At his political rally in Tulsa last Saturday, Trump said he wants to reduce testing for COVID-19. In his speech, he said, “You know testing is a double-edged sword. Here’s the bad part … when you do [a lot of] testing…, you’re going to find more people; you’re going to find more cases. So I said to my people, slow the testing down please.” What’s the consequence of us not knowing who has it? Deaths!
Just the day before, Tyson Foods said that it was investigating an announcement from China that it was suspending imports of chicken from a Tyson plant in Arkansas. Tyson said that it had tested employees at the plant for COVID-19 and that, of 3,748 tested, 481 tested positive! That’s about 13 percent.
Tyson said that the virus couldn’t be transmitted to China through the chicken. But that’s not the point. A large part of its workforce is sick and facing the risk of death!
Tyson also said that 455 of the 481 infected workers showed no symptoms. So, with less testing, the virus would have been almost undetected.
Apparently, that’s what Trump wants. He doesn’t care if people get preventable disease on his watch; he just hopes that nobody notices. He wouldn’t want it to hurt his reputation.
featured image credit: NBC News
