Coronavirus Danger Made Worse By WH Cuts To Vital Institutions; Robert Reich
'Coronavirus is bad enough-Trump's cuts have made the danger far worse.' Our government is headed by an incompetent paranoid trying to wreck the institutions that could contain this deadly virus. The Guardian, 3/1/20. EXCERPTS:
This week the US stock market suffered its largest weekly loss since 2008, as cases of the novel coronavirus not explained by overseas travel or contact with a person known to be infected were reported in California, Oregon and Washington state. On Saturday, the first US death was reported. A health crisis is rapidly morphing into an economic crisis and so far, the US response has left much to be desired. Epidemiologists in other countries have used “surveillance testing” under World Health Organization guidelines to track the spread of the disease before large numbers of people turn up at hospitals. But according to a new report by ProPublica, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lost weeks that could have been used to track its possible spread in America because it insisted upon devising its own test, which turned out to be flawed.
Donald Trump and his administration would rather blame the media and the Democrats, and even question whether the virus is real. On Friday, Trump accused news outlets like CNN of “doing everything they can to instill fear in people” while some Democrats are “trying to gain political favor by saying a lot of untruths”. Acting White House chief-of-staff Mick Mulvaney, meanwhile, told conservative activists journalists were hyping the coronavirus because “they think this will bring down the president; that’s what this is all about.” At a campaign rally on Friday evening in South Carolina, Trump claimed concern about the virus was the Democrats’ “new hoax”, after the Russia investigation and then impeachment...Trump and his administration have been making America more vulnerable to all sorts of health risks. Trump is also instructing all government health officials and scientists who have information about the virus to first clear their statements with the White House. Controlling the flow of information within an administration that is not especially renowned for truth-telling doesn’t seem calculated to increase the public’s confidence in what they hear.
Trump has taken several other steps, all of them backward. He has eliminated a National Security Council position that coordinates responses to pandemics. He has ignored an expert panel’s warning that the US is badly unprepared for global health threats and needs to restore funding to address them, and is requesting that the CDC budget be cut by almost 16%, starting in October, and the Department of Health and Human Services budget by almost 10%. Trump is also proposing a $3bn cut to global health programs, including a 53% cut to the World Health Organization and a 75% cut to the Pan American Health Organization. When he’s not accusing his enemies of hyping the coronavirus or doing what he can to undermine the nation’s and world’s ability to cope with it, Trump and his administration have been making America more vulnerable to all sorts of health risks.
He’s demanding that anyone receiving public assistance have a job, which presumably will make many people reluctant to stop working if they feel sick. Beginning next month, for example, nearly 700,000 Americans who aren’t working will no longer be eligible for food stamps. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to the Trumpsters that the likely result is for many with symptoms to ignore them in order to keep their jobs, thereby spreading disease...The number of Americans without health insurance has risen steadily during Trump’s tenure. A 2018 poll found that 44% – nearly half – didn’t see a doctor because they couldn’t afford it. Another recent survey found that 90% of Americans go to work while they’re sick. Trump and Republicans have rejected all safety nets – including paid family leave and guaranteed sick leave – that people need to cope with personal health emergencies. This also makes America less prepared for contagion...
What Trump and his administration fail to understand, but which the coronavirus should make painfully clear, is that personal health and individual wellbeing are inextricably linked to public health and social wellbeing. This is not a socialist hoax...
More, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/01/trump-coronavirus-cuts-robert-reich
- WP, 'Coronavirus May Have Spread Undetected For Weeks In Washington State Which Reported First 2 US Deaths,'
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/coronavirus-may-have-spread-undetected-for-weeks-in-washington-state-which-reported-first-two-deaths-in-us/ar-BB10BIr0?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=HPCOMMDHP15
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