A digital billboard in New York City’s Times Square targeting President Donald Trump’s early inaction on coronavirus reached a grave milestone on Wednesday, as it ticked over to an estimated 50,000 preventable deaths. The “Trump Death Clock” projects a running count of deaths, which according to two leading epidemiologists, could have been avoided had social distancing measures been implemented earlier. Eugene Jarecki, the Emmy and Peabody award-winning director behind political documentaries, such as “Why We Fight” and “The House I Live In” and the sign’s creator, said the counter was in the same “symbolic spirit” as the National Debt Clock, which already hangs in the city. The Death Clock, he said, measures “the cost in human lives of President Trump and his team’s reckless handling of the coronavirus pandemic.”Epidemiologists Dr. Britta L. Jewell and Nicolas P. Jewell estimated a 60% reduction in deaths had mitigation measures been enacted on March 9. Although experts sounded the alarm as early as January, Trump was still downplaying the coronavirus at the end of February and on the March 9 milestone he was comparing it with “the common flu.”

Source: Huffington Post May 14, 2020 07:30 UTC