Why Trump is Floundering

The pandemic isn’t like building a residential tower

Today America passed both Italy and China to become the most diseased nation in the Covid-19 world.

The contrast between these two nations could hardly be more stark. China, where the disease originated, has brought it under control. Most of those infected have recovered, and both fresh infections and deaths are minimal.

In America, chaos reigns. The infection isn’t increasing as fast as it might have, but it’s still increasing by 20–30% each day. The trend is upwards, and the blue curve steepens daily.

There is no united plan to conquer the infection, there are contradictory messages coming from different levels of government and different divisions.

The worst part of the nation’s response is that the messages from the very highest level are confusing, variable from day to day, rarely useful, and at worst actively dangerous.

Don Trump is caught between wanting to defeat the disease — he sees himself as a “wartime president” leading the scientists and doctors — and restoring the crackling economy that he sees as key to re-election in November.

It is entirely possible that he will urge Americans out of isolation, back to work, and back to increasing the spread of infection and death.

Reaching for the sky

Don Trump, as a New York real estate developer, is used to building skyscrapers. No matter how tall or gold-plated, they all follow a similar model.

They build on a broad base, and are constructed one floor at a time, first the frame, then the concrete, then the cladding, finally the interior fitout and services.

As the building rises, it usually (but not always) becomes more slender, reducing the cumulative load and wind resistance.

And then it stops. The builders call it “topping out” and mark the occasion with a celebration as they complete the tallest part of the structure.

Beneath them, the various construction and fitout crews are climbing their way up, a floor at a time, but the building is as tall as it is ever going to be.

My guess is that Don Trump sees the disease as progressing like a skyscraper. It builds steadily up, narrows, and stops with a celebration.

In fact, the annual flu strain is very much like this. Its trajectory is predictable over the course of a winter, and then it slows and stops. Break out the bubbles.

But Covid-19 is not a skyscraper

For one thing, there is no vaccine. The annual flu is a balance between contagion and vaccination. If everyone receives a vaccination, there is no flu. The defence is available ahead of time, and with a little forethought and community action, it is not a huge problem. Thousands and indeed tens of thousands may die over the course of a season, but the thing doesn’t rampage out of control in the way that (say) the Spanish Influenza did in the First World War.

Without a vaccine, the whole world is a petri dish of infection, spreading outwards in rings from each fresh patient. On average, each infected person spreads the disease to three healthy people, who in turn pass on the virus to nine, and then twenty-seven people every few days.

If conditions are crowded and people take no precautions, such as wearing facemasks, or washing their hands, then the number can be higher.

If strict restrictions are imposed, then perhaps the number infected at each stage drops below one, and the disease gradually dies out.

At the moment, China and a few other well-administered nations have controlled the spread. Freshly infected patients are identified, sequestered, and prevented from infecting others. This involves a lot of testing, and tracing of contacts, and isolation.

Other nations have not taken such drastic steps. Lockdowns are not in place overall, testing and close monitoring not universal, and in the time between infection and identification, the disease spreads.

It is an exponential spread. If Covid-19 were a skyscraper, the first day, one floor would rise. The second, a floor and a third. The third day, two new floors are added. The fourth, three new floors, and so on.

Instead of addition, multiplication is in effect. The building grows taller faster each day, doubling in height every two days, shooting up at an increasing rate until hundreds of floors are added, then thousands, and finally the building reaches above the atmosphere and stops only when the supply of building supplies — or new patients — is exhausted.

It is a rocket.

Trump doesn’t understand

Clearly Don Trump doesn’t see the reality. Every day in America there are a third as many infected, with dead to match. It is not a steady increase, able to be stopped at any point, but a runaway progression, controlled only with increasing difficulty.

Every day that passes, the task is harder. As soon as the number of new cases overflows the medical facilities available, the task becomes many times more difficult.

America is reaching that point, but its leader imagines that the disease is reaching a topping-out point.

My new prediction

By the end of the month, the total number of Covid-19 cases in America will be approaching a quarter of a million, and the number of dead will exceed the number in China.

I shall keep posting my numbers and graph. As ever, it is my fervent hope that the curve will slow and stop — as did China’s — but I cannot yet see any indication that the measures taken are effective enough to do this.

Britni

Britni Pepper writes for Kindle Direct Publishing. She runs a blog where she reviews erotica, and rambles on about this and that. She may be reached on Twitter and Facebook.

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