How the President Can Kill Thousands: A Tutorial
Unlike seasonal influenza COVID19 with a 20 times higher mortality
Markedly surpassing influenza in its lethality
And a stealth disease that is most problematic
For it’s highly infectious before symptomatic
Disease spread is inexorable and dramatic
Once case generates 2 generates 4 and so forth
Doubling every two-3 days it marches forth
In a manner paradigmatic
The incidence curves tell the story
In Italy the situation is downright gory
Thousands daily are perishing
The coffins carts are thundering
Our incidence curves parallel Italy’s – take a peek
The difference is we trail Italy by 2-3 weeks
And since the arrival of testing is agonizingly slow
There is no way for us to be in the know
About whom to isolate we are in the dark
“Anyone can get tested” the man says with a lark
But try to find a testing – lots of luck
The whole affair is really a phenomenal bust
So isolation and social distancing is the only tool
We have because of this fool.
And although the president asserts with verve
He may stop isolating (if he can get up the nerve).
By Easter Sunday (a beautiful day) a political gift to the religious right
Today 68,000 cases–Easter 18 days away 240,000 or out of sight
So by Easter Sunday the numbers may be huge
And deaths will follow in a relentless deluge
So if the president wants to thin the population
And thinks he can quell his trials and tribulations
Restore the country to normality
And bask in fleeting adulation
But the celebration will be short and collide with harsh reality
As we watch with horror explosive accelerating lethality.
For there will be only a short respite for the genius to revel
Until the flood of deaths swell.
For he alone will have produced this needless carnage
And face contentious outrage
When the deaths escalate and he has to explain
And what the doctors say it will take to regain
The fragile progress previously attained.
Howard P. Charman, MD 4-3-2020 and 12-13-2020
Comment 12-13-2020:
So here we are. 15 million infections and something like 300.000 deaths. The president is a mass murderer. There is no other way to describe it, and everyone should be saying this. HC