Rather long read - How a country which had the world's best response team failed

[packman]

?itok=EPobiNOP&c=afcd994c06f2c9e7c3e640d9afcc28dc


On 8 May 2018, Donald Trump signed Rescission Proposal R18-1, asking the US government to take back $15bn in spending. At the time, coverage of these cuts focussed on the $7bn that would be taken from the Children’s Health Insurance Program. But the 38-page proposal details a swathe of other cuts. Among these was the removal of the remaining $252m budget for International Disaster Assistance that had been committed in 2015 as part of the Ebola response, and the State Department’s $30m Complex Crises Fund. The CDC, in response to previous funding cuts, had already reduced its pandemic preparedness activity in 39 countries. On the day R18-1 was signed, the WHO announced a new outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Two days later the newly appointed National Security Advisor, John Bolton, dissolved the Global Health Security team within the NSC. Timothy Ziemer, the most senior White House official in charge of responses to pandemics or bioterrorism, left that day and was not replaced.

The issue with these programmes was not that they were expensive – the $282m saved on pandemic preparedness by R18-1 represents less than 0.007 per cent of US government spending in 2018 – but that they were connected to the health security agenda, which had been an Obama project.


https://www.newstatesman.com/world/north-america/2020/03/america-pandemic-response-swine-flu-avian

Note: Previous link broken, try above for original source of article

[Tanuki]

1. The $282 million saved is also less than Rapist45 has spent so far on golf trips

to his personal resorts.

[New Breed Leader]

2. Link is broken.

[packman]

3. Thanks for notifying- referenced original link in edited post

[underpants]

4. 👀

Marking for later read