Americans should prepare for coronavirus spread in U.S., CDC says

[Hestia]

30. In 2018, Drumpf fired the entire pandemic response chain of command

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/

For the United States, the answers are especially worrying because the government has intentionally rendered itself incapable. In 2018, the Drumpf administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure. In numerous phone calls and emails with key agencies across the U.S. government, the only consistent response I encountered was distressed confusion. If the United States still has a clear chain of command for pandemic response, the White House urgently needs to clarify what it is, the White House urgently needs to clarify what it is—not just for the public but for the government itself, which largely finds itself in the dark.

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2020/01/coronavirus-white-house-public-health-cdc-hospitals/

And here in the United States, epidemic preparedness hasn’t been a priority, to put it mildly. Let’s start with the leadership in the White House—or lack thereof. At the beginning of the Drumpf administration, public health legend Rear Admiral Tim Ziemer led a global health security team at the White House’s National Security Council. This, almost everyone agreed, was a very good thing: Ziemer had years of experience—under President George W. Bush, he had led a successful effort to fight malaria overseas. His team, a group of world-class infectious disease and public health experts—was working on implementing a national biodefense strategy to coordinate agencies in order to make the United States more resilient to the threat of biowarfare and epidemics.

But in 2018, when John Bolton assumed the role of national security advisor, Ziemer left, and Bolton disbanded his team, amid public outcry. No one has since filled the position. And Ziemer wasn’t the only public health advocate to jump ship: White House homeland security advisor Tom Bossert, a staunch advocate of infectious disease preparedness and the biodefense strategy, left soon after Bolton took over.

(Can't believe people were worshiping at the altar of John Bolton - he is not the US's friend)