When Republicans spent the entire summer pressuring school systems and universities to reopen without any plans in place to help them mitigate coronavirus infections, that was evidently more than just a scheme to reopen the economy and improve Trump's chances of being reelected.
Documents obtained by the House Oversight Committee show that Trump's White House was explicitly calling on health officials and schools to intentionally infect millions of kids.
Trump's former science advisor Paul Alexander literally said "we want them infected."
“There is no other way, we need to establish herd, and it only comes about allowing the non-high risk groups expose themselves to the virus. PERIOD," then-science adviser Paul Alexander wrote on July 4 to his boss, Health and Human Services assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo, and six other senior officials.
"Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk….so we use them to develop herd…we want them infected…" Alexander added.
"[I]t may be that it will be best if we open up and flood the zone and let the kids and young folk get infected" in order to get "natural immunity…natural exposure," Alexander wrote on July 24 to Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn, Caputo and eight other senior officials. Caputo subsequently asked Alexander to research the idea, according to emails obtained by the House Oversight Committee's select subcommittee on coronavirus.
If the Trump regime's goal was to infect as many people as possible, I suppose we have to say they were successful.
The roots of our current, uncontrolled outbreak of the coronavirus were arguably planted in August and September when congressional Republicans allowed all of our various stimulus measures to expire and reopened schools with no plans or funds in place to help them. Kids were sent back to school and their parents back to work for fear of losing their homes. Many school systems were forced to cease in-person learning in October and November as infections increased. Most college campuses are empty now for the same reason.
Another 3,104 died from COVID-19 yesterday, joining over 300,000 others. The lion's share of these deaths could have been prevented, but the Trump regime took steps to intentionally infect and kill people.
Congressional Republicans are also partially responsible for deaths among their own voters and constituents.