Depending on which counter you use, we had either over 3,000 covid19 deaths yesterday, or just under 3,000 deaths. Either way, it’s a horrific milestone. The CDC’s Redfield is warning we’ll have 450,000 covid19 deaths by February. Given that we’re at 270,000+ now, that means we’d be seeing 60,000 deaths a month between now and then.

This is avoidable. Wearing a fucking mask and social distancing slows and stops the spread. Washing hands stops the spread. Not going to holiday parties where masks are not in sight stops the spread.

But the GOP is intent on making the body count as high as possible. There’s no sane rationale for any of this other than to consider that they are nihilists and don’t care how many die.

I know GOPers will point to the high death tolls in NY, NJ, MA, and CA, but let’s cut through that. Those deaths occurred in the early weeks of the pandemic when little was known about the disease, treatments, and there was a severe lack of tests, ppe, masks, and Trump was blocking aid and support to the states at a critical moment. There were missteps to be sure, but that first wave should have been the clarion call to do everything to avoid the second wave by masking/social distancing to prevent spread.

Not only did GOP states refuse to follow the CDC public health guidance, they’re actively touting their refusal as a badge of honor. They politicized wearing masks and got their addled base to engage in terrorism against Democrats seeking to protect their residents from the spread of a deadly outbreak.

The GOP are irredeemably amoral and corrupt. The states that now see the highest per capita new cases are those where the GOP refuses to follow health expert guidance.

It didn’t have to be this way. A halfway competent national strategy could have minimized the death toll after the initial wave, and kept the cases in check into the fall without having to resort to renewed “lockdowns”. Instead, we’ve become the epicenter of the world’s pandemic and there’s no end in sight because a vaccine doesn’t just stop the pandemic. It takes time - time in which still more will die in the interim.

All the deaths are on Trump and the GOP. All of them. It started with Trump’s nonstop lies and obfuscations about the dangers, their politicization of the masking/social distancing strategies, inciting and enabling right wing domestic terrorists to go after Democrats who want to protect their residents from further spread of the pandemic, and the surge in cases that was avoidable with a reasoned approach.