Covid is an unprecedented happening, not sure if anyone else would've done a whole lot better.
Well, there are plenty of reasons others would have done better- starting with taking the issue of pandemic preparedness seriously early on. Before we even were aware of COVID...
If we didn't know it before, (and most of us did), we got confirmation from Bolton last night about just how little attention Trump paid to anything NOT related to his re-election. He doesn't even read his daily National Security Briefing, so I guess it's not unsurprising to realize that something as "inconsequential" as this would escape his attention. Guess they didn't have a feature on it on OAN?
From the Oct 24, 2019 edition of the WaPo...
"Oct. 24, 2019, at 1:44 p.m. EDT
After an
Ebola epidemic devastated West Africa in 2014, many countries took steps to boost their preparedness. But even as the risk of such outbreaks increases, no country — the United States included — is fully prepared to respond to a deliberate or accidental threat with the potential to wipe out humanity, according to a
report assessing the efforts of 195 countries.
The report, released Thursday, is the first comprehensive assessment of global health capabilities, giving countries an overall score based on several measures. Unlike other ratings, the Global Health Security Index benchmarks health security in the context of tools critical to fighting outbreaks, such as robust health systems, adherence to global norms, and political and security risks, including public confidence in government.
The United States does well in five of six preparedness categories but ranks 19th — after Australia, Canada, Singapore and more than a half-dozen European countries — in an assessment of overall risk and vulnerability to biological threats."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/heal...luded-is-fully-prepared-pandemic-report-says/
Now question for you... Given your druthers, would you rather have the POTUS read this report and be aware of the issues it discusses, or ignore it completely?
Remember this is Oct 24, 2019 and right there in the POTUS's hometown Newspaper is a just-released report on the preparedness problems the US would face if struck by a pandemic...
So the next morning, the most pressing issue on the then POTUS's "mind" is complaining to Tim Cook about changes made to the iPhone in 2017...
I guess Trump couldn't be expected to take note of the report, and maybe try to work on improving the situation. Of course, no one would have been paying attention to this issue as far back as then. Right?
Guess Joe considered issues surrounding US preparedness a touch more important on Oct 25 than whining about the changes to the iPhone...
"COVID is an unprecedented happening, not sure if anyone else would've done a whole lot better"
Now that is your claim (relayed from Team Trump Apology Central)... But is it true?
We know that Trump placed less emphasis on Pandemic Preparedness than previous Administrations (Bush and Obama).
We know that he used budget cuts in that area and a downplaying of the 2 previous Administrations' priorities to shift funding in the DHS arena to his "wall"...
https://www.rollingstone.com/politi...ng-stone-timeline-coronavirus-america-982944/
As it turns out one thing Trump DID DO likely played a key role in the US being caught with our pants down by a virus outbreak in China...
"Several months before the coronavirus pandemic began,
the Trump administration eliminated a key American public health position in Beijing intended to help detect disease outbreaks in China, Reuters has learned. The American disease expert, a medical epidemiologist embedded in China’s disease control agency, left her post in July, according to four sources with knowledge of the issue.
The American expert, Dr. Linda Quick, was a trainer of Chinese field epidemiologists who were deployed to the epicenter of outbreaks to help track, investigate and contain diseases.
Experts including one former official who held that position told the news service
that Quick, were she still in her position, would have had the opportunity to receive warning and information about the coronavirus outbreak possibly sooner than U.S. and other global health experts did. “It was heartbreaking to watch,” Bao-Ping Zhu, the former CDC official who held the role between 2007-2011, told the news agency. “If someone had been there, public health officials and governments across the world could have moved much faster.”
https://khn.org/morning-breakout/tr...isease-outbreaks-in-china-several-months-ago/
We know from your posts that you're a loyal Trumper who agrees with Trump that China is to blame for the virus. Would you also agree that Trump is responsible for the CHOICE he made, to eliminate a critical watchdog position that dates back to at least Bush?