Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

John Oliver gets it right again. Trump fucked up on three basic facets of virus fighting - preparation, communication and coordination. On the question, Bush and Obama were on the mark. Trump lowered the drawbridge, increasing the probability any deadly airborne virus could hit America hard:

How Trump let coronavirus take over America
[...]
2017-2020: Withdrew CDC staff from China
Between 2017 and 2020, the Trump administration reduced the number of CDC staff in China — the presumed epicenter of the outbreak — from 47 to just 14, Reuters reported on March 25.
P - "We had a large operation of experts in China who were brought back during this administration, some of them months before the outbreak," a person who witnessed the withdrawal of U.S. personnel said. "You have to consider the possibility that our drawdown made this catastrophe more likely or more difficult to respond to."
2018: Ignored warnings from CDC
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Trump's "drain the swamp" means 'drain the expertise'. Excerpt from yours ..
"In May 2018, Trump ordered the NSC’s entire global health security unit shut down, calling for reassignment of Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer and dissolution of his team inside the agency. The month before, then-White House National Security Advisor John Bolton pressured Ziemer’s DHS counterpart, Tom Bossert, to resign along with his team. Neither the NSC nor DHS epidemic teams have been replaced. The global health section of the CDC was so drastically cut in 2018 that much of its staff was laid off and the number of countries it was working in was reduced from 49 to merely 10. Meanwhile, throughout 2018, the U.S. Agency for International Development and its director, Mark Green, came repeatedly under fire from both the White House and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. And though Congress has so far managed to block Trump administration plans to cut the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps by 40 percent, the disease-fighting cadres have steadily eroded as retiring officers go unreplaced...."
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Then Trump labeled the deadly airborne disease, Obama had warned in December 2004 America had to be prepared for, a hoax. And fed the ignorance of his followers by repeatedly saying it would 'just go away.' H/t oysternbeer

13 times Trump said he expected the virus would go away. The first there in Feb. 10, 2020 "...Typically that will go away in April."

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As for Trump's lies about and boasting about his travel ban on China
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Most major airlines had already suspended flights .. https://apnews.com/7a165f73821fdd44e321a38be005886c .. to China prior to the announcement on Jan. 31, following the lead of several major international carriers that had stopped due to the coronavirus outbreak. Delta, American and United cited a sharp drop in demand for the flights, and an earlier State Department advisory told Americans not to travel to China because of the outbreak.
[...]
There were plenty of gaps in containment.
Trump’s order did not fully “close” the U.S. off to China, as he asserts. It temporarily barred entry by foreign nationals who had traveled in China within the previous 14 days, with exceptions for the immediate family of U.S. citizens and permanent residents. Americans returning from China were allowed back after enhanced screening at select ports of entry and for 14 days afterward. But U.S. scientists say screenings can miss people who don’t yet show symptoms of COVID-19; while symptoms often appear within five or six days of exposure, the incubation period is 14 days.
P - A recent study from the journal Science found China’s internal crackdown modestly delayed the spread of the virus. It cast doubt that travel restrictions elsewhere will do much compared with other preventive measures, citing in part the likelihood that a large number of people exposed to the virus had already been traveling internationally without being detected.
P - For weeks after the first U.S. case of the coronavirus was confirmed in January, government missteps caused a shortage of reliable laboratory tests for the coronavirus, leading to delays in diagnoses.
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as Oliver said, Trump's ban took place on Feb. 2, two weeks after the first case was known in the U.S. And after 45 other countries had banned travel from China before he did. Also allowing some 45,000 in from China during the first two months of his ban.

And many came into NY from China via Europe for another six weeks before finally Trump banned flights from there.

Then on coordination there was, well, a few ..
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=159305703 .. here again

Trump's PPE fail

How Kushner’s Volunteer Force Led a Fumbling Hunt for Medical Supplies
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Trump's ongoing lack of a lead from a leader of a serious testing regime

White House Is Not Tracing Contacts for ‘Super-Spreader’ Rose Garden Event
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Trump's personal contributions

Multiple states report COVID-19 cases linked to Sturgis rally
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Trump's latest flavor of the month cardiologist adviser, Mr. Atlas, who like Trump is attracted to the herd approach

Trump’s New Coronavirus Adviser Wants to Copy Sweden Approach
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