Paul Krugman Pinpoints The Day America Started Losing War Against Coronavirus

Lee Moran
Updated ·2 min read

Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman thinks he knows the exact date the United States began losing its war against the coronavirus.

In his latest editorial for The New York Times published Monday, Krugman argued April 17 was the critical moment ― when President Donald Trump “declared White House support for protesters demanding an end to the lockdowns governors had instituted to bring Covid-19 under control” with these tweets:

Krugman noted how “the Democratic governors Trump was targeting” in the posts “stood firm” but their GOP counterparts “in Arizona, Florida, Texas and elsewhere” took their cues from the president to lift stay-at-home orders, largely without enforcing measures aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19.

“Trump’s willingness to trade deaths for jobs and political gain has backfired,” suggested Krugman.

America’s defeat “at the hands of the coronavirus didn’t happen because victory was impossible,” he added. “Nor was it because we as a nation were incapable of responding.”

“No, we lost because Trump and those around him decided that it was in their political interests to let the virus run wild,” Krugman concluded.

Read Krugman’s full editorial here.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.