Donald Trump Rages Over “Death Wish” Of Extended L.A. Stay-At-Home COVID-19 Order

Dominic Patten
·4 min read

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As confirmed cases of the coronavirus continue to grow in Los Angeles County, Donald Trump today crashed right into the region’s attempt to keep the health crisis under control with language straight out of Charles Bronson.

“That’s a death wish,” snapped the former Celebrity Apprentice host of news from last week that the City of Angels and surrounding region could extend its safer-at-home orders until August. “Because there’s death on both sides,” Trump added after using the same term as the title of Bronson’s 1974 vigilante flick in reference to coronavirus and the battered economy during a roundtable at the White House on Monday with restaurant executives.

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Having made a splash this morning at the same meeting by revealing that he has been ingesting the potentially harmful drug hydroxychloroquine for over a week now to warn off COVID-19, a seemingly shocked POTUS was responding to remarks from Napa Valley (AKA not L.A. County) French Laundry owner Thomas Keller.

“It’s not just a one-way street,” Trump went on to say, referring to the “mayor” to the meeting’s participants. “And we solved a big problem, but you have to understand the other side of it too. And they don’t understand the other side of it.”

Of course, it is a bit shocking, or maybe not, that the tough talking Trump hadn’t heard before about the furor caused by LA County Public Health director Dr. Barbara Ferrer last week.

The region’s top medical official told the Board of Supervisors on May 12 that “with all certainty,” the stay-at home order then scheduled to expire on May 15 would be expanded all the way to August. “Our hope is that by using the data, we’d be able to slowly lift restrictions over the next three months,” she further stated in what was the first few days of more retailers and some public spaces being allowed some degree of accessibility like curbside pick-up.

Almost immediately, L.A. politicians from L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti to County Supervisor chair Kathryn Barger promptly sought to dampen the fire of Ferrer’s comments as they raged across the media.

Like an out of sync chorus, they all said that the Public Health director didn’t mean Angelenos would be under lockdown until the summer. They all also proclaimed that in fact Angelenos may be in various stages of lockdown for many, many months and even into next year – further confusing the issue. In the end, the stay-at-home order was extended indefinitely in both the City of L.A. and L.A. County as specific unclenching of the duel lockdowns carried on.

A re-election-seeking Trump has long been a strong advocate of reopening America. A stance he has held to regardless of the expert opinion on the greater health risks in one of the hardest COVID-19 hit nations in the world.

Presently, with most states easing social and economic restrictions, there are over 1.5 million cases of the coronavirus in the USA, with more than 90,000 deaths. As reports of increasing disregard for social distancing and the mandated wearing of masks in L.A. County emerge, officials today in the sunny region have the toll at about 38,500 confirmed cases and around 1,840 dead.

That’s a daily increase of 477 cases and 18 deaths.

However it should also be noted that the beginning of every week sees COVID-19 numbers slip because of a lagging in testing over the weekend. Which is also why come most Wednesdays, those confirmed cases and fatality numbers head swiftly upward in line with a deadly reality.

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