Month: March 2020

DeSantis Aligns with Trump on Coronavirus

Buck Banks

“That is the dumbest shit I have heard in a long time. This is a day-by-day crisis. Italy damn near saw 1,000 people die in one day, and there are people proclaiming we got this and have it solved in 15 days?”

— Florida state Sen. Oscar Brayon (D). “While New York, California and other states shutter their economies to keep the coronavirus at bay, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is refusing to follow the herd,” Politico reports.“His cure-can’t-be-worse-than-the-disease approach has put the Republican governor under a glaring spotlight locally and nationally as cases of the virus in Florida surge past 1,400.”

Maybe God Will Protect Them

Buck Banks

“I think we have a responsibility to our students — who paid to be here, who want to be here, who love it here — to give them the ability to be with their friends, to continue their studies, enjoy the room and board they’ve already paid for and to not interrupt their college life.”

— Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr.“As the coronavirus threatens to spread across the Lynchburg region, Liberty University officials are preparing to welcome back up to 5,000 students from spring break this week,” the Lynchburg News & Advance reports.

Communities Are Competing for Ventilators

Buck Banks

“We’re not going to give away our supply chains right now because it is that competitive.”

— County Executive Ryan McMahon (R), the top official in New York’s Onondaga County, said he had acquired 60 ventilators to be on hand when desperately ill patients with COVID-19 need help breathing, but he won’t say where he got them, the Syracuse Post-Standard reports.

Mixed Signals on the Coronavirus Fight

Buck Banks

57%

A new CBS News poll finds 57% of Americans say the nation’s efforts to combat the coronavirus are going badly right now, most call it a crisis and see a months-long process before it is contained. But this is curious: 53% say President Trump is doing a good job handling the outbreak, and 54% are optimistic about his administration’s ability to handle it from here, though 66% also feel the Trump administration was not prepared to deal with it when it started.

The Pandemic Is Accelerating

Buck Banks

350,000

“The coronavirus pandemic that’s spread to nearly every country in the world is picking up pace, the World Health Organization said Monday, as global cases eclipsed 350,000 and deaths soared past 15,000,” CNBC reports. Reuters reports the WHO was seeing a “very large acceleration” in coronavirus infections in the United States which had the potential of becoming the new epicenter.

We Need More Texans Who Are Prepared to Die for the Economy

Buck Banks

“No one reached out to me and said, ‘As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?’ And if that’s the exchange, I’m all in. … I want to, you know, live smart and see through this, but I don’t want to see the whole country to be sacrificed, and that’s what I see.”

— Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R), chiming in to support President Trump’s new focus on the economy over fierce warnings from public health officials, suggested that he would rather die from the rapid spread of coronavirus than see instability in the American economic system, theTexas Tribune reports.