A deadly mistake -- but for whom?

Trump is talking about phasing out the current covid-19 precautions fairly soon -- perhaps by Easter -- in hopes of reviving the economy (and his re-election hopes along with it, though he isn't saying that part out loud).  This in spite of the fact that the epidemic in the US is still spreading at an explosive pace, something which the end of the current precautions would exacerbate still further.

This is madness, even from Trump's own selfish viewpoint.  If he thinks a recession will be bad for his re-election, that's nothing compared to the effect of vast numbers of dead and an overwhelmed health-care system which won't have the resources to take care of all the "normal" non-covid-19-related things we normally use it for.

Fortunately, the current shelter-in-place orders have been issued on the state and local level, and sensible governors will keep them in place no matter what Trump says.  Electoral-Vote points out the likely result:

The second, and more obvious, political problem is what happens if Trump encourages people to resume their daily lives, some of them do so, and then the epidemic gets noticeably worse. This is, in essence, what happened in Hong Kong. Indeed, one can very well envision a scenario where Trump gives the "all clear!" order, (some) red states play along while blue states ignore him, and all of a sudden there is a spike in infections in Dallas, Tampa, and Nashville, with no spikes in Seattle, San Francisco, and Boston. It would be as close to a scientifically controlled experiment as you can get in politics. Those spikes would be (with good reason) laid at the President's doorstep.

In other words, natural selection in action, with (in many cases) the death penalty for going along with Trump's stupidity.  The same is true of his expressed desire to see "packed churches" by Easter -- which would lead to a surge in infections among devout Christians.  It's almost as if he's trying to spread sickness and death among his own supporters.  If he starts holding mass rallies again, that will create yet another cauldron of infection for Trumpanzees.

Electoral-Vote is, by the way, right about the example provided by Hong Kong.  The pandemic appeared to be subsiding (something which is decidedly not the case in the US yet), and precautions were relaxed too soon -- allowing it to flare up again.

In the name of safeguarding his re-election, Trump is pursuing a course which will actually hurt his chances.  In fact, his whole strategy of downplaying this was a mistake.  He'd have been smarter to play it up, yammer about impending catastrophe, emphasize the "foreign virus" angle, claim we need to build the wall and keep out all foreigners and ban everything or we're doomed.  Then if the actual epidemic turned out to be less serious than he had portrayed it, he could claim he saved everybody.  That would have been smarter.  The guy can't even get selfishness right.

Don't listen to him.  Stay safe.  Stay home.