Trump Needs To Stop His Jim Jones Coronavirus Rallies

How many people have to get sick?

Last month, Donald Trump held a few all-you-can-infect COVID-19 superspreader events in Minnesota. It was a bad idea, so of course the president was all for it. Now, at least two dozen people have contracted the coronavirus after attending Trump's hate rallies, according to state health officials. Two were hospitalized and one remains in the intensive care unit. It's as if COVID-19 is dominating their lives. 

Don't worry, even if these unfortunate Trump supporters failed to sign their 'rona waiver, the president still has plausible deniability.

 Politico reported on this case last week, and the situation has worsened since then.

Doug Schultz, a Minnesota Department of Health spokesman, said in an email that the department cannot say definitively that the infections were acquired at [a rally in Bemidji, Minnesota] , due to widespread community transmission of the disease — "only that they attended the rally during the time when they were likely to have been exposed to the virus that made them ill (i.e. 14 days prior to illness onset)."

At least one person was likely infectious while at the rally, the department said.

That's the one upside of the president bungling the nation's COVID-19 response. The virus is still spreading unchecked, and our testing and tracing program is so lousy no one could ever definitively prove that Trump is personally making America sick again.

"As Joe Biden has said, the presidency is the duty to care," Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said. "Donald Trump has utterly failed in that duty, lying about this deadly threat to the American people from the very beginning while mismanaging the response — and willingly exposing his own supporters to the pandemic for his own optical gratification."

Look, Trump is bored and can only truly enjoy presidenting when he's performing his stale racist Borscht Belt act in front of a packed audience of dummies, most of whom might even survive the experience. Democrats want to drain all the fun and danger from life. It's not like he's randomly firing a gun into the crowd for kicks ... although we shouldn't give him ideas.

By the way, the Bemidji rally is where Trump praised the mostly white audience's “good genes." Looks like they weren't quite good enough.

At least four of the cases are connected to people who showed up to protest Trump's Bemidji rally. I'm all for hating on Trump, but I also support staying alive to vote against him. The best way to achieve this is staying far, far away from his rallies where everyone's packed together and few people are wearing masks, except for the Responsible Adult Extras placed prominently behind Trump while he's ranting.

According to Kris Ehresmann, the state's infectious disease director, three people who attended Trump's triumphant post-debate rally in Duluth on September 30 later tested positive, as well as three people who attended a rally Vice President Mike Pence headlined at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on September 24. One person was present at both events, which is just sad. It's like literally traveling with the Dead.

Health officials trace at least two infections to Joe Biden events, and while the former vice president takes every precaution, as Trump likes to mock, this speaks to how dangerous this disease is. Keep it virtual, Joe! Don't let conservative deadheads lure you out of the basement, where you're safe and kicking Trump's ass.

Minnesota's coronavirus cases and deaths are trending upward. The state reported 1,537 new infections, a record high. Two campaign staffers for Republican Rep. Tom Emmer recently tested positive and are in quarantine.

This virus is no joke, although our so-called president is a bad one.

Now it is your OPEN THREAD.

[ The New York Times / Politico ]

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