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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhat We Know About the Trump Administration's Mishandling of the Coronavirus (Post everywhere)
NYMAG
February 24, 2020 1:52am
By Matt Stieb and Chas Danner
After new outbreaks of the Covid-19 novel coronavirus in South Korea, Italy, and Iran, many experts are warning that a pandemic may be inevitable. When several countries have widespread transmission, then spillover to other countries is inevitable, Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told Vox. One cannot shut out the rest of the world.
... Our window of opportunity [for containing the virus] is narrowing so we need to act quickly before it closes completely, World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday. ...According to Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch, if the outbreak becomes a global pandemic, 40 to 70 percent of the worlds population could eventually become infected though not all those infected would get sick, and not all those who get sick will develop the most severe and dangerous form of the illness caused by the illness. If the current 2 percent death rate among symptomatic cases holds, the resulting death toll will become a worldwide tragedy.
And as Foreign Policys Laurie Garrett recently explained, the administration has spent years enacting policies and putting forth budgets that have weakened the U.S. governments ability to prepare for and respond to an outbreak like this one. In addition, as Garrett highlights, the administrations notoriously dysfunctional personnel drama and haphazard efforts to reduce the size of the government havent helped either:
In May 2018, Trump ordered the NSCs 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 Ziemers 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....
As administration officials reportedly share concerns that coronavirus is spreading undetected inside the U.S., the possibility of political blowback could soon affect the White Houses response to the outbreak. The biggest current threat to the presidents reelection is this thing getting out of control and creating a health and economic impact, Chris Meekins, a former Trump administration HHS emergency-preparedness official, told Politico. At the point of a substantial outbreak, Democratic messaging on the administrations mismanagement could be equally as concerning to the Trump campaign. If a health crisis emerges, expect Democratic candidates to easily and effectively hit the president on proposed CDC cuts the White House 2021 budget proposed this month suggested a 19 percent reduction and administration policies designed to undermine scientific research.
The article is worth the entire read
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/what-we-know-about-the-trump-admins-response-to-coronavirus.html
NewJeffCT
(56,828 posts)I didn't know it was that bad
2naSalit
(86,636 posts)NewJeffCT
(56,828 posts)so when it gets bad, they can declare martial law and cancel elections?
ancianita
(36,060 posts)NewJeffCT
(56,828 posts)but, what if they close 50% of the polling stations in some major cities - Philly and Pittsburgh in PA, Milwaukee in Wisconsin, Miami and Orlando in FL, Detroit and Flint in MI, etc. Yes, people hate Trump but how many can wait in line for an entire day to vote against him?
TNNurse
(6,926 posts)Not naming names of course but you can imagine.
Response to TNNurse (Reply #4)
jayschool2013 This message was self-deleted by its author.
Crunchy Frog
(26,587 posts)Hermit-The-Prog
(33,348 posts)I know a potential patient zero who would wipe out the entire GOP.
Farmer-Rick
(10,175 posts)Just like when W mishandled the New Orleans Katrina debacle, and thousands of people died, so will Trump mishandle the coronavirus and thousands of people will die. It's just what GOP presidents do.
bsiebs
(688 posts)... he wouldnt even say its name ...
Farmer-Rick
(10,175 posts)And when they get elected, they mismanage and destroy the well functioning systems in our government.
avlbeerfan
(52 posts)I was reading the world headlines this morning and it looks like the WHO is even backing down on calling it a pandemic even though it meets their own criteria listed on the web site.
Global money.
Then of course the reports of the CDC hardly testing for the virus unless there is a direct link to China travel.
Well yea if your not looking to find it in the first place you can say ,were all good nothing to see here.
defacto7
(13,485 posts)If it becomes pandemic it would be a good idea to be in the best physical shape possible just in case. It wouldn't hurt either way.
Corgigal
(9,291 posts)Some stocking up on supplies. Not prepper style, more a hurricane might be heading this way.
Its not that pricey, if you can, its something to consider.
Also, monitor your local news. Look for cases of health workers at your local hospital and medical centers.
Im not trusting this administration for any scientific knowledge.
BonnieJW
(2,265 posts)"The current fatality rate for confirmed cases of COVID-19 is around 2 percent, but that could be high if the total number of actual cases is far lower than the number of detected and confirmed cases. "
Can someone interpret that for me?