Three weeks ago there was much talk of a “Chernobyl moment” for China’s Communist Party, discredited by totalitarian attempts to suppress news of the spreading coronavirus in Wuhan. But fast-moving events can play wicked tricks, especially on a White House allergic to scientific facts.
The new coronavirus, or COVID-19, is more likely to be the Chernobyl moment for US President Donald Trump. His systematic destruction of the US pandemic defences – policy vandalism of the first order – and his surreal efforts to conjure away the virus with denialist spin suddenly brings an unthinkable prospect into play.
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About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
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