Earlier today President Trump held a press briefing including members of the Corona-Task Force regarding the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and actions being taken by the American government to provide citizens with a means of medical combat. During this briefing, President Trump focused initially on efforts made to bring home Americans who have been held hostage abroad rather than the COVID-19 outbreak, stating –
“The United States has no higher priority than the safety and well being of our citizens, we’ve gotten a tremendous number of hostages out as you know”. Not to belittle the importance of the effort being made by the American government on the issue of foreignly imprisoned Americans, but the relevance of this topic at a press briefing about COVID-19 and the efforts being made to find a treatment for it are unclear.
While headway is, in fact, being made in the efforts to provide a safe treatment for this virus to the public, the question remains…Where was this sense of urgency when the outbreak began months ago? With the first case being detected mid-December of 2019 and the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) not declaring a public health emergency until January 31st, more than a month later.
Once President Trump had moved past boasting his progress with foreignly detained American citizens, he began on the topic of COVID-19 with this statement –
“It’s too bad because we’ve never had an economy as good as the economy we had just a few weeks ago”. Solidifying the speculation that President Trump does not have his priorities aligned with those of the average American, and may instead be more concerned with his chances at re-election.
