At this rate, eventually Trumpleton's will run out of people to blame.

[ColonelAngus]

Yet the New York Times on February 10th complained that Trump would OVERREACT and stop travel because he is a germphobe.

Just admit that left wing assholes will criticize everything Trump does period.

Try to STFU and not make everything political.

Maybe go do some meth with Andrew Gillum to clear your head.

Some Experts Worry as a Germ-Phobic Trump Confronts a Growing Epidemic

Read that article then shut up.

Paywall.

Plus I heard no mention of anything like this anywhere from anyone.

I gave you the link. You can see the headline through the paywall.

That’s the newspaper of record. Every good lefty like you should have a subscription to the NYT.

As previously noted, I never heard anything like that from anyone anywhere. If you have a source that can be read, I'll read it. Otherwise you've got nothing but the title of an article that is most likely and opinion piece.

Text Joe to Trump is a germaphobe and will overreact.

 

[edward37]

The virus IS China's fault. What the fuck?

When our country enters a crisis like this the most important asset we have is the credibility of our leader
We are in deep shit

 

[Erinwltr]

Yet the New York Times on February 10th complained that Trump would OVERREACT and stop travel because he is a germphobe.

Just admit that left wing assholes will criticize everything Trump does period.

Try to STFU and not make everything political.

Maybe go do some meth with Andrew Gillum to clear your head.

Some Experts Worry as a Germ-Phobic Trump Confronts a Growing Epidemic

Read that article then shut up.

Keep crying pussy. Your Trumpy has grabbed and abused them. So cry your snowflake Trumpy tears.

COVID-19. Remember that.

Trump is POTUS, remember that.

Text JOE to Trump is POTUS.

I don't need you to remind me of the Fucking Failure In Chief.

COVID-19

 

[Crepitus]

Yet the New York Times on February 10th complained that Trump would OVERREACT and stop travel because he is a germphobe.

Just admit that left wing assholes will criticize everything Trump does period.

Try to STFU and not make everything political.

Maybe go do some meth with Andrew Gillum to clear your head.

Some Experts Worry as a Germ-Phobic Trump Confronts a Growing Epidemic

Read that article then shut up.

Paywall.

Plus I heard no mention of anything like this anywhere from anyone.

I gave you the link. You can see the headline through the paywall.

That’s the newspaper of record. Every good lefty like you should have a subscription to the NYT.

As previously noted, I never heard anything like that from anyone anywhere. If you have a source that can be read, I'll read it. Otherwise you've got nothing but the title of an article that is most likely and opinion piece.

Text Joe to Trump is a germaphobe and will overreact.

WTF are you babbling about?

Wait! Never mind, I don't care.

 

[Norman]

Yet the New York Times on February 10th complained that Trump would OVERREACT and stop travel because he is a germphobe.

Just admit that left wing assholes will criticize everything Trump does period.

Try to STFU and not make everything political.

Maybe go do some meth with Andrew Gillum to clear your head.

Some Experts Worry as a Germ-Phobic Trump Confronts a Growing Epidemic

Read that article then shut up.

Paywall.

Plus I heard no mention of anything like this anywhere from anyone.

I gave you the link. You can see the headline through the paywall.

That’s the newspaper of record. Every good lefty like you should have a subscription to the NYT.

As previously noted, I never heard anything like that from anyone anywhere. If you have a source that can be read, I'll read it. Otherwise you've got nothing but the title of an article that is most likely and opinion piece.

Here is the article.

Some Experts Worry as a Germ-Phobic Trump Confronts a Growing Epidemic
When President Barack Obama contended with an Ebola outbreak, Mr. Trump demanded measures like canceling flights, forcing quarantines and even denying the return of American medical workers.

President Trump has spoken openly about his phobia of germs.Credit...T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times

By Michael Crowley

WASHINGTON — When an outbreak of the Ebola virus touched the United States’ shores in mid-2014, Donald J. Trump was still a private citizen. But he had strong opinions about how America should act.

Mr. Trump, who has spoken openly about his phobia of germs, closely followed the epidemic, and offered angry commentary about what he said was the Obama administration’s dangerous response. He demanded draconian measures like canceling flights, forcing quarantines and even denying the return of American medical workers who had contracted the disease in Africa.

“Ebola patient will be brought to the U.S. in a few days — now I know for sure that our leaders are incompetent. KEEP THEM OUT OF HERE!” Mr. Trump tweeted on that July 31 after learning that one American medical worker would be evacuated to Atlanta from Liberia. “The U.S. cannot allow EBOLA infected people back,” Mr. Trump wrote the next day, adding: “People that go to far away places to help out are great — but must suffer the consequences!”

In nearly 50 tweets, as well as in appearances on Fox News and other networks, Mr. Trump supported flight bans and strict quarantines and branded President Barack Obama’s deployment of troops to West Africa to fight the disease as “morally unfair.”

Many health experts called Mr. Trump’s responses extreme, noting that the health workers would have most likely faced agonizing deaths had they not been evacuated to American hospitals. Former Obama administration officials said his commentary stoked alarmism in the news media and spread fear among the public.

Now Mr. Trump confronts another epidemic in the form of the coronavirus, this time at the head of the country’s health care and national security agencies. The illness has infected few people in the United States, but health officials fear it could soon spread more widely. And while Mr. Trump has so far kept his distance from the issue, public health experts worry that his extreme fear of germs, disdain for scientific and bureaucratic expertise and suspicion of foreigners could be a dangerous mix, should he wind up overseeing a severe outbreak at home.

The Beijing Railway Station last week. More than 20 international carriers have suspended or restricted routes that ended in Wuhan and other major Chinese cities, like Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai.Credit...Giulia Marchi for The New York Times
“Having a head of state who is trusted, who is a credible message deliverer, consistent in communications and consistent with evidence, is absolutely necessary,” said Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “There’s so much misinformation out there, so a central role is for a leader to be a go-to source for credible information.”

For the most part, Mr. Trump has been uncharacteristically restrained in his commentary about the virus, partly for fear of elevating the subject and further rattling financial markets, according to a person briefed on his thinking. Instead, he has largely delegated the response to senior health officials.


At the end of January, Mr. Trump created a 12-member coronavirus task force, which will be managed by the National Security Council. It includes the health and human services secretary, Alex M. Azar II; Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health; and Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Get an informed guide to the global outbreak with our daily coronavirus newsletter.

All three have experience dealing with infectious diseases, especially Mr. Fauci, who has helped to manage the response to numerous outbreaks, including the AIDS epidemic, the SARS virus and Ebola.

In many of his remarks he has made, Mr. Trump has praised President Xi Jinping of China, even though his government has been widely criticized for a clumsy and initially secretive response to the coronavirus, and made some questionable announcements.

“They’re working really hard, and I think they’re doing a very professional job,” Mr. Trump said on Friday.

Speaking to a meeting of the nation’s governors on Monday, he predicted that the virus will have run its course by spring and again referred to the Chinese president.

“The virus that we’re talking about having to do, a lot of people think that goes away in April, with the heat, as the heat comes in, typically that will go away in April,” Mr. Trump said. Referring to the United States, he added: “We’re in great shape, though. We have 12 cases, 11 cases, and many of them are in good shape now.” (The number of confirmed cases is 12, according to a Monday update by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.)

“I had a long talk with President Xi two nights ago,” he added. “He feels very confident. He feels that again, as I mentioned, by April or during the month of April, the heat generally speaking kills this kind of virus. So that would be a good thing.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Continue reading the main story


Public health experts questioned the speculative nature of his comments. “I think there is a lot we still don’t know about this virus, and I’m not sure we can say definitively that it will dissipate with warmer weather,” said Dr. Rebecca Katz, director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University.

“Relying on the fact that it’s going to warm up in April as reassurance that the virus will be controlled by then I think is arguable,” added Dr. James M. Hughes, a professor emeritus of medicine at Emory University.

Other comments from Mr. Trump about the disease have been inaccurate or met with criticism. In late January, he wrote on Twitter that five coronavirus cases had been confirmed in the United States just hours after a sixth had been confirmed. Addressing the virus on Feb. 2, Mr. Trump boasted to Fox News, “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”

The words “shut it down” apparently referred to an executive order the president had issued two days earlier, barring entry to the United States by foreign citizens who traveled to China in the past two weeks. Some health experts worry that Mr. Trump overpromised because the order — which the White House announced abruptly, with little outside consultation — is unlikely to prevent the illness from reaching the United States, and federal health officials say they assume the number of cases in the United States is likely to increase.

Speaking at a Friday news briefing, Mr. Azar defended the president’s actions and said the new travel restrictions were “very measured and incremental” while praising Mr. Trump’s “aggressive” response overall.

Presidential words have played an important role in past health crises. Ronald Reagan was severely criticized for his slow response to the spread of H.I.V. and for recommending abstinence to address the infection. Mr. Obama resisted pressure from Mr. Trump and others to institute sweeping travel bans and quarantines, calling them alarmist and urging levelheaded thinking.

Image

Doctors wearing protective suits because of Ebola in 2015 in Mateneh, Sierra Leone.Credit...Bryan Denton for The New York Times
“This is a serious disease, but we can’t give in to hysteria or fear because that only makes it harder to get people the accurate information they need,” Mr. Obama said in October 2014 in a radio address. “We have to be guided by the science. We have to remember the basic facts.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Continue reading the main story


Mr. Trump’s record on presenting facts has been a persistent source of criticism in the scientific community. The last time the White House became involved in managing a national emergency, during Hurricane Dorian in September, he misstated an official forecast of the storm’s path, then displayed a tracking map in the Oval Office that he appeared to have altered with one of his signature Sharpie pens.

“Trump has the right people, but the wrong instincts and the wrong structure,” said Ronald Klain, who directed the Obama administration’s response to the 2014 Ebola crisis. “Our government is staffed with the best experts, scientists and medical leaders in the world. But Trump’s instincts — anti-science, anti-expert, isolationist and xenophobic — risk that he will eschew that advice at critical points.”

Another factor is Mr. Trump’s lifelong obsession with personal hygiene. While he has shown little interest in health or science policy, he has often spoken of his extreme revulsion to germs.

In his 2004 book, “How to Get Rich,” the president declared himself “very much of a germophobe,” and wrote that he was “waging a personal crusade to replace the mandatory and unsanitary handshake with the Japanese custom of bowing.”

As a result, Mr. Trump generally avoids the political tradition of shaking dozens of hands after his speeches and rallies, and frequently uses hand sanitizer. He is quick to banish aides who cough and sneeze in his presence. In a January 2017 interview, the president’s personal physician, Dr. Harold N. Bornstein, said Mr. Trump always “changes the paper himself” in the examining room.

In that regard, Mr. Trump may have gained at least a temporary ally in Mr. Xi. Mingling for the cameras with Beijing residents Monday, Mr. Xi, who sported a surgical mask, recommended they skip the customary form of greeting. “Let’s not shake hands in this special time,” he said.

Some Experts Worry as a Germ-Phobic Trump Confronts a Growing Epidemic


Yes, you were full of shit. It is not an opinion piece.

 

[Lesh]

Placing blame fixes nothing.

 

[ColonelAngus]

Yet the New York Times on February 10th complained that Trump would OVERREACT and stop travel because he is a germphobe.

Just admit that left wing assholes will criticize everything Trump does period.

Try to STFU and not make everything political.

Maybe go do some meth with Andrew Gillum to clear your head.

Some Experts Worry as a Germ-Phobic Trump Confronts a Growing Epidemic

Read that article then shut up.

Keep crying pussy. Your Trumpy has grabbed and abused them. So cry your snowflake Trumpy tears.

COVID-19. Remember that.

Trump is POTUS, remember that.

Text JOE to Trump is POTUS.

I don't need you to remind me of the Fucking Failure In Chief.

COVID-19

Many more people will die. Congratulations on the good news.

 

[ColonelAngus]

Yet the New York Times on February 10th complained that Trump would OVERREACT and stop travel because he is a germphobe.

Just admit that left wing assholes will criticize everything Trump does period.

Try to STFU and not make everything political.

Maybe go do some meth with Andrew Gillum to clear your head.

Some Experts Worry as a Germ-Phobic Trump Confronts a Growing Epidemic

Read that article then shut up.

Paywall.

Plus I heard no mention of anything like this anywhere from anyone.

I gave you the link. You can see the headline through the paywall.

That’s the newspaper of record. Every good lefty like you should have a subscription to the NYT.

As previously noted, I never heard anything like that from anyone anywhere. If you have a source that can be read, I'll read it. Otherwise you've got nothing but the title of an article that is most likely and opinion piece.

Text Joe to Trump is a germaphobe and will overreact.

WTF are you babbling about?

Wait! Never mind, I don't care.

The media and the Dimms will always bash Trump no matter what he does. They are the boy who cried wolf. It’s just noise.

 

[playtime]

Obama didn’t do anything about Swine flu until 2000 people had died.

Why didn’t the media and left wing assholes blast his response?

fake news.

 

[berg80]

Top White House official in charge of pandemic response exits abruptly
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...n-charge-of-pandemic-response-exits-abruptly/

The top White House official responsible for leading the U.S. response in the event of a deadly pandemic has left the administration, and the global health security team he oversaw has been disbanded under a reorganization by national security adviser John Bolton.

The abrupt departure of Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer from the National Security Council means no senior administration official is now focused solely on global health security. Ziemer’s departure, along with the breakup of his team, comes at a time when many experts say the country is already underprepared for the increasing risks of a pandemic or bioterrorism attack.

Ziemer’s last day was Tuesday, the same day a new Ebola outbreak was declared in Congo. He is not being replaced.

Pandemic preparedness and global health security are issues that require government-wide responses, experts say, as well as the leadership of a high-ranking official within the White House who is assigned only this role.
.....................................................................................................................................
If Bolton did this without Trump being aware of it, or as a result of a directive given to Bolton by Trump...........either scenario makes Trump responsible, either for ordering it or being negligent in not knowing what his subordinates are doing.

 

[ColonelAngus]

Obama didn’t do anything about Swine flu until 2000 people had died.

Why didn’t the media and left wing assholes blast his response?

fake news.

You mean like Trump removing a bust of MLK from the White House?

 

[berg80]

Not to be found on Trump's desk.

 

[edthecynic]

Obama didn’t do anything about Swine flu until 2000 people had died.

Why didn’t the media and left wing assholes blast his response?

Because they know YOU are lying!!!!!

 

[playtime]

Obama didn’t do anything about Swine flu until 2000 people had died.

Why didn’t the media and left wing assholes blast his response?

fake news.

You mean like Trump removing a bust of MLK from the White House?

no - ' like obama didn't do anything until 2000 died. ' <---- FAKE NEWS.

 

[Norman]

No, I don't think they will run out of people to blame. This is in their DNA now.

Mostly they are doing their job, as they should.

Those responses are only for far left journalists who attempt to make the virus the "Trump virus", even though we all know it originated from China.

It's a petty game, and I do hope Trump strikes back at these morons trying to politicize the virus as usual. Especially people like Biden who even the Wapo admits wins "5 Pinocchios" for his lies regarding his corona attack piece on Trump.

Of course the Biden plan is the one of open border, which contrary to what the leftists here say, does not work, and that's why all countries are shutting down their borders.

 

[playtime]

No, I don't think they will run out of people to blame. This is in their DNA now.

Mostly they are doing their job, as they should.

Those responses are only for far left journalists who attempt to make the virus the "Trump virus", even though we all know it originated from China.

It's a petty game, and I do hope Trump strikes back at these morons trying to politicize the virus as usual. Especially people like Biden who even the Wapo admits wins "5 Pinocchios" for his lies regarding his corona attack piece on Trump.

Of course the Biden plan is the one of open border, which contrary to what the leftists here say, does not work, and that's why all countries are shutting down their borders.

when donny showed up at the CDC wearing a MAGA hat - he politicized it.

bigley.

 

[berg80]

Yet the New York Times on February 10th complained that Trump would OVERREACT and stop travel because he is a germphobe.

Just admit that left wing assholes will criticize everything Trump does period.

Try to STFU and not make everything political.

Maybe go do some meth with Andrew Gillum to clear your head.

Some Experts Worry as a Germ-Phobic Trump Confronts a Growing Epidemic

Read that article then shut up.

Paywall.

Plus I heard no mention of anything like this anywhere from anyone.

I gave you the link. You can see the headline through the paywall.

That’s the newspaper of record. Every good lefty like you should have a subscription to the NYT.

As previously noted, I never heard anything like that from anyone anywhere. If you have a source that can be read, I'll read it. Otherwise you've got nothing but the title of an article that is most likely and opinion piece.

Here is the article.

Some Experts Worry as a Germ-Phobic Trump Confronts a Growing Epidemic
When President Barack Obama contended with an Ebola outbreak, Mr. Trump demanded measures like canceling flights, forcing quarantines and even denying the return of American medical workers.

President Trump has spoken openly about his phobia of germs.Credit...T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times

By Michael Crowley

WASHINGTON — When an outbreak of the Ebola virus touched the United States’ shores in mid-2014, Donald J. Trump was still a private citizen. But he had strong opinions about how America should act.

Mr. Trump, who has spoken openly about his phobia of germs, closely followed the epidemic, and offered angry commentary about what he said was the Obama administration’s dangerous response. He demanded draconian measures like canceling flights, forcing quarantines and even denying the return of American medical workers who had contracted the disease in Africa.

“Ebola patient will be brought to the U.S. in a few days — now I know for sure that our leaders are incompetent. KEEP THEM OUT OF HERE!” Mr. Trump tweeted on that July 31 after learning that one American medical worker would be evacuated to Atlanta from Liberia. “The U.S. cannot allow EBOLA infected people back,” Mr. Trump wrote the next day, adding: “People that go to far away places to help out are great — but must suffer the consequences!”

In nearly 50 tweets, as well as in appearances on Fox News and other networks, Mr. Trump supported flight bans and strict quarantines and branded President Barack Obama’s deployment of troops to West Africa to fight the disease as “morally unfair.”

Many health experts called Mr. Trump’s responses extreme, noting that the health workers would have most likely faced agonizing deaths had they not been evacuated to American hospitals. Former Obama administration officials said his commentary stoked alarmism in the news media and spread fear among the public.

Now Mr. Trump confronts another epidemic in the form of the coronavirus, this time at the head of the country’s health care and national security agencies. The illness has infected few people in the United States, but health officials fear it could soon spread more widely. And while Mr. Trump has so far kept his distance from the issue, public health experts worry that his extreme fear of germs, disdain for scientific and bureaucratic expertise and suspicion of foreigners could be a dangerous mix, should he wind up overseeing a severe outbreak at home.

The Beijing Railway Station last week. More than 20 international carriers have suspended or restricted routes that ended in Wuhan and other major Chinese cities, like Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai.Credit...Giulia Marchi for The New York Times
“Having a head of state who is trusted, who is a credible message deliverer, consistent in communications and consistent with evidence, is absolutely necessary,” said Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “There’s so much misinformation out there, so a central role is for a leader to be a go-to source for credible information.”

For the most part, Mr. Trump has been uncharacteristically restrained in his commentary about the virus, partly for fear of elevating the subject and further rattling financial markets, according to a person briefed on his thinking. Instead, he has largely delegated the response to senior health officials.


At the end of January, Mr. Trump created a 12-member coronavirus task force, which will be managed by the National Security Council. It includes the health and human services secretary, Alex M. Azar II; Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health; and Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Get an informed guide to the global outbreak with our daily coronavirus newsletter.

All three have experience dealing with infectious diseases, especially Mr. Fauci, who has helped to manage the response to numerous outbreaks, including the AIDS epidemic, the SARS virus and Ebola.

In many of his remarks he has made, Mr. Trump has praised President Xi Jinping of China, even though his government has been widely criticized for a clumsy and initially secretive response to the coronavirus, and made some questionable announcements.

“They’re working really hard, and I think they’re doing a very professional job,” Mr. Trump said on Friday.

Speaking to a meeting of the nation’s governors on Monday, he predicted that the virus will have run its course by spring and again referred to the Chinese president.

“The virus that we’re talking about having to do, a lot of people think that goes away in April, with the heat, as the heat comes in, typically that will go away in April,” Mr. Trump said. Referring to the United States, he added: “We’re in great shape, though. We have 12 cases, 11 cases, and many of them are in good shape now.” (The number of confirmed cases is 12, according to a Monday update by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.)

“I had a long talk with President Xi two nights ago,” he added. “He feels very confident. He feels that again, as I mentioned, by April or during the month of April, the heat generally speaking kills this kind of virus. So that would be a good thing.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Continue reading the main story


Public health experts questioned the speculative nature of his comments. “I think there is a lot we still don’t know about this virus, and I’m not sure we can say definitively that it will dissipate with warmer weather,” said Dr. Rebecca Katz, director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University.

“Relying on the fact that it’s going to warm up in April as reassurance that the virus will be controlled by then I think is arguable,” added Dr. James M. Hughes, a professor emeritus of medicine at Emory University.

Other comments from Mr. Trump about the disease have been inaccurate or met with criticism. In late January, he wrote on Twitter that five coronavirus cases had been confirmed in the United States just hours after a sixth had been confirmed. Addressing the virus on Feb. 2, Mr. Trump boasted to Fox News, “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”

The words “shut it down” apparently referred to an executive order the president had issued two days earlier, barring entry to the United States by foreign citizens who traveled to China in the past two weeks. Some health experts worry that Mr. Trump overpromised because the order — which the White House announced abruptly, with little outside consultation — is unlikely to prevent the illness from reaching the United States, and federal health officials say they assume the number of cases in the United States is likely to increase.

Speaking at a Friday news briefing, Mr. Azar defended the president’s actions and said the new travel restrictions were “very measured and incremental” while praising Mr. Trump’s “aggressive” response overall.

Presidential words have played an important role in past health crises. Ronald Reagan was severely criticized for his slow response to the spread of H.I.V. and for recommending abstinence to address the infection. Mr. Obama resisted pressure from Mr. Trump and others to institute sweeping travel bans and quarantines, calling them alarmist and urging levelheaded thinking.

Image

Doctors wearing protective suits because of Ebola in 2015 in Mateneh, Sierra Leone.Credit...Bryan Denton for The New York Times
“This is a serious disease, but we can’t give in to hysteria or fear because that only makes it harder to get people the accurate information they need,” Mr. Obama said in October 2014 in a radio address. “We have to be guided by the science. We have to remember the basic facts.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Continue reading the main story


Mr. Trump’s record on presenting facts has been a persistent source of criticism in the scientific community. The last time the White House became involved in managing a national emergency, during Hurricane Dorian in September, he misstated an official forecast of the storm’s path, then displayed a tracking map in the Oval Office that he appeared to have altered with one of his signature Sharpie pens.

“Trump has the right people, but the wrong instincts and the wrong structure,” said Ronald Klain, who directed the Obama administration’s response to the 2014 Ebola crisis. “Our government is staffed with the best experts, scientists and medical leaders in the world. But Trump’s instincts — anti-science, anti-expert, isolationist and xenophobic — risk that he will eschew that advice at critical points.”

Another factor is Mr. Trump’s lifelong obsession with personal hygiene. While he has shown little interest in health or science policy, he has often spoken of his extreme revulsion to germs.

In his 2004 book, “How to Get Rich,” the president declared himself “very much of a germophobe,” and wrote that he was “waging a personal crusade to replace the mandatory and unsanitary handshake with the Japanese custom of bowing.”

As a result, Mr. Trump generally avoids the political tradition of shaking dozens of hands after his speeches and rallies, and frequently uses hand sanitizer. He is quick to banish aides who cough and sneeze in his presence. In a January 2017 interview, the president’s personal physician, Dr. Harold N. Bornstein, said Mr. Trump always “changes the paper himself” in the examining room.

In that regard, Mr. Trump may have gained at least a temporary ally in Mr. Xi. Mingling for the cameras with Beijing residents Monday, Mr. Xi, who sported a surgical mask, recommended they skip the customary form of greeting. “Let’s not shake hands in this special time,” he said.

Some Experts Worry as a Germ-Phobic Trump Confronts a Growing Epidemic


Yes, you were full of shit. It is not an opinion piece.

What that article puts on vivid display is Donald the Dummy's ignorant, myopic focus on border security. How's that working out so far?

 

[berg80]

No, I don't think they will run out of people to blame. This is in their DNA now.

Mostly they are doing their job, as they should.

Those responses are only for far left journalists who attempt to make the virus the "Trump virus", even though we all know it originated from China.

It's a petty game, and I do hope Trump strikes back at these morons trying to politicize the virus as usual. Especially people like Biden who even the Wapo admits wins "5 Pinocchios" for his lies regarding his corona attack piece on Trump.

Of course the Biden plan is the one of open border, which contrary to what the leftists here say, does not work, and that's why all countries are shutting down their borders.

when donny showed up at the CDC wearing a MAGA hat - he politicized it.

bigley.

I suppose it could also be he hadn't had his hair done that day yet. That must take at least an hour.

 

[LAUGHatLEFTISTS]

The fact that we have very few cases isolated in small sections of the country is a massive win. The virus will spread. People will die. Controlling the speed at which this happens is all that can be done.
The leftists non stop political finger pointing causes panic and is sick and pathetic.

 

[Norman]

Yet the New York Times on February 10th complained that Trump would OVERREACT and stop travel because he is a germphobe.

Just admit that left wing assholes will criticize everything Trump does period.

Try to STFU and not make everything political.

Maybe go do some meth with Andrew Gillum to clear your head.

Some Experts Worry as a Germ-Phobic Trump Confronts a Growing Epidemic

Read that article then shut up.

Paywall.

Plus I heard no mention of anything like this anywhere from anyone.

I gave you the link. You can see the headline through the paywall.

That’s the newspaper of record. Every good lefty like you should have a subscription to the NYT.

As previously noted, I never heard anything like that from anyone anywhere. If you have a source that can be read, I'll read it. Otherwise you've got nothing but the title of an article that is most likely and opinion piece.

Here is the article.

Some Experts Worry as a Germ-Phobic Trump Confronts a Growing Epidemic
When President Barack Obama contended with an Ebola outbreak, Mr. Trump demanded measures like canceling flights, forcing quarantines and even denying the return of American medical workers.

President Trump has spoken openly about his phobia of germs.Credit...T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times

By Michael Crowley

WASHINGTON — When an outbreak of the Ebola virus touched the United States’ shores in mid-2014, Donald J. Trump was still a private citizen. But he had strong opinions about how America should act.

Mr. Trump, who has spoken openly about his phobia of germs, closely followed the epidemic, and offered angry commentary about what he said was the Obama administration’s dangerous response. He demanded draconian measures like canceling flights, forcing quarantines and even denying the return of American medical workers who had contracted the disease in Africa.

“Ebola patient will be brought to the U.S. in a few days — now I know for sure that our leaders are incompetent. KEEP THEM OUT OF HERE!” Mr. Trump tweeted on that July 31 after learning that one American medical worker would be evacuated to Atlanta from Liberia. “The U.S. cannot allow EBOLA infected people back,” Mr. Trump wrote the next day, adding: “People that go to far away places to help out are great — but must suffer the consequences!”

In nearly 50 tweets, as well as in appearances on Fox News and other networks, Mr. Trump supported flight bans and strict quarantines and branded President Barack Obama’s deployment of troops to West Africa to fight the disease as “morally unfair.”

Many health experts called Mr. Trump’s responses extreme, noting that the health workers would have most likely faced agonizing deaths had they not been evacuated to American hospitals. Former Obama administration officials said his commentary stoked alarmism in the news media and spread fear among the public.

Now Mr. Trump confronts another epidemic in the form of the coronavirus, this time at the head of the country’s health care and national security agencies. The illness has infected few people in the United States, but health officials fear it could soon spread more widely. And while Mr. Trump has so far kept his distance from the issue, public health experts worry that his extreme fear of germs, disdain for scientific and bureaucratic expertise and suspicion of foreigners could be a dangerous mix, should he wind up overseeing a severe outbreak at home.

The Beijing Railway Station last week. More than 20 international carriers have suspended or restricted routes that ended in Wuhan and other major Chinese cities, like Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai.Credit...Giulia Marchi for The New York Times
“Having a head of state who is trusted, who is a credible message deliverer, consistent in communications and consistent with evidence, is absolutely necessary,” said Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “There’s so much misinformation out there, so a central role is for a leader to be a go-to source for credible information.”

For the most part, Mr. Trump has been uncharacteristically restrained in his commentary about the virus, partly for fear of elevating the subject and further rattling financial markets, according to a person briefed on his thinking. Instead, he has largely delegated the response to senior health officials.


At the end of January, Mr. Trump created a 12-member coronavirus task force, which will be managed by the National Security Council. It includes the health and human services secretary, Alex M. Azar II; Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health; and Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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All three have experience dealing with infectious diseases, especially Mr. Fauci, who has helped to manage the response to numerous outbreaks, including the AIDS epidemic, the SARS virus and Ebola.

In many of his remarks he has made, Mr. Trump has praised President Xi Jinping of China, even though his government has been widely criticized for a clumsy and initially secretive response to the coronavirus, and made some questionable announcements.

“They’re working really hard, and I think they’re doing a very professional job,” Mr. Trump said on Friday.

Speaking to a meeting of the nation’s governors on Monday, he predicted that the virus will have run its course by spring and again referred to the Chinese president.

“The virus that we’re talking about having to do, a lot of people think that goes away in April, with the heat, as the heat comes in, typically that will go away in April,” Mr. Trump said. Referring to the United States, he added: “We’re in great shape, though. We have 12 cases, 11 cases, and many of them are in good shape now.” (The number of confirmed cases is 12, according to a Monday update by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.)

“I had a long talk with President Xi two nights ago,” he added. “He feels very confident. He feels that again, as I mentioned, by April or during the month of April, the heat generally speaking kills this kind of virus. So that would be a good thing.”

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Public health experts questioned the speculative nature of his comments. “I think there is a lot we still don’t know about this virus, and I’m not sure we can say definitively that it will dissipate with warmer weather,” said Dr. Rebecca Katz, director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University.

“Relying on the fact that it’s going to warm up in April as reassurance that the virus will be controlled by then I think is arguable,” added Dr. James M. Hughes, a professor emeritus of medicine at Emory University.

Other comments from Mr. Trump about the disease have been inaccurate or met with criticism. In late January, he wrote on Twitter that five coronavirus cases had been confirmed in the United States just hours after a sixth had been confirmed. Addressing the virus on Feb. 2, Mr. Trump boasted to Fox News, “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”

The words “shut it down” apparently referred to an executive order the president had issued two days earlier, barring entry to the United States by foreign citizens who traveled to China in the past two weeks. Some health experts worry that Mr. Trump overpromised because the order — which the White House announced abruptly, with little outside consultation — is unlikely to prevent the illness from reaching the United States, and federal health officials say they assume the number of cases in the United States is likely to increase.

Speaking at a Friday news briefing, Mr. Azar defended the president’s actions and said the new travel restrictions were “very measured and incremental” while praising Mr. Trump’s “aggressive” response overall.

Presidential words have played an important role in past health crises. Ronald Reagan was severely criticized for his slow response to the spread of H.I.V. and for recommending abstinence to address the infection. Mr. Obama resisted pressure from Mr. Trump and others to institute sweeping travel bans and quarantines, calling them alarmist and urging levelheaded thinking.

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Doctors wearing protective suits because of Ebola in 2015 in Mateneh, Sierra Leone.Credit...Bryan Denton for The New York Times
“This is a serious disease, but we can’t give in to hysteria or fear because that only makes it harder to get people the accurate information they need,” Mr. Obama said in October 2014 in a radio address. “We have to be guided by the science. We have to remember the basic facts.”

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Mr. Trump’s record on presenting facts has been a persistent source of criticism in the scientific community. The last time the White House became involved in managing a national emergency, during Hurricane Dorian in September, he misstated an official forecast of the storm’s path, then displayed a tracking map in the Oval Office that he appeared to have altered with one of his signature Sharpie pens.

“Trump has the right people, but the wrong instincts and the wrong structure,” said Ronald Klain, who directed the Obama administration’s response to the 2014 Ebola crisis. “Our government is staffed with the best experts, scientists and medical leaders in the world. But Trump’s instincts — anti-science, anti-expert, isolationist and xenophobic — risk that he will eschew that advice at critical points.”

Another factor is Mr. Trump’s lifelong obsession with personal hygiene. While he has shown little interest in health or science policy, he has often spoken of his extreme revulsion to germs.

In his 2004 book, “How to Get Rich,” the president declared himself “very much of a germophobe,” and wrote that he was “waging a personal crusade to replace the mandatory and unsanitary handshake with the Japanese custom of bowing.”

As a result, Mr. Trump generally avoids the political tradition of shaking dozens of hands after his speeches and rallies, and frequently uses hand sanitizer. He is quick to banish aides who cough and sneeze in his presence. In a January 2017 interview, the president’s personal physician, Dr. Harold N. Bornstein, said Mr. Trump always “changes the paper himself” in the examining room.

In that regard, Mr. Trump may have gained at least a temporary ally in Mr. Xi. Mingling for the cameras with Beijing residents Monday, Mr. Xi, who sported a surgical mask, recommended they skip the customary form of greeting. “Let’s not shake hands in this special time,” he said.

Some Experts Worry as a Germ-Phobic Trump Confronts a Growing Epidemic


Yes, you were full of shit. It is not an opinion piece.

What that article puts on vivid display is Donald the Dummy's ignorant, myopic focus on border security. How's that working out so far?

It's working great.

Fuck off with your open borders bullshit.