Washington, DC – Anger is rising over the incompetent response of the Trump administration to the COVID-19 pandemic leading protesters to lay body bags in front of the Trump International Hotel on April 23, 2020.
The Trump administration and the federal government’s response to the virus has been horrendous. The US now leads the world in deaths and confirmed cases of the disease. This weekend, the US will break one million confirmed cases and today surpassed 50,000 deaths.
The US public health system is inadequate, resulting in the economy having to be shut down in order to reduce the spread of the virus. This has triggered an economic collapse with 26 million people becoming unemployed in the last month. The country lacks adequate testing capabilities as well as the ability to track people who have been exposed to the virus, two essential ingredients to re-opening the economy. These shortcomings are the result of long term health policies that have poured money into the insurance industry, pharmaceutical, and for-profit hospitals, which undermines adequate healthcare.
For-profit health care does not serve the people it serves investors and has resulted in widespread closures of hospitals and difficult healthcare access for tens of millions of people in the United States. President Trump has added to these long-term problems by bungling the response, first by not taking the pandemic seriously and then by making false, misleading, and dangerous claims about the virus.
On the day of this protest, the president suggested people to have disinfectant put into their bodies to kill the virus or some kind of light injected inside them.
If I hadn’t watch this with my own eyes🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️(recorded myself)
An expert had just finished mentioning the effects of bleach and isopropyl alcohol on the virus.
Trump literally just asked if we can inject disinfectants into the body.. FFS PEOPLE #TrumpPressConf #COVID19 #trump pic.twitter.com/dCUbomehhx— Ray Herrlein (@xlr8_hard) April 23, 2020
Dr Birx is all of us right now pic.twitter.com/EGSUOGlY6l
— Scott Dworkin (@funder) April 24, 2020
The protest at the Trump Hotel included a “People’s Motorcade” of over 100 cars, as well as people laying body bags at the Trump Hotel in Washington, DC to demonstrate their displeasure with the president’s poor response to the virus.
Body bags laid out in front of Trump Hotel.
This is what you’re getting, @realDonaldTrump, when you push aside working and immigrant families and make policies that exclude us. @CPDAction @taxmarch @jewishaction and CASA mobilized tonight. #TrumpCovidFails pic.twitter.com/mXcGHxAJcK
— CASA (@CASAforall) April 23, 2020
Demonstrators taking part in a “People’s Motorcade” stop at the Trump International Hotel to deliver fake body bags during a protest against the administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Washington, DC
📸 Andrew Caballero-Reynolds pic.twitter.com/GK1rtuyh8X
— AFP news agency (@AFP) April 24, 2020
Trump’s lies, PPE blockades & ventilator hoarding is killing people by the thousands.
So the People’s Motorcade, over a hundred cars, just surrounded Trump Hotel with body bags.#TrumpCovidFails#TrumpChaos#GetUsPPE pic.twitter.com/sbsdSDc56A
— Kristin Mink #MasksForAmerica #ProtectNurses (@KristinMinkDC) April 23, 2020
AFP writes: Protesters place fake body bags outside the entrance of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC, calling out the president’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. “Every single COVID death, is the result of his disorganization, of his chaos, of his inability to manage,” [said an organizer]. Demonstrators first led a “People’s Motorcade”, circling around the President’s house before delivering the mock body bags in front of the hotel.