If everybody knew how serious it would be, how is it nearly every country has it? Trump did listen. I posted the timeline of what was revealed, and what Trump or the bureaucracies did about it. It didn't start getting serious until March.
How about this timeline of Trump's negligence? From a CONSERVATIVE website.
During the critical period between the outbreak in China and the landfall of coronavirus in America, Donald Trump was warned about our general vulnerabilities and the specific actions his administration needed to take to avoid the worst. This is the timel
thebulwark.com
ebruary 2018: The
Washington Post writes “
CDC to cut by 80 percent efforts to prevent global disease outbreak.” The meat of the story is “Countries where the CDC is planning to scale back include some of the world’s hot spots for emerging infectious disease, such as China, Pakistan, Haiti, Rwanda and Congo.”
May 2018:
- At an event marking the 100 year anniversary of the 1918 pandemic, Borio says “pandemic flu” is the “number 1 health security issue” and that the U.S. is not ready to respond.
- One day later her boss, Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer is pushed out of the administration and the global health security team is disbanded.
- Rep. Ami Bera warns that “Admiral Ziemer’s departure is deeply alarming, especially when the administration is actively working to cut funds that addressed past pandemics like Ebola.”
- Beth Cameron, former senior director for global health security on the National Security Council adds: “It is unclear in his absence who at the White House would be in charge of a pandemic,” Cameron said, calling it “a situation that should be immediately rectified.”
January 2019: The director of National Intelligence issues the
U.S. Intelligence Community’s assessment of threats to national security. Among its findings:
- Page 17: “The increase in frequency and diversity of reported disease outbreaks—such as dengue and Zika—probably will continue through 2018, including the potential for a severe global health emergency that could lead to major economic and societal disruptions, strain governmental and international resources, and increase calls on the United States for support. A novel strain of a virulent microbe that is easily transmissible between humans continues to be a major threat, with pathogens such as H5N1 and H7N9 influenza and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus having pandemic potential if they were to acquire efficient human-to-human transmissibility.”
- Page 21: “We assess that the United States and the world will remain vulnerable to the next flu pandemic or large scale outbreak of a contagious disease that could lead to massive rates of death and disability, severely affect the world economy, strain international resources, and increase calls on the United States for support.”
September, 2019: The Trump Administration ended the pandemic early warning program, PREDICT, which trained scientists in China and other countries to identify viruses that had the potential to turn into pandemics. According to the
Los Angeles Times, “field work ceased when funding ran out in September,” two months before COVID-19 emerged in Wuhan Province, China. On April 1, 2020 USAID used emergency powers to reboot the program.
2020: COVID-19 Arrives
January 3, 2020: The CDC is first alerted to a public health event in Wuhan, China (This fact
was revealed publicly later by HHS Secretary Alex Azar.)
January 6, 2020: The CDC issues a travel notice for Wuhan due to the spreading coronavirus.
- Note: The Trump campaign claims that this marks the beginning of the federal government disease control experts becoming aware of the virus. It was 10 weeks from this point until the week of March 16 when Trump began to change his tone on the threat.
January 8, 2020: The CDC issues an official health advisory about COVID-19.
January 10, 2020: Former Trump Homeland Security Advisor
Tom Bossert warns that we shouldn’t “jerk around with ego politics” because “we face a global health threat…Coordinate!”
January 18, 2020: After two weeks of attempts, HHS Secretary Alex Azar finally gets the chance to speak to Trump about the virus. The president redirects the conversation to vaping,
according to the Washington Post.
January 20, 2020: First U.S. case is
reported in Washington state.
January 21, 2020: Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Disease at the CDC tells reporters, “We do expect additional cases in the United States.”
January 27, 2020: Top White House aides meet with Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney
to encourage greater focus on the threat from the virus. Joe Grogan, head of the White House Domestic Policy Council warns that “dealing with the virus was likely to dominate life in the United States for many months.”
January 28, 2020: Two former Trump administration officials—Gottlieb and Borio—publish an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal imploring the president to “
Act Now to Prevent an American Epidemic.” They advocate a 4-point plan to address the coming crisis:
- (1) Expand testing to identify and isolate cases.
- Note: This did not happen for many weeks. The first time more than 2,000 tests were deployed in a single day was not until almost six weeks later, on March 11.
- (2) Boost flu vaccination efforts to reduce the load on hospitals.
- (3) Prepare hospital units for isolation with more gowns and masks.
- (4) Vaccine development.
January 29, 2020: Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro
circulates an internal memo warning that America is “defenseless” in the face of an outbreak which “elevates the risk of the coronavirus evolving into a full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans.”
January 29, 2020: The
New York Times reports that “mask hoarders” may cause further shortages when the outbreak reaches America.
January 29, 2020: Republican Senator Tom Cotton
reaches out to President Trump in private to encourage him to take the virus seriously.
January 30, 2020: Dr. James Hamblin publishes another warning about critical PPE materials in the
Atlantic, titled
“We Don’t Have Enough Masks.” At the time, it was clear that mask shortages would be a serious problem. Other countries coping with COVID-19 were already running short on masks and ordering them from America and, in addition, almost the entire CDC stockpile had been consumed during the 2009 flu season.
Late January, 2020: HHS
sends a letter asking to use its transfer authority to shift $136 million of department funds into pools that could be tapped for combating the coronavirus. White House budget hawks argued that appropriating too much money at once when there were only a few U.S. cases would be viewed as alarmist.
January 31, 2020: Trump puts into action a temporary travel ban on China. This decision has been the centerpiece of his claim to have responded to the coronavirus. But even here, the truth is somewhat different.
- Trump’s Chinese travel ban only banned “foreign nationals who had been in China in the last 14 days.” This wording did not—at all—stop people from arriving in America from China. In fact, for much of the crisis, flights from China landed in America almost daily filled with people who had been in China, but did not fit the category as Trump’s “travel ban” defined it.
January 31, 2020: On the same day Trump was enacting his fake travel ban,
Foreign Policy reports that face masks and latex gloves are sold out on Amazon and at leading stores in New York City and suggests the surge in masks being sold to other countries needs “refereeing” in the face of the coming crisis.
February 4, 2020: Gottlieb and Borio take to the WSJ again, this time to
warn the president that “a pandemic seems inevitable” and call on the administration to dramatically expand testing, expand the number of labs for reviewing tests, and change the rules to allow for tests of people even if they don’t have a clear known risk factor.
- Note: Some of these recommendations were eventually implemented—25 days later.
February 4 or 5, 2020: Robert Kadlec, the assistant secretary for preparedness and response, and other intelligence officials
brief the Senate Intelligence Committee that the virus poses a “serious” threat and that “Americans would need to take actions that could disrupt their daily lives.”
February 5, 2020: HHS Secretary Alex Azar
requests $2 billion to “buy respirator masks and other supplies for a depleted federal stockpile of emergency medical equipment.” He is rebuffed by Trump and the White House OMB who eventually send Congress a $500 million request weeks later.
www.theguardian.com
