Covid 19… Trump’s Failure.

For those who think Trump acted quickly and did great….

Sorry. You’re wrong.

The Covid-19 virus arrived in South Korea on January 20th, 2020. It arrived in the US a day later. By March 17th, they were conducting about 15,000 tests a day and had conducted about 250,000 tests by that time. That gave them the ability to quickly find its citizen who were infected and isolate them to prevent further spread of the disease. We ended up in a situation that is the exact opposite. I’m writing this ten days later and we still have no clue how many of our citizens have it and are infecting others. I came down with an illness this week and was scared that I might have it. And I have no way to find out. Since I have no fever, it’s probably not Covid, but I still can’t rule it out. And there are more than enough examples out there of American who still don’t take this seriously and will spread this even further. I’m not going to link to those stories as they are ubiquitous and easy to find.

Fans of Trump will protest and say their President has done a great job in dealing with the Covid pandemic. He is not the first President to deal with a viral outbreak. Lets compare the response to the Covid 19 outbreak to that of the Obama administration and it’s response to N1H1.

This is the list of actions as featured on the CDC webpage concerning H1N1. Forgive the formatting errors. I’m copying this over and the way that page is designed makes it difficult to be consistent.

April 15

• First human infection with new influenza A H1N1 virus detected in California.

• April 17
  • Second human infection with the new influenza A H1N1 virus detected in California about 130 miles away from first infection, with no known connection to previous patient.
• April 18
  • First novel 2009 H1N1 flu infections were reported by CDC to the World Health Organization (WHO) through the U.S. International Health Regulations Program.
• April 21
  • CDC publicly reported the first two U.S. infections with the new H1N1 virus.
  • CDC began working to develop a candidate vaccine virus.

• April 23
• Two additional human infections with 2009 H1N1 were detected in Texas, transforming the investigation into a multistate outbreak and response.

April 22

• CDC activated it’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC).

April 25

• The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a public health emergency of international concern.

April 24

• CDC uploaded complete gene sequences of new H1N1 2009 virus to a publically-accessible international influenza database.

Note: The CDC under the Obama administration is making the information to create both tests and future vaccines publicly available.

April 26

• The United States Government declared 2009 H1N1 a Public Health Emergency of International Concern and CDC began releasing 25% of antiviral drugs needed to treat this new influenza virus from the federal stockpile.

April 28

• The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new CDC test to detect 2009 H1N1 infections
• CDC issued the first CDC Interim Guidance on Closing Schools and Childcare Facilities, recommending a 7-day dismissal in affected schools and childcare facilities with laboratory-confirmed cases of influenza A H1N1 virus.

Note: The Obama administration is already considering and planning for school closings if that becomes necessary.

May 1

• Domestic and global shipments of new CDC test to detect 2009 H1N1 began.
• CDC updated the CDC Interim Guidance on Closing Schools and Childcare Facilities, recommending affected communities with lab-confirmed cases of influenza A H1N1 consider adopting school dismissal and childcare closing measures, including closing for up to 14 days depending on the extent and severity of influenza illness.

Note: The Obama administration has a working reliable test being rolled out less than three weeks after the very first case of N1H1 is discovered.

• May 4
  • CDC shifted from reporting confirmed cases of 2009 H1N1 to reporting both confirmed and probable cases of 2009 H1N1.
• May 5
  • Peak school dismissal day in the spring phase of the pandemic. 980 schools were dismissed, affecting 607,778 students.

Note: less than a month after the very first case of N1H1 was detected in the world, the Obama administration had already started closing schools that were in areas that had high levels of H1N1 infections.

June 11

• The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a pandemic and raised the worldwide pandemic alert level to phase 6, which means the virus was spreading to other parts of the world.
• CDC held its first press conference with former CDC Director Thomas Frieden, MD, MPH. The press conference had 2,355 participants.

June 19

• All 50 states, the District of Colombia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands had reported cases of 2009 H1N1 infection.

June 25

• CDC estimated at least 1 million cases of 2009 H1N1 influenza had occurred in the United States.

OK. Now lets use the same data as provided by the CDC on the progress the Trump administration has made on combating the Covid-19 outbreak.

….

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We can’t seem to find the page you were looking for. Please try our search or A-Z index.

OK. So there is no timeline there. But lucky for us, the Trump campaign team has provided a timeline for us. Yes, his campaign is using tremendous / huge / beautiful the “Chinese Virus” as a campaign talking point.

December 31: China reports the discovery of the coronavirus to the World Health Organization.

January 6: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a travel notice for Wuhan, China due to the spreading coronavirus.

January 7: The CDC established a coronavirus incident management system to better share and respond to information about the virus.

January 11: The CDC issued a Level I travel health notice for Wuhan, China.

Note: Even though there is plenty of valid criticism to be levied at China over their initial handling of the novel coronavirus as it was called the, by this time they had given the WHO the genetic map of the virus, which means that the creation of test kits was now possible.

January 17: The CDC began implementing public health entry screening at the 3 U.S. airports that received the most travelers from Wuhan – San Francisco, New York JFK, and Los Angeles.

January 20: Dr. Fauci announces the National Institutes of Health is already working on the development of a vaccine for the coronavirus.

January 21: The CDC activated its emergency operations center to provide ongoing support to the coronavirus response.

Note: The first case of Covid 19 had been found in the continental US.

January 23: The CDC sought a “special emergency authorization” from the FDA to allow states to use its newly developed coronavirus test.

January 27: The CDC issued a level III travel health notice urging Americans to avoid all nonessential travel to China due to the coronavirus.

January 29: The White House announced the formation of the Coronavirus Task Force to help monitor and contain the spread of the virus and provide updates to the President. 

January 31: The Trump Administration:

• Declared the coronavirus a public health emergency.
   
• Announced Chinese travel restrictions.
   
• Suspended entry into the United States for foreign nationals who pose a risk of transmitting the coronavirus.

Note: There is a huge loophole to those travel restrictions that will be addressed shortly.

January 31: The Department of Homeland Security took critical steps to funnel all flights from China into just 7 domestic U.S. airports.

February 3: The CDC had a team ready to travel to China to obtain critical information on the novel coronavirus, but were in the U.S. awaiting permission to enter by the Chinese government.

February 4: President Trump vowed in his State of the Union Address to “take all necessary steps” to protect Americans from the coronavirus.

February 6: The CDC began shipping CDC-Developed test kits for the 2019 Novel Coronavirus to U.S. and international labs.

Note: The test kits would turn out to be faulty and not accurate.

February 9: The White House Coronavirus Task Force briefed governors from across the nation at the National Governors’ Association Meeting in Washington.

February 11: The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) expanded a partnership with Janssen Research & Development to “expedite the development” of a coronavirus vaccine.

February 12: The U.S. shipped test kits for the 2019 novel coronavirus to approximately 30 countries who lacked the necessary reagents and other materials.

February 12: The CDC was prepared to travel to China but had yet to receive permission from the Chinese government.

February 14: The CDC began working with five labs to conduct “community-based influenza surveillance” to study and detect the spread of coronavirus.

February 18: HHS announced it would engage with Sanofi Pasteur in an effort to quickly develop a coronavirus vaccine and to develop treatment for coronavirus infections.

February 24: The Trump Administration sent a letter to Congress requesting at least $2.5 billion to help combat the spread of the coronavirus.

February 26: President Trump discussed coronavirus containment efforts with Indian PM Modi and updated the press on his Administration’s containment efforts in the U.S. during his state visit to India.

February 29: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allowed certified labs to develop and begin testing coronavirus testing kits while reviewing pending applications.

Note: Missing from the campaign talking points is the public admission that the first tests produced by the Trump CDC were defective and gave way too many false positives.

February 29: The Trump Administration:

• Announced a level 4 travel advisory to areas of Italy and South Korea.
   
• Barred all travel to Iran.
   
• Barred the entry of foreign citizens who visited Iran in the last 14 days.

March 3: The CDC lifted federal restrictions on coronavirus testing to allow any American to be tested for coronavirus, “subject to doctor’s orders.”

Note: There still aren’t enough tests available for this to make a difference… And it should have been lifted far sooner.

March 3: The White House announced President Trump donated his fourth quarter salary to fight the coronavirus.

$100,000 is not a lot of money for this kind of endeavor.

March 4: The Trump Administration announced the purchase of approximately 500 million N95 respirators over the next 18 months to respond to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

March 4: Secretary Azar announced that HHS was transferring $35 million to the CDC to help state and local communities that have been impacted most by the coronavirus.

March 6: President Trump signed an $8.3 billion bill to fight the coronavirus outbreak.

The bill provides $7.76 billion to federal, state, & local agencies to combat the coronavirus and authorizes an additional $500 million in waivers for Medicare telehealth restrictions.

March 9: President Trump called on Congress to pass a payroll tax cut over coronavirus.

March 10: President Trump and VP Pence met with top health insurance companies and secured a commitment to waive co-pays for coronavirus testing.

March 11: President Trump:

• Announced travel restrictions on foreigners who had visited Europe in the last 14 days.
   
• Directed the Small Business Administration to issue low-interest loans to affected small businesses and called on congress to increase this fund by $50 billion.
   
• Directed the Treasury Department to defer tax payments for affected individuals & businesses, & provide $200 billion in “additional liquidity.”
   
• Met with American bankers at the White House to discuss coronavirus.

Note: The travel ban once again contains the same huge loophole that the China one does as seen below.

March 13: President Trump declared a national emergency in order to access $42 billion in existing funds to combat the coronavirus.

March 13: President Trump announced:

• Public-private partnerships to open up drive-through testing collection sites.
   
• A pause on interest payments on federal student loans.
   
• An order to the Department of Energy to purchase oil for the strategic petroleum reserve.

I was going to post the other seven pages listed on the campaign website, but you get the picture. Now, as you read that list, try and decide what items really made a difference, actually did something tangible and concrete, vs being some administrative thing that may have moved the ball along, but didn’t result in a major milestone.

For instance:

February 3: The CDC had a team ready to travel to China to obtain critical information on the novel coronavirus, but were in the U.S. awaiting permission to enter by the Chinese government.

China had already given the genetic map of the virus to the WHO a month earlier, and that was the most important info they had. I’m not sure why this is relevant.

“February 29: The Trump Administration:

• Announced a level 4 travel advisory to areas of Italy and South Korea.
   
• Barred all travel to Iran.
   
• Barred the entry of foreign citizens who visited Iran in the last 14 days.

The first US case of Covid 19 in the US was identified on January 20th 2020. Eleven days later, the Trump administration reacted by restricting  “foreign nationals who had been in China in the last 14 days” from entering the country. Of course, that left the door wide open for US citizens to travel back and forth. Note that criticism comes from the Conservative Washington Times. A few days later, Trump “reassures” the nation by saying “Well, we pretty much shut it down coming in from China. … We can’t have thousands of people coming in who may have this problem, the coronavirus. So we’re gonna see what happens, but we did shut it down, yes.” Obviously a false statement. But he believed it because he wants it to be true. And traveling TO Iran??? Who was even doing that? And how does that help the US as were are concerned about who is coming in.

March 3: The CDC lifted federal restrictions on coronavirus testing to allow any American to be tested for coronavirus, “subject to doctor’s orders.”

That’s great, except we didn’t hardly have any tests.

If you look at the entire list on the campaign site, it becomes clear the Trump administration did a whole bunch of stuff, but didn’t know what they were doing and fails us all.

On the topic of China… They screwed up. Big time. I’m not going to go into detail here as that’s been covered elsewhere. They did do one substantial thing that was very important. China delivered the genetic coding of the Covid 19 virus to the WHO on January 11th, which it promptly shared with health officials and departments of countries all over the world. By January 16th, the Germans were already starting to distribute a test kit to detect this new virus. A day later, the WHO published the protocol provided by the Germans on duplicating the test. This way other countries could immediately start producing and distributing test kits of their own without reinventing the wheel. By February 28th, South Korea had tested 65,00. China was ramping up its test rate to 1.6 million a week.

What did the United State do under the leadership of Donald Trump?

Try and reinvent the wheel.

I have no problem with the US making their own test.

Meanwhile, eleven days after the first case of N1H1, the CDC under the Obama administration was already nearing completion of a working reliable test. That would be released on May 1st.

The Obama administration did a MUCH BETTER job of dealing with the H1N1 challenge than Trump has done with Covid 19.

His statements underscore that he didn’t think this would be a big deal. On February 26, over a month after the first case was found in the US, he tweeted: “Because of all we’ve done, the risk to the American people remains very low. … When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero. That’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”

Now it is true that China is responsible for letting this get out of control and spreading outside it’s borders. And South Korea IS a much smaller country, which makes things a little easier to deal with. But once it came to ours, which was at some point inevitable, our government is then responsible for what happens at that point. And we STIILL have a President who doesn’t take this seriously. He insists that private enterprise will swoop in and save the day with no central planning or involvement, and will not invoke the Defense Production Act. The typical supply-side approach.

Private enterprise can, and will will do some great things to help deal with this disastrous outbreak. But consider this; after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, and our entry into World War Two, it wasn’t private enterprise that save us. The Federal Government took over pretty much EVERY needed aspect of manufacturing in this country and focused it in order to build/ manufacture the military supplies needed to get into the war as soon as possible. That type of approach is completely missing here. Yes, Ford GE, and a number of companies are starting to work together to build ventilators and other medical equipment, but their own estimates are that they won’t be ready until June. We need supplies NOW. We need testing NOW. But, unlike South Korea, which recognized the dire threat immediately, this administration ignored those in this country that did, and now he’s throwing the states to the wolves by not serving the needs of the entire country.

Yeah. I’m a “Trump hater” I guess. But the fact remains that had this administration not disbanded the pandemic panel, had we accepted help from other countries, testing supplies from the W.H.O., instead of doing the whole AMERICA FIRST routine, we could be much farther along in fighting this epidemic.