It is plainly obvious why the U.S. is experiencing a second wave. The point of coronavirus lockdowns, as I and dozens of others
explained months ago, was to buy time for the government to set up more fine-grained containment protocols that could contain the virus more effectively. With transmission reduced to a manageable rate and a test-trace-isolate system in place, countries can return to something like normal life, and an increasing number are doing so. It's a tricky business and renewed lockdowns may be necessary, as fresh outbreaks
in China and elsewhere have shown, but it can be done.
But the Trump administration did not even try this on a national level, or do
anything of significance. Indeed, American politics is so broken that we couldn't even manage the simplest common-sense containment strategy of mandating universal mask-wearing in any indoor space. American public health experts spent weeks on a
bizarre and scientifically illiterate crusade against masks —
a study years ago found that even cheap homemade masks significantly reduce droplet-based infection — but even after plenty of
new evidence has
come in, Trump and most Republicans
keep insisting a mask is a matter of personal choice. Instead masks got sucked into the
conservative grievance industrial complex, becoming another postmodern cultural signifier for right-wingers trying to own the libs.
Trump simply cannot grasp what the pandemic is, because in his mind nobody save himself is a real person.
Appearances are all that matter — he is plainly most upset about the Bad Numbers of infections and deaths, and
continues to suggest in public that the U.S. should be testing less so he looks less bad.
He promises there will be no more lockdowns even as cases spike
