President Donald Trump is again pursuing a dangerous timeline for reopening the economy. Our capacity to have a robust testing and contact-tracing program like South Korea’s is nowhere close to sufficient. Worse, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson is signaling his eagerness to go with Trump’s sociopathic plan to trade lives for the economy.
People of Kansas City, you may be our last hope for a sane pandemic response plan rooted in the facts of infectious disease rather than political ideology. I implore you, together with our county public health officials and hopefully those in St. Louis, to continue to seek the expertise of people such as Dr. Anthony Fauci and to resist Trump and Parson, for all our sake.
Although my education was in microbiology and immunology, I am also a Christian who is appalled by the inhumane, Malthusian calculus of Republican politicians deceitfully promoting the false narrative that we can get our economy back by engaging in blatant human sacrifice.
I will pray for all our local, state and national leaders to have the strength to remain steadfast in protecting our well-being even as powerful officials plot to the contrary.
– Ernest Phillips, Kansas City
Note from KBJ: Stop projecting your sociopathy onto President Trump, Ernest.
