"The talk of the world"

The New York Times obtained a recording of Trump bragging to governors that America's response to coronavirus will be "the talk of the world," and not just "perfect" or "amazing" like everything else we have endured for three years.  Also, he knew all along it would be a pandemic and not:

"Totally under control...it was one person coming in from China"  (January 22)

"One day -- it's like a miracle -- it will disappear" (February 27)

"I'm not concerned at all"  (March 7)

"So it could be right in that period of time where it, I say wash -- it washes through.  Other people don't like that term.  But where it washes through."  (yesterday)

As of this morning, COVID-19 had washed through 5,010 Americans and killed 97 of us.  Its psychological and economic effect on the rest of us is beyond reckoning right now.  But it's safe to say the response is already the talk of the world, or would be if the world weren't busy dealing with its own sick and dying.  And there is still no widely available testing procedure -- not enough kits, not enough labs, not enough public health doctors and nurses.

The world's response so far has been, frankly, pity.  Half a million test kits and masks were donated by the Jack Ha Foundation (founder of the Chinese retailer Alibaba).  So far Jeff Bezos, the American Jack Ha, has been MIA.  Another half-million are promised by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  We're a charity case; it's a matter of time before Medicins sans Frontieres shows up to pitch tents in Central Park.
 
Congress is on it, though.  The Senate will almost certainly vote on HR 6201 some time this week, while considering other proposals to give us a little cash.  Voters like cash.  And is Trump on it?  (No, not the twitter throne -- he comes out every day with his posse of experts and faces down those "nasty" reporters.)  He most certainly is.  He's still calling it "Chinese virus" like when he had to explain to "Andrew" (Cuomo) why there's no COVID-19  in West Virginia:  NO CHINESE PEOPLE.  Unlike New York, which is overrun with them.  He also had to instruct lady-governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan that she must "work harder and be much more proactive."  Of course, everyone in West Virginia could have the virus and no one would know.  See how that no-testing thing works?

And why was the Leader so late to the party?  Jared!  Who put this guy in charge?  Jared said it was all a public relations problem.  What is he, an epidemiologist?  Jared told him everything would be fine after he read that eye chart Teleprompter speech, one of the greatest speeches, and it wasn't.  Jared flies all over the place doing deals with Prince Mohammed and fixing the Middle East, wait, maybe he brought back the Chinese Virus.  He's not Chinese but Fred always said don't trust the -- I'll bet this is why we still have an opioid problem.  JARED IS THE DEEP-STATE SON-IN-LAW!

Problem solved.  Arrange a rally in Wheeling, chop chop.  Hey, me talkee Chinee!


Sorry.  Anybody else have a pounding headache?  The death toll just hit one hundred.  If you want to see the future, Italy has been employing triage for days, with people over eighty more or less being allowed to die.  Satellite photos show mass graves in Iran, which seems excessive for the five hundred dead they will admit to.  As for North Korea, with its obsessive secretiveness and its extensive interactions with China, who has any bloody idea?  Greenland reported its first case yesterday.  As the ancestors sang, there's no hiding place down there.

Sarah Palin may finally get her death panels.