TRUMP COULD MAKE CONTAGION GREAT AGAIN

This could be America's future if Donald Trump wins the presidency -- and it could be Red America's future no matter who wins:

A regional public health department in Idaho is no longer providing COVID-19 vaccines to residents in six counties after a narrow decision by its board.

Southwest District Health appears to be the first in the nation to be restricted from giving COVID-19 vaccines....

While policymakers in Texas banned health departments from promoting COVID vaccines and Florida’s surgeon general bucked medical consensus to recommend against the vaccine, governmental bodies across the country haven’t blocked the vaccines outright.

This story, from AP, doesn't say that COVID vaccines are banned in these counties, but it does say that people who rely on local government for their shots -- "including people without housing, people who are homebound and those in long-term care facilities or in the immigration process" -- will lose that access to vaccination.

Many observers have just now realized that a Trump presidency could make contagion great again:

I expect terrible things if Trump wins. Until recently, however, “explosive growth in infectious diseases” wasn’t on my Bingo card www.mediaite.com/tv/trump-tra...

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— Paul Krugman (@pkrugman.bsky.social) October 31, 2024 at 10:00 AM

The interview that inspired that Krugman post was reported on by Puck's Tara Palmeri on Thursday:

In a bizarre interview with [CNN's] Kaitlan Collins, Trump’s transition chair and Cantor Fitzgerald C.E.O. Howard Lutnick revealed that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had successfully convinced him, over a two-and-a-half-hour conversation, that vaccines cause autism (they don’t)—a worrying signal given Trump’s recent pronouncement that he would let Kennedy “go wild on medicines.” Earlier this week, R.F.K. claimed that Trump promised to give him “control” of the Health and Human Services agency—seen by many as an apparent quid pro quo for his Trump endorsement.

There's nothing "bizarre" about the Lutnick interview. Opposition to vaccines is mainstream in the contemporary Republican Party.

But why are we just noticing this now? We knew about the possibility of an RFK role in a second Trump administration back in August, a couple of days before Kennedy dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Trump. At the time, NBC reported this:

For weeks, Kennedy’s campaign has floated his interest in a Cabinet position in a future Trump White House while publicly denying he would accept it....

On Tuesday, Kennedy’s running mate, Nicole Shanahan, told an interviewer the campaign was weighing whether to “join forces” with Trump and suggested that Kennedy would do an “incredible job” as secretary of health and human services. Trump later told CNN that he “probably would” appoint Kennedy to some role.

Krugman and others in the media should have been alarmed then. The Harris campaign could have been running anti-Kennedy ads focused on possible lost access to vaccines then. I respect the choices the Harris campaign has made, but it seems to me that a few ads saying that Trump and Kennedy might take away access to childhood vaccines might have appropriately scared parents of young children, the elderly, and people with compromised immune systems.

Palmeri believes that Kennedy would have trouble getting approved in the Senate for a Cabinet position.

But I’m told it’s conventional wisdom inside Mar-a-Lago that it would be impossible to get Kennedy confirmed in the Senate, even if Republicans pick up more than two seats. More likely, I’m told, he could be expected to wind up with a “czar”-like advisory role similar to what’s been promised to Elon Musk....

So who would head the Department of Health and Human Services in a Trump administration if not Kennedy? Possibly this guy, who got a brief mention in the AP story quoted above:

Florida’s top health official, whose tenure has been marked by his warnings against vaccines, threats to TV stations for running abortion ads and frequent clashes with public health experts, has emerged as a candidate to run the Department of Health and Human Services in a potential Trump administration, according to two people familiar with the process.

Joseph A. Ladapo is on a list of HHS secretary candidates being assembled by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been charged with helping select staff for the nation’s health and food agencies if Donald Trump wins office, according to the people....

Ladapo, who has served as Florida’s surgeon general since 2021, has repeatedly defied public health practices — such as failing to urge parents to vaccinate their children or keep unvaccinated students home from school during a recent measles outbreak — drawing scorn from public health experts who say his decisions have imperiled Florida residents....

The prospect of a vaccine skeptic such as Ladapo in a national health role has alarmed public health experts, pointing to his decision to warn Florida residents against the mRNA coronavirus vaccines while citing debunked claims....

Ladapo drew national attention in the early days of the covid-19 pandemic, writing essays for the Wall Street Journal that questioned coronavirus vaccines, mask-wearing and other interventions. The articles won him support from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who recruited the University of California at Los Angeles professor to serve as his top health deputy.

I don't know why this wasn't this a major issue in the campaign. Maybe Harris didn't want to lose the votes of liberal and moderate suburbanites who are mildly vaccine-skeptical. Whatever the reason, it was an opportunity missed.