order of COVID-19 test kits pledged by Trump is hopelessly behind schedule with just a few thousand trickling in. Even high-ranking Republicans are frustrated with Trump’s false rhetoric. “‘There won’t be a million people to get a test by the end of the week,’ Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida said in Washington Thursday [3/5]. ‘It’s way smaller than that. And still, at this point, it’s still through public-health departments.’

“Scott and other lawmakers said the government is ‘in the process’ of sending test kits out and people still need to be trained on how to use them. The entire process could take days or weeks, they said.” Bloomberg, March 5^th. What’s makes even that one million order even less effective is that purportedly infected individuals must be tested several times in order properly to track the spread of the virus. Even if that million-unit number were generated, it’s still not enough.

But Donald Trump keeps trying to use hollow and insincere words, attempting to minimize the risk of the spread of the virus, to allay growing fears. Americans need facts they know the Trump administration is trying to stop. He continuously contradicts his own experts, even at press presentations where he and those experts both appear. Everyone knows the President is lying. “During a news conference at the White House last week, multiple health officials warned that the virus will continue to spread throughout the U.S… Senior CDC career official Anne Schuchat said at the press conference that ‘we do expect more cases and this is a good time to prepare’ and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar also said that the U.S. should expect to see more cases.

“But Trump has repeatedly downplayed the potential for the coronavirus to spread throughout the U.S., even suggesting without scientific evidence that the number of cases would soon decrease… At the same news conference, Trump said that the number of cases ‘within a couple of days, is going to be down to close to zero. That’s a pretty good job we’ve done…. We’re going very substantially down, not up,’ Trump added.

“During a coronavirus roundtable with his task force and heads of pharmaceutical companies on Monday, Trump appeared to suggest that a vaccine for the coronavirus could be just a few months away…. ‘I don't know what the time will be. I've heard very quick numbers, that of months. And I've heard pretty much a year would be an outside number. So, I think that's not a bad range. But if you're talking about three to four months in a couple of cases, a year in other cases,’ Trump said.

“Dr. Antony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, corrected Trump at the roundtable, explaining to the president that it would be more than a year by the time a vaccine was developed and tested and ‘deployable’ for public use.” NBCNews.com, March 6^th. Imagine an untested, premature vaccine released to the public with a hidden side effect that kills a million people. There is a very good reason the FDA requires drug testing!

Even woefully underqualified and science skeptic, Trump’s appointed COVID-19 Tsar VP Mike Pence, has repeatedly “cleaned up” the rolling Presidential misstatements on the virus: “Friday [3/6] evening found Vice President Pence in an uncommon and uncomfortable position: Having to downplay and contradict assertions made by his boss. It proved a delicate act for Pence, who has become the face of the administration’s coronavirus response, and who has sought to project an aura of steely confidence.” Yahoo News, March 7^th. Contractions about test kits, the extent of the virus, acknowledging it is surging, etc. Could this virus be The Donald’s Waterloo? Truth and Donald Trump have never been so very far apart… and that is quite a statement.

What is really troubling Trump is the impact on business, where he has had visible strength amount the electorate. He obviously doesn’t care about those exposed to the virus. And nothing illustrates the long-term economic damage, the recession that just might be precipitated by COVID-19, than looking at the Port of Los Angeles, the largest commercial harbor on the West Coast. As if the recent tariff wars with China were not bad enough: “On a bright morning early this week, Eugene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, gazed through the big picture window of his office at the sprawling docks below… Where he would normally see as many as a dozen ships in the harbor with giant cranes hoisting one container of goods after another, just four had docked… ‘it’s very quiet,’ he said.

“The nation’s largest port is hurting. That may be a leading indicator of the pain that’s in store for Southern California and the U.S. economy as businesses hunker down to deal with the rapidly expanding coronavirus.

“Many American companies had bulked up inventories last year in advance of the Trump administration’s steep tariffs on Chinese imports, and have plenty of goods on hand. But they could soon face serious consequences: a dearth of crucial parts for American factories, shortages of consumer products on store shelves and less demand for U.S. exports.

“Trade with China normally accounts for roughly half of the containerized goods flowing through the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Now, with Chinese factories operating at about 40% of capacity, business at the San Pedro Bay complex is dwindling. The two ports project a 15% to 17% plunge in cargo volumes in the first quarter of this year, as compared with the first three months of 2019 — a drop of more than 500,000 container units.

“Imports usually slow around the Chinese New Year, but shippers have canceled 60 vessel sailings for the first quarter of this year —nearly twice the normal number. The 12 terminals across the two ports have been shutting down for days at a time…

“Weston LaBar, chief executive of the Harbor Trucking Association, a trade group for about 100 large drayage companies, estimates “business is down 60 to 70% for the last week of February and into March. The coronavirus has already cost our industry millions upon millions of dollars in lost productivity and administrative costs.”

“Terminal closures mean truckers can’t return empty containers and chassis, the flat steel beds they sit on. “Every terminal has an appointment system that regulates what containers you pick up and drop off,” Labar said. “If your appointments are at a closed terminal, then you can’t operate.”

“Trucking companies are being charged daily fees for late returns, leading to fights with ocean carriers and customers over who should pay. ‘They’re facing six- and seven-figure equipment bills,’ he added. ‘Everything is going downhill. The longer this goes on, certain companies may go out of business.’” Margot Roosevelt writing for the March 7^th Los Angeles Times. Dockworkers and truckers have watched their income simply disappear.

We are all concerned with the health and safety of Americans, to keep us safe from a virus that may be survivable by most. But we are faced with an administration that cut the budget for pandemic preparation (and no, Donald, you did this, not Obama as you have claimed) and does not seem to know how to deal with a real crisis. Lies might work for some people, but there comes a time when they catch up to you.

              I’m Peter Dekom, and while we will get through this debacle, wouldn’t it have been nice to have a government able to deal with this crisis and contain its obvious effects?