Internal Emails Show How Chaos at the CDC Slowed the Early Response to Coronavirus
https://www.propublica.org/article/internal-emails-show-how-chaos-at-the-cdc-slowed-the-early-response-to-coronavirusThe agency was struggling with one of its most important duties: keeping track of Americans suspected of having the novel coronavirus. It had “an ongoing issue” with organizing — and sometimes flat-out losing — forms sent by local agencies about people thought to be infected. The email listed job postings for people who could track or retrieve this paperwork.
“Help needed urgently,” the CDC wrote.
(snip)
During the period in which the correspondence was written, from January to early March, health officials were trying to stay ahead of the coronavirus outbreak underway in China. By mid-February, when the CDC job postings email went out, the virus had a toehold in the United States, where there were already 15 confirmed cases. In another two weeks, the first case of community transmission would be reported in California, followed shortly by cases in Washington.
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a guy who opposed condom distribution in Africa to combat the HIV epidemic, in favor of abstinence promotion.
Meanwhile, the Surgeon General is the guy who oversaw Pence's HIV outbreak in Indiana where together they refused to do the evidence-based thing of instituting a needle exchange program, on bullshit moralizing grounds, until after dozens of people had been unnecessarily infected, which remains the largest acute localized outbreak of HIV in US history.
And HHS Secretary Azar, no all-star himself, did try to go up the chain with various concerns and issues once the CDC made him aware of the novel virus outbreak in China, but like all Trump toadies he won't act without permission out of fear of doing something Trump won't like. The White House staff would not let him speak to Trump on the phone. He did not get to speak to Trump UNTIL 15 DAYS LATER (as reported in WaPo).
Whatever bullshit "we inherited a broken system" Trump wants to push, the facts are that HE appointed a clusterfuck's worth of incompetent sycophants who are totally outmatched by the task at hand.
America never stood a chance. 