The Four Men Responsible For America's COVID-19 Test Disaster

[Newest Reality]

The White House’s inability to track the disease as it spread across the nation crippled the government’s response and led to the worst disaster this country has faced in nearly a century

Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control, flanked Donald Trump at the podium in the White House briefing room. It was February 29th, the day of the first reported U.S. death from the coronavirus, and the president fielded an urgent question: “How should Americans prepare for this virus?” a reporter asked. “Should they go on with their daily lives? Change their routine? What should they do?”

In that moment, America was flying blind into a pandemic; the virus was on the loose, and nobody quite knew where. The lives of tens of thousands hinged on the advice about to be delivered by the president and his top public-health advisers. Trump began: “Well, I hope they don’t change their routine,” before he trailed off, and, quite uncharacteristically, called on an expert to finish the response. “Bob?” he said. “Do you want to answer that?”

A tall man, with a tan, freckled head, and a snow-white chinstrap beard, Redfield stepped to the podium. “The risk at this time is low,” Redfield told the country. “The American public needs to go on with their normal lives.”

This reassurance came at precisely, and tragically, the wrong time. With a different answer, much of the human devastation that was about to unfold in the United States would have been avoidable. Academic research from Imperial College in London, modeling the U.S. response, estimates that up to 90 percent of COVID-19 deaths could have been prevented had the U.S. moved to shut down by March 2nd. Instead, administration leaders dragged their feet for another two weeks, as the virus continued a silent, exponential assault. By early May, more than 75,000 Americans were dead.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/covid-19-test-trump-admin-failed-disaster-995930/

[Budi]

1. Excellent read. Thanks

SNIP

“We had ample notice to get our country ready,” says Ron Klain, who served as President Obama’s Ebola czar, and lists the rolling out of testing, securing protective equipment, and building up hospital capacity as necessary preventative steps.
“We spent all of January and February doing none of those things, and as a result, when this disease really exploded in March, we weren’t prepared.”

The government leaders who failed to safeguard the nation are CDC Director Redfield; FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn; Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar; and of course, President Trump. Together, these men had the power to change the direction of this pandemic, to lessen its impact on the economy, and constrain the death toll from COVID-19. Each failed, in a series of errors and mismanagement that grew into a singular catastrophe — or as Jared Kushner described it on Fox & Friends, “a great success story.”

Defeating an invisible enemy like the coronavirus requires working diagnostics. But when the CDC’s original test kit failed, there was no Plan B. The nation’s private-sector biomedical establishment is world-class, but the administration kept these resources cordoned behind red tape as the CDC foundered. Precious weeks slipped by — amid infighting, ass covering, and wasted effort — and the virus slipped through the nation’s crippled surveillance apparatus, taking root in hot spots across the country, and in particular, New York City."
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This reads like a prosecutor's beginning case against the Trump COVID-19 criminality.
Damn good research & writing.


Thanks for posting this.

[DallasNE]

4. Next Step, Compare And Contrast

What actions or inactions the Trump team took and what the playbook Obama left behind said we needed to do.

Time is wasting. People are continuing to die.

Fingers need to be pointed, including at things the playbook may have gotten wrong. The compare and contrast will be the scorecard.

[Newest Reality]

7. You are right!

It does read that way. Hmmm.

Thanks for posting that pertinent snip that sums things up.

[crickets]

10. Given the devastating loss of life in the US and worldwide

due to their criminal negligence, they should be prosecuted.

[Celerity]

2. K & R

[liberalla]

3. bookmarking... K&R

[dalton99a]

5. The Chinese contacted Redfield by phone on Jan. 3

On Jan. 3, Dr. Gao Fu, head of China’s disease control agency, informed his U.S. counterpart, Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the CDC, in an emotional telephone call that the outbreak was growing out of control, according to the same federal official and a former NSC official. Both said they had been informed of the details.

The CDC, a part of HHS, confirmed to Reuters that it learned of an outbreak in late December and that the call with Gao occurred Jan. 3.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-nsc/as-trump-administration-debated-travel-restrictions-thousands-streamed-in-from-china-idUSKBN21N0EJ

[IronLionZion]

6. There's seems to be a pattern of these geniuses consistently doing a heck of a job

[Hermit-The-Prog]

8. k & r & bookmarked

[Brother Mythos]

9. Thank you for posting this article.