Coronavirus in control in the US

Timing is everything in politics, especially nine days before the US presidential election. So when Mark Meadows, the very browbeaten White House chief of staff, says on national television that "we're not going to control the pandemic", it may be true, it may be honest, it may be adult and grown-up, it may be what should be said. But was it sensible to be quite so truthful when his boss has been going around saying the virus will be defeated and let's get on with life? Probably not! Meadows I would say has not been the most wonderful chief of staff. I acknowledge that being chief of staff in any White House but even more so in an administration where gut instinct is the byword for decision-making, is a challenge for anyone. But Meadows has wrong-footed on a number of occasions. And his bald statement yesterday to CNN's Jake Tapper about the virus being in control - that's the other way of interpreting his words - can't have sat very well with a lot of Americans who want their president and his advisers to boost their confidence and optimism about the future. Instead they got Meadows, in a hang-dog sort of way, declare that the virus can't be controlled. Unfortunately, however, Meadows is right. Like flu which comes back every winter, coronavirus in some form or other is going to stick around. But at some stage, probably later rather than sooner, there will be an effective vaccine, just as there is normally a pretty good flu vaccine produced each year. But in politics truth can have the opposite effect to what was intended. Meadows was no doubt trying to be realistic but the only comment he came up with that has made headlines is the one about not being able to control the virus. It won't go down well with the public, the Republican party and, most of all, with Trump who is no doubt steaming with anger and frustration. Just when Trump thought he had Biden on the ropes with his TV debate comment last week about eliminating the oil industry, his chief of staff ruins it by spelling out the facts of life with coronavirus. Trump can't sack Meadows so close to the election but if he were to win on November 3, I can't see Meadows surviving.