General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhite House Economists Warned in 2019 a Pandemic Could Devastate America
WASHINGTON White House economists published a study last September that warned a pandemic disease could kill a half million Americans and devastate the economy.
It went unheeded inside the administration.
In late February and early March, as the coronavirus pandemic began to spread from China to the rest of the world, President Trumps top economic advisers played down the threat the virus posed to the U.S. economy and public health.
I dont think corona is as big a threat as people make it out to be, the acting chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Tomas Philipson, told reporters during a Feb. 18 briefing, on the same day that more than a dozen American cruise ship passengers who had contracted the virus were evacuated home. Public health threats did not typically hurt the economy, Mr. Philipson said. He suggested the virus would not be nearly as bad as a normal flu season.
The 2019 study warned otherwise specifically urging Americans not to conflate the risks of a typical flu and a pandemic. The existence of that warning undermines administration officials contentions in recent weeks that no one could have seen the virus damaging the economy as it has. The study was requested by the National Security Council, according to two people familiar with the matter.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/business/coronavirus-economy-trump.html
Da-truth
(20 posts)Please look
Botany
(70,481 posts)Impeach and remove his ass PDQ.
BTW the were warned in Jan. 2017 and they were warned again after a CDC excise
of what a global pandemic would cause to America.
Trump fired the global pandemic task force from Homeland Security in 2018.
Trump or somebody under his direction fired the CDC's epidemiologist who was in China looking for
things like C-19 in the summer of 2019.