Signs missed and steps slowed in Trump’s pandemic response

[mystery-ak]

Signs missed and steps slowed in Trump’s pandemic response
By JONATHAN LEMIRE, ZEKE MILLER, JILL COLVIN and RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
2 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — By the time President Donald Trump first spoke publicly about the coronavirus, it may already have been too late.

Interviewed at Davos, a gathering of global elites in the Swiss Alps, the president on Jan. 22 played down the threat posed by the respiratory virus from China, which had just reached American shores in the form of a solitary patient in Washington state.

“We have it totally under control,” Trump said on CNBC. “It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”

In the 11 weeks since that interview, the coronavirus has reached every corner of the globe. It has infected more than 500,000 Americans and killed at least 20,000. It has rewritten the rules of society, isolated people in their homes, closed schools, devastated the economy and put millions out of work.

When Trump spoke in Switzerland, weeks’ worth of warning signs already had been raised. In the ensuing month, before the president first addressed the crisis from the White House, key steps to prepare the nation for the coming pandemic were not taken.

Life-saving medical equipment was not stockpiled. Travel largely continued unabated. Vital public health data from China was not provided or was deemed untrustworthy. A White House riven by rivalries and turnover was slow to act. Urgent warnings were ignored by a president consumed by his impeachment trial and intent on protecting a robust economy that he viewed as central to his reelection chances.

Twenty current and former administration officials and Republicans close to the White House were interviewed for this account about the critical weeks lost before the president spoke to the nation on Feb. 26. Most spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about private discussions.

more
https://apnews.com/6a8f85aad99607f313cca6ab1398e04d

[Cyber Liberty]

No animals were harmed in creating this article.

[andy58-in-nh]

No animals were harmed in creating this article.

Only because they can't read. If they could, they'd throw up on the living room rug.

You see how this is done, right? Use leaked, unsourced documents to create a narrative, ignore all facts that contradict it, and make unsubstantiated claims as though they were factual and required no verification. And poof! You have modern "journalism" - propaganda tarted up to look like respectable news.

[Cyber Liberty]

Only because they can't read. If they could, they'd throw up on the living room rug.

You see how this is done, right? Use leaked, unsourced documents to create a narrative, ignore all facts that contradict it, and make unsubstantiated claims as though they were factual and required no verification. And poof! You have modern "journalism" - propaganda tarted up to look like respectable news.

...a roundabout way of saying "Ma!  AyPee is full of shit again!"

[PeteS in CA]

 

Signs missed and steps slowed in Trump’s pandemic response
By JONATHAN LEMIRE, ZEKE MILLER, JILL COLVIN and RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
2 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — By the time President Donald Trump first spoke publicly 1 about the coronavirus, it may already have been too late.

Interviewed at Davos, a gathering of global elites in the Swiss Alps, the president on Jan. 22 played down the threat posed by the respiratory virus from China, which had just reached American shores in the form of a solitary patient in Washington state.

“We have it totally under control,” Trump said on CNBC 2.
...
When Trump spoke in Switzerland, weeks’ worth of warning signs already had been raised. In the ensuing month 3, before the president first addressed the crisis from the White House, key steps to prepare the nation for the coming pandemic were not taken.

1 Weasel-worded! Between December 31st, when China first told the world there was an outbreak in Wuhan and January 22nd, the Trump Administration had taken these actions:

CDC issued a Level 1 travel notice for Wuhan, China: January 6, 2020, https://afludiary.blogspot.com/2020/01/cdc-issues-level-1-watch-travel-notice.html

CDC established a coronavirus incident management system: January 7, 2020, https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/videos/coronavirus/COVID-19-webinar.pdf

The US started screening arriving passengers from China: January 17, 2020, JFK, SFO, LAX https://www.businessinsider.com/new-disease-virus-china-us-airports-screening-cdc-2020-1 ; O'Hare and Hartsfield-Jackson January 22, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/01/21/us-screenings-coronavirus-expanded-airports-atlanta-chicago/

Dr. Fauci announces the National Institutes of Health working developing a vaccine for coronavirus: January 20, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/20/health/coronavirus-nih-vaccine-development/index.html

CDC activated its emergency operations center: January 20, 2020, https://emergency.cdc.gov/recentincidents/index.asp?cid=EPR-homepage

Pharmaceuticals company working with US government to develop vaccine: January 22, 2020, Moderna, https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/22/moderna-is-working-on-a-vaccine-for-chinas-deadly-coronavirus.html

Actions speak louder than words.

2 Trump spoke of what was known on January 22nd, not what we know on April 12th, when this hit-piece was published.

3A "Weeks’ worth of warning signs already had been raised"? Warnings like these?

Wuhan Municipal Health Commission claimed no evidence of human-human transmission or infected medical staff: December 31, 2019, http://wjw.wuhan.gov.cn/front/web/showDetail/2019123108989  (Chinese language, second paragraph)

Wuhan Municipal Health Commission claimed no evidence of human-human transmission or infected medical staff: January 3, 2020, http://wjw.wuhan.gov.cn/front/web/showDetail/2020010309017  (Chinese language)

Wuhan Municipal Health Commission claimed no evidence of human-human transmission or infected medical staff: January 5, 2020, http://wjw.wuhan.gov.cn/front/web/showDetail/2020010509020  (Chinese language)

WHO recommends against international travel restrictions: January 10, 2020, https://www.who.int/news-room/articles-detail/who-advice-for-international-travel-and-trade-in-relation-to-the-outbreak-of-pneumonia-caused-by-a-new-coronavirus-in-china/

Wuhan Municipal Health Commission claimed no evidence of human-human transmission or infected medical staff: January 11, 2020, http://wjw.wuhan.gov.cn/front/web/showDetail/2020011109035  (Chinese language)

Wuhan Municipal Health Commission claimed no cases among related contacts: January 14, 2020, http://wjw.wuhan.gov.cn/front/web/showDetail/2020011409039  (Chinese language)

China/WHO claimed no evidence of  human to human transmission of corona virus: January 14, 2020,

https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152

World Health Organization (WHO)
@WHO
Jan 14
Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China.

First confirmed US case left Wuhan to come to the US: January 15, 2020, confirmed January 21, 2020, https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/p0121-novel-coronavirus-travel-case.html

Wuhan Municipal Health Commission claimed no cases among related contacts: January 17, 2020, http://wjw.wuhan.gov.cn/front/web/showDetail/2020011809064  (Chinese language)

Tens of thousands gather for Wuhan's Lunar New Year banquet: January 18, 2020, https://www.thestar.com.my/news/regional/2020/02/06/wuhan-neighbourhood-sees-infections-after-40000-families-gather-for-potluck

China and WHO claim that how the virus is transmitted is unknown: January 19, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51168333

Wuhan Municipal Health Commission claimed no cases among related contacts: January 19/20, 2020, http://wjw.wuhan.gov.cn/front/web/showDetail/2020012009077  (Chinese language)

Wuhan and other cities in Hubei Province shut down travel: January 23, 2020, https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-01-27/5-million-people-left-Wuhan-before-the-lockdown-where-did-they-go--NACCu9wItW/index.html

WHO Director-General states that a travel ban is not needed: February 3, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-who-idUSKBN1ZX1H3 , https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-technical-briefing-on-2019-novel-coronavirus

3B Depending on how one interprets "the ensuing month" Trump did a lot in the month of January, the month after China told the world they had a problem. And in the month after Trump spoke in Davos, his administration did a whole lot more. Rather than make this post a whole lot longer, the timeline link in my signature give dates and supporting sources for many of the actions of the Trump Administration in the months of January and February (and up through April 8th).

AP authors "JONATHAN LEMIRE, ZEKE MILLER, JILL COLVIN and RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR" are lying deceiving insults-to-lying-weasels!

[TomSea]

The "Red Dawn" emails....right or wrong, this will have to be defended and I'm not blindly following anyone.  For the record, this is faulting Health and Human Services and the CDC... I'll see what else they find error with.

The ‘Red Dawn’ Emails: 8 Key Exchanges on the Faltering Response to the Coronavirus

...

WASHINGTON — As the coronavirus emerged and headed toward the United States, an extraordinary conversation was hatched among an elite group of infectious disease doctors and medical experts in the federal government and academic institutions around the nation.

Red Dawn — a nod to the 1984 film with Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen — was the nickname for the email chain they built. Different threads in the chain were named Red Dawn Breaking, Red Dawn Rising, Red Dawn Breaking Bad and, as the situation grew more dire, Red Dawn Raging. It was hosted by the chief medical officer at the Department of Homeland Security, Dr. Duane C. Caneva, starting in January with a small core of medical experts and friends that gradually grew to dozens.

The “Red Dawn String,” Dr. Caneva said, was intended “to provide thoughts, concerns, raise issues, share information across various colleagues responding to Covid-19,” including medical experts and doctors from the Health and Human Services Department, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Homeland Security Department, the Veterans Affairs Department, the Pentagon and other federal agencies tracking the historic health emergency.

More:  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-red-dawn-emails-trump.html

This looks like Charlie Foxtrot, extremely agitating.   

How about that, a lot of this info is through FOIA. Can't argue with that.

[PeteS in CA]

Paywall

[Cyber Liberty]

Paywall

Try opening it in a Private Window. 

[TomSea]

Paywall

MSN News:   https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-red-dawn-emails-8-key-exchanges-on-the-faltering-response-to-the-coronavirus/ar-BB12uMDp

@PeteS in CA

[Smokin Joe]

Only because they can't read. If they could, they'd throw up on the living room rug.

You see how this is done, right? Use leaked, unsourced documents to create a narrative, ignore all facts that contradict it, and make unsubstantiated claims as though they were factual and required no verification. And poof! You have modern "journalism" - propaganda tarted up to look like respectable news.

You left out blaming Trump for the whole Impeachment BS, for the perfidy in the ranks that placed (democrat) politics ahead of human lives, for the announcements that were made by the Chinese and the WHO that the disease was not readily transmitted from one human to another, and only through close and prolonged contact.

It is as if it is Trump's fault that so many were giving him bad data, that the Obama administration had depleted stockpiles of critical supplies and not replaced them (nor had any of the agency people responsible for those stockpiles done their jobs and seen to it that those supplies were replaced.)

We see what is going on here. The damnable Democrats are so focused on playing politics and on gaining power, that they have endangered the very people they want to have power over. They have proven they are not worthy.

They have demonstrated exactly why they should never be entrusted with control of anything ever again.

[dfwgator]

It is not the critic who counts.

[Smokin Joe]

It is not the critic who counts.

Yep.

[Right_in_Virginia]

What did the House Intelligence Committee miss?   

[PeteS in CA]

From the MSN link:

The concern these medical experts had been raising in late January and early February turned to alarm by the third week in February. That was when they effectively concluded that the United States had already lost the fight to contain the virus, and that it needed to switch to mitigation. One critical element in that shift was the realization that many people in the country were likely already infected and capable of spreading the virus, but not showing any symptoms. Here Dr. Lee discusses this conclusion with Dr. Robert Kadlec, the head of the virus response effort at the Department of Health and Human Services and a key White House adviser.

The article is very vague about dates. This one of the few that is slightly less vague. Rather than copy-and-paste a boatload of actions and dates of Trump Administration actions, just click the US timeline link below, and see what all had been done, starting in early January and through the third week of February. IOW, the context this NYT article omitted. Then click the China timeline link, and see how long it took for China to tell the world that human-human transmission had occurred. The NYT is lying by omission, cyrnically and deceitfully assuming people won't know the context the NYT is withholding.

The current Dem-MSM narrative is that Trump did too little, too late, and their narrative is contradicted by Trump Administration actions and the "knowledge" the world had when Trump acted.

When Mr. Trump gave a speech to the nation on March 11 in which he announced limits on flights from Europe to the United States — but still no move to curb gatherings in cities where the virus had spread — the experts on the email chain grew angry and fearful.

Trump didn't violate the US Constitution. So I can understand why #Resisters would be angry ... that Trump didn't give them valid grounds for impeachment.

[PeteS in CA]

What did the House Intelligence Committee miss?   

The whole month of January and most of the first week of February. OTOH, Miss Nancy handed out a few cool pens on January 15th.

[TomSea]

I wish I had saved it but it may well be Dr. Fauci who dismissed early warnings.

[Right_in_Virginia]

I wish I had saved it but it may well be Dr. Fauci who dismissed early warnings.

Here's one article @TomSea

Top disease official: Risk of coronavirus in USA is 'minuscule'; skip mask and wash hands
USA Today, Feb 19, 2020

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be testing for the coronavirus in people in five major cities who show up at clinics with flu-like symptoms but who test negative for the seasonal varieties.

If that testing shows the virus has slipped into the country in places federal officials don't know about, "we've got a problem," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told USA TODAY's Editorial Board Monday.

Short of that, Fauci says skip the masks unless you are contagious, don't worry about catching anything from Chinese products and certainly don't avoid Chinese people or restaurants. 

"Whenever you have the threat of a transmissible infection, there are varying degrees from understandable to outlandish extrapolations of fear," Fauci said.

Government agencies, including Fauci's own at the National Institutes of Health, are being inundated with calls and emails from nervous people, just as they were during the Ebola and SARS scares.

Fauci recalled how a nurse who was infected with Ebola took a flight to Ohio because she was asymptomatic and not at risk of infecting anyone. People everywhere suddenly thought all planes were unsafe.

"I was getting calls from people in Sacramento saying, 'Can I get on an airplane to go to Seattle?'" Fauci said. "Like, what? What does that got to do with anything?"

Other advice from Fauci and Dr. Stephen Hahn, Food and Drug Administration commissioner,  includes:

•Chinese products. Coronavirus is predominantly spread in the air from humans to humans. "Inanimate things" that are placed in a container in China and sent to the U.S. don't carry any risk of transmitting the virus, Fauci said. Neither do medications made in China. 

Imported shipments of FDA-regulated products, including from China, are reviewed by the FDA and have to meet the same standards as domestic products, Hahn said in a statement late Friday.

"We want to reassure the public that at this time there is no evidence that food or food packaging have been associated with transmission and no reason to be concerned," Hahn said. "Further, there is no evidence to support transmission of COVID-19 associated with imported goods, including food and drugs for humans and pets, and there have not been any cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. associated with imported goods."

•Masks. The only people who need masks are those who are already infected to keep from exposing others. The masks sold at drugstores aren't even good enough to truly protect anyone, Fauci said.

"If you look at the masks that you buy in a drug store, the leakage around that doesn't really do much to protect you," he said. "People start saying, 'Should I start wearing a mask?' Now, in the United States, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to wear a mask."

Fauci doesn't want people to worry about coronavirus, the danger of which is "just minuscule." But he does want them to take precautions against the "influenza outbreak, which is having its second wave."

"We have more kids dying of flu this year at this time than in the last decade or more," he said. "At the same time people are worrying about going to a Chinese restaurant. The threat is (we have) a pretty bad influenza season, particularly dangerous for our children."

Fauci offered advice for people who want to protect against the "real and present danger" of seasonal flu, which also would protect against the hypothetical danger of coronavirus.

"Wash your hands as frequently as you can. Stay away from crowded places where people are coughing and sneezing. If in fact you are coughing and sneezing, cover your mouth," he says.

"You know, all the things that we say each year."


https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/02/17/nih-disease-official-anthony-fauci-risk-of-coronavirus-in-u-s-is-minuscule-skip-mask-and-wash-hands/4787209002/

[libertybele]

Interesting.  Fauci during one of the pressers declared that had Trump not acted as quickly as he did, many more lives would have been lost.  Now Fauci is throwing blame on OUR President. 

IMHO Fauci has served his purpose in all of this.  Time for Trump to find another expert who can remain apolitical. 

Thank GOD that Trump acted when he did and thank GOD he quickly put together a team using both the government and private sector to get things done.  Fauci should be ashamed!  The MSM should be ashamed.  The DEMS should be ashamed.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fauci-expresses-cautious-optimism-over-latest-coronavirus-statistics

[Right_in_Virginia]

Interesting.  Fauci during one of the pressers declared that had Trump not acted as quickly as he did, many more lives would have been lost.  Now Fauci is throwing blame on OUR President. 

IMHO Fauci has served his purpose in all of this.  Time for Trump to find another expert who can remain apolitical. 

Methinks Fauci knows he's going to be a backbencher once the Council to Reopen Business takes the lead.

@libertybele

[Right_in_Virginia]

Yup, @libertybele  POTUS is moving away from Fauci.   

Donald J. Trump
Verified accountï‚™ @realDonaldTrump 

Governors, get your states testing programs & apparatus perfected. Be ready, big things are happening. No excuses! The Federal Government is there to help. We are testing more than any country in the World. Also, gear up with Face Masks!

2:43 PM - 12 Apr 2020

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1249453028178001920

[GtHawk]

The whole month of January and most of the first week of February. OTOH, Miss Nancy handed out a few cool pens on January 15th.

@PeteS in CA

I heard that after his acquittal Trump handed out these nifty pen holders

 

Sorry, off topic.

[TomSea]

Thank you, very helpful @Right_in_Virginia