The Regime Goes Viral

The message from the White House on 50,000 new COVID-19 cases per day: you're on your own, learn to live with it.

After several months of mixed messages on the coronavirus pandemic, the White House is settling on a new one: Learn to live with it. 

Administration officials are planning to intensify what they hope is a sharper, and less conflicting, message of the pandemic next week, according to senior administration officials, after struggling to offer clear directives amid a crippling surge in cases across the country. On Thursday, the United States reported more than 55,000 new cases of coronavirus and infection rates were hitting new records in multiple states.

At the crux of the message, officials said, is a recognition by the White House that the virus is not going away any time soon — and will be around through the November election. 

As a result, President Donald Trump's top advisers plan to argue, the country must figure out how to press forward despite it. Therapeutic drugs will be showcased as a key component for doing that and the White House will increasingly emphasize the relatively low risk most Americans have of dying from the virus, officials said.

So after months of calling the virus a hoax, the Trump regime now says "Oh well, the virus is here, get back to work, school, church and play."

Eager to move forward and reopen the economy amid a recession and a looming presidential election, the White House is now pushing acceptance. 

"The virus is with us, but we need to live with it," is how one official said the administration plans to message on the pandemic. 

As often is the case with plans crafted for Trump by his aides, the question hanging over this effort is whether he will stick to the script. Trump said this week that he's "all for masks," after months of resisting pressure for him to embrace face coverings. Yet in that same interview with Fox Business on Wednesday, the president said the virus will "just disappear, I hope." 

That's not the message senior administration officials said they're preparing, and some of the president's allies have cringed when he's talked in the past about the virus disappearing, only to then see it further spread. 

Next week administration officials plan to promote a new study they say shows promising results on therapeutics, the officials said. They wouldn't describe the study in any further detail because, they said, its disclosure would be "market-moving." 

Officials also plan to emphasize high survival rates, particularly for Americans who are within certain age groups and don't have underlying conditions. The overall death rate from COVID-19 in the U.S. has been on the decline. More than 130,000 Americans have died of the virus. 

Trump is expected to be briefed by Dr. Deborah Birx, one of the most visible members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, before Monday on her assessment of new hot spots that she's visited this week, including what governors have said they need and how the new surge is affecting minority communities, officials said. Birx was in Florida, Texas and Arizona this week.

Accept that we're not going to lift a finger to help you and your family, accept that people you know are going to die from the virus, and accept that you and your loved ones will need to take risks we've determined as acceptable.

Rent's due.

Put on a mask or don't, we don't care.  But get back to work or you're out on the streets.  Good luck avoiding COVID-19 then.

Accept it.

You don't have much of a choice, now do you?