Knew This Was Coming

Republicans (The Pro Life Party!) are rushing to open the economy before we are ready to do so.  We know that there is not enough testing in place and basically no tracking apparatus, even if we had the testing. We are flying blind with a national government that doesn't give a shit.

As some places re-open we have every reason to expect that cases and deaths will increase. There is a non-zero chance that we won't see a huge case, except in other tightly packed urban areas like NYC.  And since those people are mostly Democrats, the GOP is fine with them dying. But the most likely thing we will see is a spike in cases across the red states that are re-opening.

How will the GOP spin this? A supermajority of Americans don't want to rush to re-open the economy before it's safe to do so, and if we see a huge second wave of deaths, the blame will fall on the GOP and the economic recovery won't happen.  What will the GOP do?

Lie about the numbers. We know Trump admires dictators like Putin and Xi, and they are almost certainly lying about their numbers, so why not do that here? It will take sustained attention from the media to force various government entities to be transparent. The GOP death cult has a powerful incentive to undercount the numbers, even if most epidemiologists believe we are dramatically UNDER counting the current Covid-19 death toll.

The problem is that while statistics are somewhat important, narratives are more important.  If 10 people in your small town die, and you know two of them, it's a failed pandemic response. If 100 people in the next state die and you don't know any of them...well, that's sad I guess. It's when the local news starts showing freezer trucks being used to haul away the dead that no amount of spin from DC will make an impact on people.

Trump has always believed he can bullshit his way through unflattering facts.  The virus doesn't give a shit about his bullshit.

UPDATE: Martin Longman posits how the current outbreak in the White House itself would normally be a wake-up call, but with this crew....