Biden op-ed of 1-27 discussing impending PANDEMIC, and Trump's cuts to preparedness...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opin...us-less-prepared-joe-biden-column/4581710002/
Biden tweet of 10-25-19 regarding previous day's WAPO article on study rating each country on disaster preparedness...On that same day, Trump tweeted complaining about the iphone's revision of the HOME button...
Imo, these links are important because they destroy the narrative (employed by Trump and others) that NO ONE could have known what was coming or at least been better prepared and ready to implement the necessary measures earlier
The "China Travel ban" was nothing more than a xenophobic talking point. The virus was primarily transported to the US via people travelling from Europe who had been infected by their fellow countrymen (esp Spain and Italy) who had returned from VISITING China. There was no ban on European flights, or US citizens returning from Europe or China.
There was also no screening of incoming flights at the airport. That and contact tracing were fundamental elements instituted in places like Singapore and S Korea, who both started off with significantly more cases than the US but got things under control much more quickly and efficiently...
Countries that share a land border with China and are far closer than US cities have literally millions of fewer cases. Laos for instance...
Location Cases Recovered Deaths
Laos 22 19 0
US 5.61 M 2.85 175K
Just pointing out that proximity to China and Chinese citizens is not really a huge factor. Vientiane Laos is a city of 820,000 people, 6 hrs (1138 miles) from Wuhan via China Air. 3 or 4 flights daily.
Bloomington is nearly 7500 miles from Wuhan separated by a vast ocean and about 1/2 a continent. Monroe Co has had 827 cases and 39 deaths. The virus originated in China, but Chinese citizens have not been the ones spreading it...
Bragging about banning travel from Chinese tourists and "saving thousands of US lives" in the process is basically hot air.
As to the playbook- it's an actual blueprint that Bush and Obama implemented and passed on to Trump.
Not only did he make budget requests in line with what was already in place, but he argued that because Obama had done such a wonderful job on the issue, that he didn't need to use funds for that purpose. That's how he diverted funds to the wall...
Of course, those were the arguments he made in budget discussions. Later in May 2020, he claimed Obama left the cupboard bare-
because he's Trump. And that's what he does...
Google is a wonderful thing...
"2016
Obama administration prepares a 69-page Pandemic Playbook to coordinate an early, all of government response to an outbreak. Trump officials will leave it on the shelf.
Jan 2017
Outgoing Obama officials conduct a disaster response exercise described as “the worst influenza pandemic since 1918” with incoming Trump officials."
https://www.rollingstone.com/politi...ng-stone-timeline-coronavirus-america-982944/
Again prior to Trump the efforts were bi-partisan...
2005
President George W. Bush delivers a speech to the National Institutes of Health: “A pandemic is a lot like a forest fire. If caught early, it might be extinguished with limited damage. If allowed to smolder, undetected, it can grow to an inferno that can spread quickly beyond our ability to control it…. If we wait for a pandemic to appear, it will be too late to prepare. And one day
many lives could be needlessly lost because we failed to act today.”
2007
Bush-era Centers for Disease Control publishes
pandemic response plan.
ton Post/Getty Images
2009
Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine reportedly blocks
$870 million in flu pandemic preparedness funding from Recovery Act stimulus.
2011
National Institutes of Health sponsors
study that warns: “In a severe influenza pandemic, hospitals will likely experience serious and widespread shortages of patient pulmonary ventilators.”
2015
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) sponsors
study warning of a deficit of up to 60,500 ventilators in a severe influenza pandemic.
Department of Homeland Security
study predicts a severe flu epidemic could result in 6.5 million hospitalizations and 2.3 million ICU admissions and “could overwhelm the Healthcare and Public Health Sector in as little as 3-6 weeks.” Warns of “significant shortages in… personal protective equipment (PPE), and medical equipment, including ventilators” as well as of “supply chain disruptions” that could “significantly hamper the effectiveness” of frontline workers.
Document outlines strategy now known a “flattening the curve”:
Obama HHS solicits plans for a machine that can produce up to
2 million N95 respirators a day. “Respirator manufacturing capacity remains a critical gap” in pandemic preparedness says a top federal official in charge of project.
2016
Obama administration prepares a 69-page
Pandemic Playbook to coordinate an early, all of government response to an outbreak. Trump officials will leave it on the shelf.
Jan 2017
Outgoing Obama officials conduct a disaster response exercise described as “
the worst influenza pandemic since 1918” with incoming Trump officials.
Later 2017
Trump administration — focusing DHS on immigration — shuts down the department’s
modeling of flu pandemics."
These links are vital because they dispel two of Trump's (and his allies) talking points.
First off past administrations did have plans in place that they assumed would be followed and adhered to by Responsible successors. The key of course is "responsible"...
Also it's extremely hard to argue that a Dem Administration (which by it's nature would include people involved in formulating the Obama Admin policies in this area) would suddenly shift gears and somehow decide to not implement the same policies that they had a hand in creating in the first place...Yet that is among the excuses Trump comes up with to try and excuse his own failures...
St Louis Post Dispatch has researched the issue of Budet cuts,and Trump's ridiculous claim that Obama left the cupboard bare. The facts are scathing, and this editorial is Brutal...
"Woe is Donald Trump. The long-suffering, misunderstood president just can’t make the world understand what a raw deal he got. The pandemic was China’s fault. Or was it the World Health Organization’s fault? One thing we know for sure, the lax U.S. response was President Barack Obama’s fault.
“We inherited a broken, terrible system …,” Trump told reporters on April 18. “Our cupboards were bare. We had very little in our stockpile.” That was Trump’s attempt, frequently repeated by the president and recycled in White House presentations, to lay responsibility for the inept pandemic response at Obama’s feet, as if three years in office were insufficient for Trump to repair all the supposed damage his predecessor wrought.
Except it’s a lie of colossal Trumpian proportions.
We’ve taken the time to dissect Centers for Disease Control and Prevention budgets from
the year before Obama left office all the way to the present. Trump can lie, but the numbers cannot. Obama left office with an unblemished record of building up the nation’s pandemic preparedness. Trump systematically sought to dismantle it.
Perhaps because of his experience with the 2015 Ebola outbreak, Obama sought to leave his successor fully prepared to confront future pandemics. He asked in his fiscal 2017 budget request to boost federal isolation and quarantine funding by $15 million, to $46.6 million. Congress approved $31.6 million. In Trump’s three years in office, he has not requested a dime more in funding.
Obama asked to nearly double his own $40 million outlay for epidemiology and laboratory capacity. Congress balked, but Obama left Trump with that $40 million as a starting point. What did Trump do? In
his 2020 budget, he asked Congress to cut that number to: Zero. Zilch. Nothing.
https://www.stltoday.com/opinion/ed...cle_bd1bb8d6-7477-590d-af72-ae4e305de601.html
Deep Budget cuts for pandemic preparedness in the fall of 2019. And the shutting down of the US monitor within China charged with keeping the CDC and the US Govt informed of any potential hot spots and possible virus outbreaks, earlier in July of that same year. Man poor DJT- talk about LOUSY TIMING. And of course, totally beyond his control DWS...