44#445 reply to 02#27
Early dismissals? And look who was fighting his early actions..
Read it and weep: This before Trump declared the pandemic a hoax and that his travel ban stopped the virus from being a risk to America.
Joe Biden: Trump is worst possible leader to deal with coronavirus outbreak
JOE BIDEN | OPINION CONTRIBUTOR | 12:32 pm EST January 29, 2020
Trump’s demonstrated failures of judgment and his repeated rejection of science make him the worst possible person to lead our country through a global health challenge.
The outbreak of a new coronavirus, which has already
infected more than 2,700 people and killed over 80 in China, will get worse before it gets better. Cases have been confirmed in a dozen countries, with at least five in the United States. There will likely be more.
Trump has blithely tweeted that “
it will all work out well.” Yet the steps he has taken as president have only weakened our capacity to respond.
Trump has rolled back much of the progress President Obama and I made to strengthen global health security. He proposed draconian cuts to the
National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the
Agency for International Development — the very agencies we need to fight this outbreak and prevent future ones.
He dismissed the top White House official in charge of global health security and
dismantled the entire team. And he has treated with utmost contempt institutions that facilitate international cooperation, thus undermining the global efforts that keep us safe from pandemics and biological attacks.
To be blunt, I am concerned that the Trump administration’s shortsighted policies have left us unprepared for a dangerous epidemic that will come sooner or later.
Pandemic diseases are a prime example of why international cooperation is a requirement of leadership in 2020. Diseases do not stop at borders. They cannot be thwarted by building a wall. We cannot keep ourselves safe without helping to keep others safe as well and without enlisting the help of other nations in return. And here’s the truth — the United States must step forward to lead these efforts, because no other nation has the resources, the reach or the relationships to marshal an effective international response.
Cruel and unusual:
Trump tweeted heartlessly about Ebola in 2014. He's ill-equipped to handle 2019 outbreak.
I will uphold science, not fiction or fear
We brought the world together behind a response that only the United States could mobilize — including
dispatching our military on a limited mission to help build the urgent infrastructure necessary to coordinate a massive global public health response, deploying American
disaster assistance response teams to Africa, unleashing the NIH to
help spur the discovery of new treatments and vaccines, protecting our citizens from potential cases of Ebola in the USA, and harnessing civilian expertise from the CDC at home and abroad.
We acted over the chorus of uninformed objections from critics like Donald Trump, and
more than 60 countriesfollowed our lead, contributing over $2 billion, thousands of health professionals and personnel, and other critical resources like personal protective equipment. Just as important, we strengthened our focus on preparing for the next crisis.
That’s the kind of leadership a moment like this demands — a leadership Trump could never deliver.
Former Vice President Joe Biden is a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president. Follow him on Twitter:
@JoeBiden
Originally Published 4:00 am EST January 27, 2020
Updated 12:32 pm EST January 29, 2020
