CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk

[Dbeasy 15048]

 
 

I knew we could solve this problem without infringing on the 2nd amendment!

[Gengs1 2583]

26 minutes ago, Message Board User said:

 

Part of the plan, attack anyone who is competent and gets shit done. They want to drag the ppl to their level to show how gov is not functioning.

 

the other 29% proudly wear their red hats 

[conVINCEd 21469]

11 minutes ago, RPM said:

If you don't count Corona deaths, there won't be corona deaths. Odd, that they don't want an autopsy. It's mandatory.

By Texas Law, (CCP Art. 49.25) the Medical Examiner is mandated to determine the cause and manner of death in all cases of accident, homicide, suicide, and undetermined death.

Well, the Collin County ME doesn’t want to do one, and my father and uncle aren’t likely to press the issue.  Do with that what you will.  They are in the process of transporting her directly to the funeral home.

Edited April 15, 2020 by conVINCEd

[Mo Horn 8833]

35 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

Jesus:

 

Tweet about Cuomo adding to the death total to make the numbers high and make Dotard look bad in 3...2...1

[Planet Houston 4930]

58 minutes ago, conVINCEd said:

It sucks.  She was a recluse.  Not in the best of health, not terrible either,  but not that old (mid 60’s).  It appears, and we’ll never know any different, that she drowned in her own bodily fluids, by herself, alone.

Shit man, I am so sorry. I wish I had read one page back before my snarky gif. 

Many, many condolences. 

[WhatTheBuck 28779]

11 minutes ago, RPM said:

If you don't count Corona deaths, there won't be corona deaths. Odd, that they don't want an autopsy. It's mandatory.

By Texas Law, (CCP Art. 49.25) the Medical Examiner is mandated to determine the cause and manner of death in all cases of accident, homicide, suicide, and undetermined death.

But you see there's a shortage of Coronavirus tests so we can't waste them on the deceased to find out if the Coronavirus killed them. 

[Gatorubet 30234]

1 hour ago, conVINCEd said:

My aunt died tonight.  No one had heard from her in a few days and she wasn’t returning calls/texts., so my dad and uncle headed over to her place.  She was dead.  Probably covid given what they found.  Collin County ME didn’t want to do an autopsy, so it will be written up as natural causes.  Bad day.

Damn.  So sorry man.   What a terrible thing for her to go through, and for her brothers to find. 

[burntorangebongos 10710]

So sorry. That is so awful for your family. All my best to them and you.

Edited April 15, 2020 by burntorangebongos

[WBT 20564]

59 minutes ago, Hiphopopotamos said:

 

What font do you use to recreate the Sharpie look?  And I thought it was blatant pandering when W sent refund checks rather than just having people pay less when they filed.

[RPM 26319]

1 minute ago, WBT said:

And I thought it was blatant pandering when W sent refund checks rather than just having people pay less when they filed.

This goes beyond blatant pandering.

[berlinerbaer 678]

A fourth? Jesus... and we're only in like the 4th inning.

 

 

[4th&Five 41535]

That travel ban though!

 

Edited April 15, 2020 by 4th&Five

[Gengs1 2583]

9 minutes ago, 4th&Five said:

That travel ban though!

Someone should have said the virus has Hilary emails, would have solved the problem 

[pyrohornIII 4814]

On 4/13/2020 at 6:22 PM, Wanker Bob said:

They really do need to start running these Trump bullshit conferences in a MST3K style. Just be talking over them with every smartass correction and call out possible. 

 

Serious question here I've been thinking about as well even though it's very grim. We're seeing thousands lining up for food handouts and millions are being unemployed by this horrifically bad response to a emergency. As long as the masses are fed and entertained control is maintained, but how bad does this have to get before enough people are hungry and pissed for assassinations to start happening including Trump?

I would love to see a gofundme page set up for rewarding the journalist that puts trump through the wringer best.  Award one every week.  Set up a poll.  

13 hours ago, Neonmoon said:

I think the press should be more aggressive with him in these briefings...because it's hilarious. 

See above. 

1 hour ago, conVINCEd said:

My aunt died tonight.  No one had heard from her in a few days and she wasn’t returning calls/texts., so my dad and uncle headed over to her place.  She was dead.  Probably covid given what they found.  Collin County ME didn’t want to do an autopsy, so it will be written up as natural causes.  Bad day.

What a sad thing.  Condolences.   Most of my aunts/uncles are in their 80s/90s.   I figure this is coming too.  My fave aunt is in a nursing home in San Antonio.  Her family hasn't seen her for a month, even though they live 10 minutes away.  They were told they could come in if it seemed death was imminent.  But if it's covid, I even doubt that.  Not being able to say goodbye has to be really rough.  

[SaucyJack 3488]

3 hours ago, workswithseed said:

 

This didn't look so good.

What were your thoughts on this?

 

US troops and their allies feel humiliated after abandoning their bases in Syria to be taken over by gleeful Russians

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-troops-humiliated-abandoned-bases-syria-russians-2019-10

[FondrenRoad 4378]

1 hour ago, RPM said:

If you don't count Corona deaths, there won't be corona deaths. Odd, that they don't want an autopsy. It's mandatory.

By Texas Law, (CCP Art. 49.25) the Medical Examiner is mandated to determine the cause and manner of death in all cases of accident, homicide, suicide, and undetermined death.

Always difficult to count.  Even NYC, who is trying to count it honestly, had 2000 additional "not counted as covid" unexpected deaths per month as of 10 days ago when the Times reported this story.  That's obviously gotten worse.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/10/upshot/coronavirus-deaths-new-york-city.html

Many of these additional unexpected deaths were added to covid totals today.  This graph should also be thrown in the face of all the fucks that say it is only happening to "people who are going to die anyway."  Someone needs to be doing the same research in every state.  It will shine a light on what is really happening.

Edited to add that right now I think only Florida is intentionally undercounting.  I think much of the country hasn't really gotten hit hard yet, and hopefully early social distancing will keep them from getting hit hard.

Edited April 15, 2020 by FondrenRoad

[workswithseed 2103]

3 minutes ago, SaucyJack said:

What were your thoughts on this?

 

US troops and their allies feel humiliated after abandoning their bases in Syria to be taken over by gleeful Russians

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-troops-humiliated-abandoned-bases-syria-russians-2019-10

Again, i didn't say that Trump hasn't been weak.

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

1 hour ago, Hank Scorpio said:

 

 

Not bad, America. Not bad.

[Radical Larry 28589]

 

Kraft will open the Rub N Tugs first, and we'll end up losing half of the population because .500 is Jerry's specialty.

[tx 3 putt 76933]

Jerry Jones will propose trading alaska for a 2022 5th round pick and boat load of masks 

[conVINCEd 21469]

14 minutes ago, FondrenRoad said:

Always difficult to count.  Even NYC, who is trying to count it honestly, had 2000 additional "not counted as covid" unexpected deaths per month as of 10 days ago when the Times reported this story.  That's obviously gotten worse.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/10/upshot/coronavirus-deaths-new-york-city.html

Many of these additional unexpected deaths were added to covid totals today.  This graph should also be thrown in the face of all the fucks that say it is only happening to "people who are going to die anyway."  Someone needs to be doing the same research in every state.  It will shine a light on what is really happening.

Edited to add that right now I think only Florida is intentionally undercounting.  I think much of the country hasn't really gotten hit hard yet, and hopefully early social distancing will keep them from getting hit hard.

My aunt had her issues, but she certainly shouldn’t be counted in the ‘was gonna die anyhow’ category.   

[FondrenRoad 4378]

4 minutes ago, conVINCEd said:

My aunt had her issues, but she certainly shouldn’t be counted in the ‘was gonna die anyhow’ category.   

Really sorry to hear about your aunt.  My condolences.

[Wanker Bob 379]

21 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

Again, i didn't say that Trump hasn't been weak.

"Works with seed" is just your way of letting guys know you swallow, right?

[Wanker Bob 379]

25 minutes ago, FondrenRoad said:

Always difficult to count.  Even NYC, who is trying to count it honestly, had 2000 additional "not counted as covid" unexpected deaths per month as of 10 days ago when the Times reported this story.  That's obviously gotten worse.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/10/upshot/coronavirus-deaths-new-york-city.html

Many of these additional unexpected deaths were added to covid totals today.  This graph should also be thrown in the face of all the fucks that say it is only happening to "people who are going to die anyway."  Someone needs to be doing the same research in every state.  It will shine a light on what is really happening.

Edited to add that right now I think only Florida is intentionally undercounting.  I think much of the country hasn't really gotten hit hard yet, and hopefully early social distancing will keep them from getting hit hard.

Maybe they should take the total number of unexplained or natural causes deaths from 2015-2019 for a given location in a given month and average them. Then compare to 2020 and subtract the average from 2020's undoubtedly higher total. Then add those to the covid19 total. There's no way to be exact but shouldn't that give a decent look especially if the numbers tend to be pretty close year over year but spike in 2020?

[NWBuck 8553]

26 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

Again, i didn't say that Trump hasn't been weak.

I hear you, but "strong and inept/corrupt/incompetent" isn't a huge help.

[FondrenRoad 4378]

5 minutes ago, Wanker Bob said:

Maybe they should take the total number of unexplained or natural causes deaths from 2015-2019 for a given location in a given month and average them. Then compare to 2020 and subtract the average from 2020's undoubtedly higher total. Then add those to the covid19 total. There's no way to be exact but shouldn't that give a decent look especially if the numbers tend to be pretty close year over year but spike in 2020?

That's kind of what the NY Times did except they used all deaths.  Since 2000 about 4500 NYers die each month, and it really stays pretty close to the trendline in every month except September 2001.  Until March 4-April 4 2020 when 9780 died.  April 4-May 4 is going to be even worse than that.  They did timeshift to include the first 4 days of April in the month while using proper months for the rest of the periods.  While that may have been data cherrypicking, April proper is going to be so much worse, and will be one of the deadliest months that NYC has ever seen in its history, if not the deadliest. 

[workswithseed 2103]

16 minutes ago, Wanker Bob said:

"Works with seed" is just your way of letting guys know you swallow, right?

[Wanker Bob 379]

1 minute ago, FondrenRoad said:

That's kind of what the NY Times did except they used all deaths.  Since 2000 about 4500 NYers die each month, and it really stays pretty close to the trendline in every month except September 2001.  Until March 4-April 4 2020 when 9780 died.  April 4-May 4 is going to be even worse than that.  They did timeshift to include the first 4 days of April in the month while using proper months for the rest of the periods.  While that may have been data cherrypicking, April proper is going to be so much worse, and will be one of the deadliest months that NYC has ever seen in its history, if not the deadliest. 

Yeah that seems to be about the best we can do since they aren't testing every or maybe any deceased for the virus. Definitely needs to be done for every location across the country to get a closer representative account of how bad this total will be. 

[workswithseed 2103]

18 minutes ago, NWBuck said:

I hear you, but "strong and inept/corrupt/incompetent" isn't a huge help.

No, it doesn't. Him thinking he has total control. Damn, that's something you get shot for with that thinking.

[FondrenRoad 4378]

4 minutes ago, Wanker Bob said:

Yeah that seems to be about the best we can do since they aren't testing every or maybe any deceased for the virus. Definitely needs to be done for every location across the country to get a closer representative account of how bad this total will be. 

Yep, and there won't be any cover up attempts when it comes to total deaths so the data will be there, but it may not really be accessible for a year in a lot of places.  Someone will do it nationwide.

I also suppose that if the "its only killing people who are gonna die soon anyway" people are right, in 2021 we should have months where drastically fewer people die than average since everyone left is healthy as an ox and people only die in Lamborghini crashes.  I won't hold my breath for that result though.

[Bama Chick 28596]

This seems fucking terrible.

[Captainant 27661]

46 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

Jerry Jones will propose trading alaska for a 2022 5th round pick and boat load of masks 

O'Brien would trade it for some glass fuckin beads

[FondrenRoad 4378]

3 minutes ago, Captainant said:

O'Brien would trade it for some glass fuckin beads

BOB isn't that shrewd. He'd also throw in Montana and Colorado to sweeten the deal for the other side for no reason at all.

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20397]

14 hours ago, EMAWesome said:

March 12th

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/487329-ohio-health-official-estimates-100000-people-in-state-have-coronavirus

https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/continuing-coverage/coronavirus/ohio-department-of-health-says-100-000-ohioans-are-carrying-coronavirus

Also claimed the number of cases would double every six days, that should mean over three million cases in Ohio by now.  I was actually off with my memory, the latest number of cases according to the tracker John Hopkins is using is less than 7,000 cases.  There is absolutely no fucking way in the world social distancing is decreasing the amount of coronavirus cases by ninety nine percent.  (3.2 million cases in Ohio is where we would be if we started out with 100,000 cases on March 12 with the number of cases doubling every six days.  7,000 divided by 3.2 million=.002)These health experts see every crisis through absolute worst case scenarios and the reality is very few of them ever actually are.  "Experts" pull numbers like this out of their ass and go super heavy on the over to cover their ass.  The media then parrots these numbers at the top of their lungs over and over until the entire country is in a panic.  They do not ask how do you get these numbers.  They do not ask how confident are you in these numbers.  And when the numbers come out this far off base they don't ask why.  Unless of course it is Trump relaying the numbers.  They get real interested then but not when anyone else pulls a number out of their ass.

Good lord. It appears that you are stupider than I thought was humanly possible. 

Math: how does it work?

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20397]

1 hour ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

Not bad, America. Not bad.

Trump to take credit in 3 ... 2 ...1

[Longhorn_Fan68 33869]

Damn:

 

[Bama Chick 28596]

[Born to Run 6569]

 
 

I knew Trump would end school shootings without restricting our gun rights! MAGA!

[Born to Run 6569]

Fox News crawler: Donald Trump's extraordinary leadership has completed halted gun violence in American schools in less than 4 years.

Dammit

[NameAlreadyInUse 5112]

2 hours ago, conVINCEd said:

Well, the Collin County ME doesn’t want to do one, and my father and uncle aren’t likely to press the issue.  Do with that what you will.  They are in the process of transporting her directly to the funeral home.

Really terrible situation man, sorry to hear about this. Condolences. 

[NWBuck 8553]

Speaker Pelosi weighs in:

In order to move forward, we must first understand the truth of what has put us in this position:

• The truth is that Donald Trump dismantled the infrastructure handed to him which was meant to plan for and overcome a pandemic, resulting in unnecessary deaths and economic disaster.
• The truth is that in January Donald Trump was warned about this pandemic, ignored those warnings, took insufficient action and caused unnecessary death and disaster.
• The truth is that Donald Trump told his most loyal followers that the pandemic was a hoax and that it would magically disappear, thus endangering lives and paving the way for economic disaster.
• The truth is that we did not have proper testing available in March despite Trump repeatedly claiming that we did; and even now, we do not have adequate tests, masks, PPE, and necessary equipment, which creates unnecessary death and suffering.
• The truth is because of an incompetent reaction to this health crisis, the strong economy handed to Donald Trump is now a disaster, causing the suffering of countless Americans and endangering lives.
• The truth is a weak person, a poor leader, takes no responsibility.  A weak person blames others.

[elfenix 34238]

5 hours ago, Bama Chick said:

That’s it. He’s definitely the dumbest governor.

 

floriduh.  the only place in the country where the more north you go, the more south you get.

Edited April 15, 2020 by elfenix

[Bama Chick 28596]

Heartbreaking thread from a NYC ED physician.

He’s a great follow - dude survived Ebola.

[elfenix 34238]

3 hours ago, Message Board User said:

 

#coronadidn'tkillmanafort

[Bama Chick 28596]

Good. Good.

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20397]

Trump lied, Veterans died:
 

 

[TheStoicPaisano 9922]

4 hours ago, WBT said:

What font do you use to recreate the Sharpie look?

Failed Polygraph

[DixonHur 11301]

5 hours ago, NWBuck said:

Speaker Pelosi weighs in:

In order to move forward, we must first understand the truth of what has put us in this position:

• The truth is that Donald Trump dismantled the infrastructure handed to him which was meant to plan for and overcome a pandemic, resulting in unnecessary deaths and economic disaster.
• The truth is that in January Donald Trump was warned about this pandemic, ignored those warnings, took insufficient action and caused unnecessary death and disaster.
• The truth is that Donald Trump told his most loyal followers that the pandemic was a hoax and that it would magically disappear, thus endangering lives and paving the way for economic disaster.
• The truth is that we did not have proper testing available in March despite Trump repeatedly claiming that we did; and even now, we do not have adequate tests, masks, PPE, and necessary equipment, which creates unnecessary death and suffering.
• The truth is because of an incompetent reaction to this health crisis, the strong economy handed to Donald Trump is now a disaster, causing the suffering of countless Americans and endangering lives.
• The truth is a weak person, a poor leader, takes no responsibility.  A weak person blames others.

Here's a comprehensive timeline of Trump's mismanagement of the pandemic response.  It's long, so I'll summarize it with bullets (spoilered - top), but I highly recommend reading the entire article (spoilered - bottom)...I'd love for our resident Trumpers to help us understand the "but Obama" angle after reading it...

Narrator: they won't read it

Please don't choke on your breakfast in anger while reading...

Spoiler

• Friday, Jan. 13, 2017: The joint Obama-Trump transition teams run an exercise for pandemic preparedness. 
• May 11, 2017: The Intelligence Community’s Worldwide Threat Assessment warns of major pandemic risks.
• September 2017: The Trump administration contracts with a company to create a prototype of a reusable (rather than one-time use) N95 mask. 
• December 2017: The Trump administration bans the CDC from using the terms “evidence-based” and “science-based.”
  •  The suggested replacement phrase: “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes.”
• February 9, 2018: President Trump signs bill that cuts $1.35 billion in funding for Prevention and Public Health Fund at the CDC.
  • Was originally added as part of Obamacare
• February 13, 2018: The Intelligence Community’s Worldwide Threat Assessment warns of major pandemic risks.
• April 9, 2018: John Bolton starts his first day as National Security Adviser.
• April 10, 2018: as one of his first acts, Bolton fires Homeland Security Advisor, Tom Bossert.
• May 7, 2018: White House proposes cutting global health budget.
• May 7, 2018: The National Security Council’s director of medical and biodefense preparedness warns that pandemic flu is the top health security concern and that the country is not prepared for it.
• May 8, 2018: The National Security Council removes the top official responsible for pandemic response and disbands the global health security team. 
• September 2018: The Department of Health and Human Services diverts funding from the CDC to pay for housing detained immigrant children.
• Also, September 2018: The Trump administration fails to follow through with an Obama-era project designed to protect against medical supply shortages during pandemics.
• September 18, 2018: President Trump issues a Presidential Memorandum and National Biodefense Strategy designed to ensure a comprehensive and coordinated approach to biological incidents. 
• January 29, 2019:  The Intelligence Community’s Worldwide Threat Assessment warns that the U.S. is vulnerable to a global pandemic. 
• April 2019: HHS Secretary Alex Azar says what keeps everyone in the Biodefense world up at night is the threat of a pandemic flu. 
• July 2019: The Trump administration eliminates an American public health position designed to detect disease outbreaks in China. 
• September 2019: The President’s Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) warns that an influenza pandemic may cause tremendous health and economic losses. 
• October 2019: The Trump administration concludes a months-long simulation, code-named “Crimson Contagion,” designed to respond to a global influenza pandemic. The Department of Health and Human Services determines that the U.S. is underprepared, underfunded, and under-coordinated to fight an influenza-like pandemic. 
• Also October 2019: The Trump Administration cuts funding for a government research program designed to recognize animal viruses that could infect humans and prevent pandemics. 
• November 17, 2019: Possible first case of COVID-19 emerges in Hubei province, China.
• Late November-December 2019: U.S. intelligence agencies warn of a “cataclysmic” and “out-of-control” disease in Wuhan, China. 
• December 30, 2019: A whistleblower, Chinese doctor Li Wenliang, alerts more than 100 of his colleagues about a new disease in Wuhan in a widely circulated post on social media.
• December 31, 2019: Wuhan officials confirm treatment of dozens of cases of pneumonia with an unknown cause. 
• January 2020: U.S. intelligence agencies provide a detailed explanation in the President’s Daily Brief, and issue classified reports about the virus; senior U.S. officials begin to form a task force. 
• January 3, 2020: Chinese colleagues alert the CDC Director about the virus. 
• January 6, 2020: CDC Director Robert Redfield offers to send a CDC team to China. 
• January 7, 2020: The CDC creates an “incident management” system for the novel coronavirus. 
• January 9, 2020: China publicly identifies new “pneumonia-like” virus. 
• Also January 9, 2020: WHO issues guidance for other countries to detect and respond to the novel coronavirus. 
• January 10, 2020: Chinese officials announce the first known death from the new coronavirus
• January 11: Chinese scientists publicly release the genetic sequence of COVID-19.
• Mid-January 2020: HHS employees begin drafting contingency plans for enforcing the Defense Production Act to compel private companies to produce critical supplies. 
• Around the third week of January: U.S. diplomats in Wuhan return to the United States on chartered planes.
• January 16, 2020: German researchers develop a diagnostic test for COVID-19. 
• January 17, 2020: The CDC implements health screenings in three U.S. airports for travelers coming from Wuhan, China. 
• January 18, 2020: Alex Azar tries to speak to President Trump about the outbreak for the first time. President Trump ignores the warning. 
• January 20, 2020: The United States and South Korea each announce their first case of COVID-19 on the same day.
• January 22, 2020: China closes off the city of Wuhan. President Trump states that the United States has the pandemic “totally under control.” 
• Also January 22, 2020: Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) warns HHS Secretary Azar not to trust Chinese authorities and requests that the Department of Health and Human Services inform Congress if the administration discovers false or misleading information from  Chinese officials.
• January 23, 2020: Singapore bans all inbound flights from Wuhan, China. The WHO releases a statement about the novel coronavirus that includes transmission rates, human-to-human transmission capability, and severity of the virus. 
• January 24, 2020: President Trump thanks Chinese President Xi for his transparency and effort in tackling the coronavirus. 
• January 27, 2020: Acting Chief-of-Staff Mick Mulvaney meets with other senior officials about how the Trump administration is handling the virus. The President’s Coronavirus Task Force begins daily meetings. 
• Also January 27, 2020: South Korean officials inform private companies that they should start developing testing kits. 
• January 28, 2020: Alex Azar holds a coronavirus press briefing and informs the public that the HHS has been monitoring the virus since December. A Department of Veterans Affairs official circulates a warning to government public health experts about the outbreak.
• Also January 28, 2020: Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) urges senior White House officials to implement a targeted travel ban on China. 
• January 29, 2020: Singapore begins screening for temperatures, enforces mandatory quarantines for travellers coming from Hubei, and restricts entry for all travelers who travelled through China in the past 14 days. 
• Also January 29, 2020: Economic Advisor Peter Navarro, in an internal memorandum, urgently recommends that President Trump impose a travel ban on China. 
• January 30, 2020: Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, in a Fox News interview, says the virus will be good for the U.S. economy.
• Also January 30, 2020: Secretary Azar directly warns President Trump that the virus could morph into a pandemic, a warning the president discounts as alarmist. 
• Also, also January 30, 2020: The same day: The WHO declares that the COVID-19 outbreak is a “Public Health Emergency.” 
• Also, also, also January 30, 2020: President Trump states that the U.S. has the virus “under control” and hosts a campaign rally in Iowa.  
• Early February 2020: White House officials call for more forceful response to the novel coronavirus, but Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin resists.
• Also Early February 2020: Officials concerned about testing capacity.
• February 2, 2020: President Trump restricts entry into the United States from China. 
• February 4, 2020: Senator Richard Burr, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, receives a briefing on the coronavirus.
• Also February 4, 2020: China admits to “shortcomings” and “deficiencies” in its handling of the novel coronavirus.
• February 5, 2020: Senators urge the administration to take the virus more seriously. 
• February 7, 2020: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announces that the United States has donated nearly 18 tons of medical supplies to China. 
• February 12, 2020: Burr receives another briefing on the coronavirus about the potential impact of an epidemic and whether the U.S. is prepared.
• February 13, 2020: Burr sells 33 major stock holdings worth between $628,000 to $1.7 million.
• February 13, 2020: Secretary Azar announces that the government will establish a “surveillance” program in five cities which will then be expanded nationally, but the plan is delayed for weeks.
• February 14, 2020: The HHS and the National Security Council produce a memo titled “U.S. Government Response to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus.” 
• February 16-24, 2020: The WHO sends a team, including two U.S. experts, to China.
• Mid-February: The coronavirus begins to spread in New York from Europe, according to recent studies. 
• February 19, 2020: Trump assures the public against worrying about the coronavirus.
• February 21, 2020: Dr. Kadlec (HHS) reportedly convenes an urgent meeting of the White House coronavirus task force in an effort to determine not if but when the country would need to be in lock down to prevent the spread of the virus.
• February 23, 2020: In an internal communication, Economic Advisor Peter Navarro urgently requests immediate supplemental appropriation to combat the crisis. He warns that the virus “could infect as many as 100 million Americans, with a loss of life as many as 1-2 million souls” and “inflict trillions of dollars in economic damage.”
• February 24, 2020: President Trump gives false assurance that the stock market is “starting to look very good” and the coronavirus is “very much under control.” Stock markets decline sharply following news of the spread of the novel coronavirus.
• Also February 24, 2020: Dr. Kadlec (HHS) gives President Trump a plan titled “Four Steps to Mitigation.” 
• February 25, 2020: A CDC director says that a severely disruptive outbreak is inevitable.
• February 26, 2020: President Trump falsely assures the public that the number of cases will go down.
• February 27, 2020: HHS Secretary Alex Azar tells lawmakers that it’s unlikely that large numbers of Americans will need to be hospitalized. 
• Also February 27, 2020: Senator Burr informs a private luncheon that the coronavirus is “much more aggressive” than the United States has seen in recent history and is probably “more akin to the 1918 pandemic.”
• Also, Also February 27, 2020: President Trump complains that senior CDC official’s public warning is scaring the stock markets. 
• February 28, 2020: Dr. Carter Mecher emails the Red Dawn email chain and warns that the United States has a narrow window to implement nonpharmaceutical interventions (such as social distancing). 
• Also February 28, 2020: President Trump says that the virus “like a miracle” will disappear.
• February 29, 2020: Fauci says that Americans do not need to change their daily practices and the current risk is low, but could change.
• Late February: the CDC rejects using the WHO’s Covid-19 diagnostic test.
• Three lost weeks: It takes three more weeks for the administration’s top health experts, among the rising number of COVID-19 cases, to persuade the President.
• Early March: Dr. Steven Hahn (Commissioner of the FDA) relaxes rules regulating whether hospitals and labs can create their own tests. 
• March 1, 2020: Dr. Mecher warns the Red Dawn email chain that the United States “should have pulled all the triggers for NPIs [nonpharmaceutical interventions] by now.” 
• March 2, 2020: President Trump claims that a vaccine will be readily available.
• March 3, 2020: Vice President Pence announces that the CDC will lift federal restrictions on testing for the coronavirus.
• March 6, 2020: President Trump falsely claims that any American who wants a COVID-19 test can get a test. 
• March 10, 2020: Vice President Pence announces that over 1 million tests have been distributed and that 4 million would be distributed by the end of the week. 
• March 11, 2020: The World Health Organization (WHO) declares that COVID-19 is a global health pandemic. 
• Also March 11, 2020: President Trump announces new travel restrictions from Europe.
• March 12, 2020: A professor of internal medicine writes in the Red Dawn email chain that senior officials are throwing “15 years of institutional learning out the window and are making decisions based on intuition.”
• March 13, 2020: President Trump declares a national emergency and promises a new website to link Americans to testing sites.
• Mid-March, 2020: Federal agencies begin placing bulk orders on N95 masks, ventilators, and other medical equipment.
• March 16, 2020: The President announces Social Distancing Guidelines to be in place for two-weeks.
• March 17, 2020: The Trump administration announces strict southern border controls
• Also March 17, 2020: President Trump falsely states that he felt like the crisis was a pandemic “long before it was called a pandemic.”
• March 18, 2020: President Trump signs an Executive Order allowing for use of the Defense Production Act, but the president and vice president make statements suggesting the administration will not use the Act. 
• March 19, 2020: The CDC issues updated guidelines instructing medical professionals how to use homemade masks “as a last resort” if PPE is not available.
• Also March 19, 2020: President Trump states that the responsibility of supplying PPE to medical professionals lies with state governors, not the federal government.
• March 20, 2020: The Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense airlift 500,000 swab and sample kits for COVID-19 tests from a private company located in Italy.
• March 23-27, 2020: Hospitals report facing severe shortages of testing supplies, widespread shortages of PPE, difficulty maintaining adequate staff, and overall shortages of critical supplies. 
• March 26, 2020: Reports emerge that there are still not enough diagnostic tests.
• March 27, 2020: President Trump signs H.R. 748, the “Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security” (CARES) Act.
• Also March 27, 2020: President Trump issues a statement that he has directed “the Secretary of Health and Human Services to use any and all authority available under the Defense Production Act” to get General Motors to produce ventilators. 
• Also, Also March 27, 2020: President Trump questions whether state governors truly need the ventilators that they are requesting.
• Also, Also, Also March 27, 2020: The CIA warns its employees not to take hydroxychloroquine, the medication touted by the president, because it can result in sudden death.
• March 29, 2020: President Trump falsely claims that he inherited “obsolete” and “broken” tests from the Obama administration. (our first "but Obama"...but sadly not the first lie)
• At the same time: The Trump administration resists nationalizing the supply chain for PPE, causing “bedlam” in the PPE market.
• End of March: Over 6.6 million Americans apply for unemployment benefits bringing the total to over 10 million Americans for the month of March.
• April 2, 2020: The Trump administration continues to adopt an approach allowing states to adopt an uneven patchwork of state stay-at-home orders.
• Also April 2, 2020: President Trump blames state governors for supply shortages in their states.
• Also, Also April 2, 2020: And: Jared Kushner says that the national stockpile is not for states.
• Also, Also, Also April 2, 2020: The Trump administration announces that it is finally using the Defense Production Act for N95 masks and ventilators through presidential orders. 
• Early April 2020: FEMA reportedly seizes PPE from states.
• April 6, 2020: Deaths from COVID-19 become the leading cause of death in the United States.
• April 7, 2020: President Trump removes Department of Defense inspector general who was in charge of overseeing the $2 trillion coronavirus relief package.
• April 8, 2020: State governors consider creating a multi-state consortium to supply PPE. 
• April 9, 2020: The House Oversight and Reform Committee releases federal documents showing that the national stockpile of personal protective equipment is almost empty.
• April 10, 2020: In a press conference, President Trump’s answer to a reporter’s question suggests the president confuses the coronavirus with multi-drug resistant bacteria.
• April 12, 2020: Dr. Fauci states that “no one is going to deny” that earlier mitigation efforts would have saved lives.
• April 13, 2020: Governors on the west coast and northeast announce interstate coalitions to coordinate reopening their regions.
• April 14, 2020: The Justice Department intervenes on behalf of a small Mississippi church in a lawsuit challenging the city of Greenville’s public health order that restricts church gatherings due to the pandemic.
• Also April 14, 2020: President Trump halts WHO funding pending the administration’s investigation into the way the organization has handled the coronavirus pandemic: 

Spoiler

 

 

Timeline of the Coronavirus Pandemic and U.S. Response

 

 

by Ryan Goodman and Danielle Schulkin

April 14, 2020

Editor’s note: originally published on April 13, 2020, updated on April 14, 2020

What follows is a comprehensive timeline of major U.S. policy events related to the novel coronavirus pandemic. We’ve focused on the U.S. government’s preparation for a pandemic, tracking warning signals of COVID-19, and public and internal responses when the outbreak hit inside the United States.

In our view, the timeline is clear: Like previous administrations, the Trump administration knew for years that a pandemic of this gravity was possible and imminently plausible. Several Trump administration officials raised strong concerns prior to the emergence of COVID-19 and raised alarms once the virus appeared within the United States. While some measures were put in place to prepare the United States for pandemic readiness, many more were dismantled since 2017.

In response to COVID-19, the United States was slow to act at a time when each day of inaction mattered most–in terms of both the eventual public health harms as well as the severe economic costs. The President and some of his closest senior officials also disseminated misinformation that left the public less safe and more vulnerable to discounting the severity of the pandemic. When it came time to minimize the loss of life and economic damage, the United States was unnecessarily underprepared, had sacrificed valuable time, and confronted the pandemic with a more mild response than public health experts recommended. These lapses meant that the United States was ultimately forced to make more drastic economic sacrifices to catch up to the severity of the pandemic than would have otherwise been necessary.

Readers can reach their own conclusions based on these publicly available facts. If we have missed any key information, please notify us by sending an email to lte@justsecurity.org.

TIMELINE

Friday, Jan. 13, 2017: The joint Obama-Trump transition teams run an exercise for pandemic preparedness.  

The outgoing Obama team runs the Trump transition team through a series of pandemic-scenarios. The transition documents, obtained by POLITICO, show that the purpose of the exercise is to familiarize the incoming team with “domestic incident management policy and practices” in the face of major crises.

Key takeaways from the exercise include: (1) a collective understanding of the science and the disease must drive response decisions; (2) days and even hours are paramount in order to build as much lead time as possible; (3) a coordinated and unified national response and message is necessary; and (4) “medical countermeasure strategy is key for success,” including social distancing and addressing shortages in ventilators and personal protective equipment.

Trump administration attendees include: Steven Mnuchin, Rep. Mike Pompeo, Wilbur Ross, Betsy DeVos, Dr. Ben Carson, Elaine Chao, Stephen Miller, Marc Short, Reince Priebus (resigned), Rex Tillerson (fired), Gen. James Mattis (fired), Rep. Ryan Zinke (resigned), Sen. Jeff Sessions (resigned), Sen. Dan Coats (fired), Andrew Puzder (not confirmed), Dr. Tom Price (resigned), Gov. Rick Perry (resigned), Dr. David Shulkin (fired), Gen. John Kelly (resigned), Rep. Mick Mulvaney, Linda McMahon (resigned), Sean Spicer (fired), Joe Hagin (resigned), Joshua Pitcock (resigned), Tom Bossert (fired), KT McFarland (resigned), Gen. Michael Flynn (awaiting criminal sentencing), Gary Cohn (resigned), Katie Walsh (resigned), and Rick Dearborn (resigned).

May 11, 2017: The Intelligence Community’s Worldwide Threat Assessment warns of major pandemic risks.

In written testimony before Congress on the presentation of the Intelligence Community’s Worldwide Threat Assessment, the Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats  writes, “A novel or reemerging microbe that is easily transmissible between humans and is highly pathogenic remains a major threat because such an organism has the potential to spread rapidly and kill millions.”

September 2017: The Trump administration contracts with a company to create a prototype of a reusable (rather than one-time use) N95 mask. 

The administration contracts with Applied Research Associates of Albuquerque to create a prototype of this next-generation respirator. The prototype development phase is for 15 months, but is subsequently extended.

December 2017: The Trump administration bans the CDC from using the terms “evidence-based” and “science-based.”

The Trump administration instructs senior officials at the CDC that they should not use the phrases “science-based” or “evidence-based” and instead use the suggested phrase: “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes.”

February 9, 2018: President Trump signs bill that cuts $1.35 billion in funding for Prevention and Public Health Fund at the CDC.

President Trump cuts $1.35 billion of funding for the CDC’s Prevention and Public Health Fund, established in 2016 as part of the Affordable Care Act. The fund supports programs that monitor healthcare associated infections, programs that are responsive to rapidly emerging health issues, and programs that improve public health immunization infrastructure, among other things.

February 13, 2018: The Intelligence Community’s Worldwide Threat Assessment warns of major pandemic risks.

In written testimony before Congress on the presentation of the Intelligence Community’s Worldwide Threat Assessment, the Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats writes:

The increase in frequency and diversity of reported disease outbreaks—such as dengue and Zika—probably will continue through 2018, including the potential for a severe global health emergency that could lead to major economic and societal disruptions, strain governmental and international resources, and increase calls on the United States for support. A novel strain of a virulent microbe that is easily transmissible between humans continues to be a major threat, with pathogens such as H5N1 and H7N9 influenza and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus having pandemic potential if they were to acquire efficient human-to-human transmissibility.

April 9, 2018: John Bolton starts his first day as National Security Adviser.

John Bolton replaces H.R. McMaster as President Trump’s National Security Adviser.

April 10, 2018: Bolton fires Homeland Security Advisor, Tom Bossert.

Early in the  morning, Bolton informs Tom Bossertthat he is fired. As White House Homeland Security Advisor Bossert “had called for a comprehensive biodefense strategy against pandemics and biological attacks,” reports the Washington Post.

May 7, 2018: White House proposes cutting global health budget.

The White House sends a plan to Congress proposing budget cuts. It includes cutting out $252 million for health security preparedness  in funds remaining from the 2014-2015 Ebola epidemic.

May 7, 2018: The National Security Council’s director of medical and biodefense preparedness warns that pandemic flu is the top health security concern and that the country is not prepared for it.

Luciana Borio, NSC director of medical and biodefense preparedness, states, “The threat of pandemic flu is the number one health security concern. Are we ready to respond? I fear the answer is no.” Borio’s statement is part of her remarks at a symposium at Emory University to mark the 100th anniversary of the 1918 influenza pandemic.

May 8, 2018: The National Security Council removes the top official responsible for pandemic response and disbands the global health security team. 

President Trump’s National Security Advisor, John Bolton, removes Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer from the National Security Council and disbands Ziemer’s unit, the Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense. Previously, Ziemer was the sole senior official focused on pandemic preparedness. He is not replaced.

September 2018: The Department of Health and Human Services diverts funding from the CDC to pay for housing detained immigrant children.

HHS Secretary Alex Azar reallocates $266 million of funds from the CDC to the Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) program in the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).

The same month: The Trump administration fails to follow through with an Obama-era project designed to protect against medical supply shortages during pandemics.

The Trump administration Department of Health and Human Services receives detailed plans by a medical manufacturer to create a new machine that would have the capacity to make protective masks at high speed (1.5 million masks per day). The machine was specifically designed to handle pandemic-related medical shortages and was the culmination of an Obama-era preparedness plan. The Trump Administration paid millions of dollars to the company but does not follow through with making the machine.

September 18, 2018: President Trump issues a Presidential Memorandum and National Biodefense Strategy designed to ensure a comprehensive and coordinated approach to biological incidents. 

The memorandum establishes a Biodefense Steering Committee, which is chaired by the Secretary of Health and Human Services and includes the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. The memo also directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services (Alex Azar) to create a Biodefense Coordination Team and that the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (then John Bolton) will serve as the lead for policy coordination and review.

The National Biodefense Strategy outlines a high-level roadmap of the U.S. response to biological threats and incidents.. The 2018 report identifies the need to “establish manufacturing surge capacity” for diagnostic tests and personal protective equipment in anticipation of a pandemic.

January 29, 2019:  The Intelligence Community’s Worldwide Threat Assessment warns that the U.S. is vulnerable to a global pandemic. 

As part of the annual WorldWide Threat Assessment by the Intelligence Community, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence warns that a major disease outbreak is one of the top global threats in the world, writing: “We assess that the United States and the world will remain vulnerable to the next flu pandemic or large-scale outbreak of a contagious disease that could lead to massive rates of death and disability, severely affect the world economy, strain international resources, and increase calls on the United States for support.”

April 2019: HHS Secretary Alex Azar says what keeps everyone in the Biodefense world up at night is the threat of a pandemic flu. 

Secretary Azar says that one of the biggest concerns in the biodefense world is the threat of a pandemic flu.

The thing that people ask what keeps you most up at night in the biodefense world, pandemic flu, of course. I think everyone in this room probably shares that concern, and working with Secretary Leavitt, President Bush and the Congress to create the pandemic flu preparedness work that we did that really helped rejuvenate a domestic annual flu vaccine capability here in the United States revolutionized, we’re not there yet, but revolutionized our capabilities and capacities around flu production in the U.S., to minimize shortages so we hopefully never go through what we did in 04 on the Chiron shortage, and then [sic] now we]ve got capacity, but we still need to improve our speed of production of pan flu vaccine and our capacities.

July 2019: The Trump administration eliminates an American public health position designed to detect disease outbreaks in China. 

The CDC removes an American public health official stationed in Beijing within China’s disease control agency. The official, Dr. Linda Quick, worked with  Chinese epidemiologists to help detect and contain diseases. “If someone had been there, public health officials and governments across the world could have moved much faster,” Bao-Ping Zhu, who served in the role between 2007 and 2011, tells Reuters in March 2020. Thomas R. Frieden, former director of the CDC, said that if the Quick had still been in China, “it is possible that we would know more today about how this coronavirus is spreading and what works best to stop it.” However, Scott McNabb, a CDC epidemiologist for 20 years and now a research professor at Emory University says, “it probably wouldn’t have made a big difference.” “The problem was how the Chinese handled it,” he says.

No disease expert replaced Quick in the program following her departure.

“The decision to eliminate Quick’s job came as the CDC has scaled back the number of U.S. staffers in China over the last two years,” Reuters reports.

September 2019: The President’s Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) warns that an influenza pandemic may cause tremendous health and economic losses. 

The CEA warns that there will be large health and economic losses if an influenza-like pandemic occurs in the United States.

“The United States is unprepared to deliver a sufficient number of vaccine doses quickly enough to stop the rapid initial spread of a pandemic virus,” the CEA reports. “Pandemic influenza is a low-probability but high-cost problem that should not be ignored. The current influenza vaccine manufacturing infrastructure in the U.S. is dependent on egg-based production that is too slow to produce adequate doses of vaccines for unexpected pandemic outbreaks and may impair vaccine efficacy. This could lead to tremendous, avoidable costs.”

October 2019: The Trump administration concludes a months-long simulation, code-named “Crimson Contagion,” designed to respond to a global influenza pandemic. The Department of Health and Human Services determines that the U.S. is underprepared, underfunded, and under-coordinated to fight an influenza-like pandemic. 

The Department of Health and Human Services concludes its “Crimson Contagion” simulation in August. The exercise simulated a U.S. response to a fictitious respiratory virus that began in China and quickly spread around the world. The result of the exercise, contained in an internal draft report in October 2019 and marked “Draft Do Not Distribute,” includes a section titled “resources.” The section foregrounds the lack of PPE preparedness in the event of a global pandemic and problems in the supply chain for medical equipment including ventilators and other ancillary medical supplies.

The same month: The Trump Administration cuts funding for a government research program designed to recognize animal viruses that could infect humans and prevent pandemics. 

The Trump administration ends its funding for PREDICT, a program run by the United States Agency for International Development, that is designed to identify and prevent pandemics related to animal-born viruses. The project was launched in 2009 and field work stopped in September 2019 as funding ran out.

November 17, 2019: Possible first case of COVID-19 emerges in Hubei province, China.

Internal Chinese government data, obtained by the South China Morning Post (in March), show that Chinese government investigators found an earlier case of COVID-19 on November 17. It is not clear that Chinese authorities knew that they were dealing with a new virus at the time.

“Some of the cases were likely backdated after health authorities had tested specimens taken from suspected patients,” the newspaper reports. “Interviews with whistle-blowers from the medical community suggest Chinese doctors only realised they were dealing with a new disease in late December.” From the 55-year-old patient on November 17 onwards, one to five new cases of COVID-19 are reported each day, according to the government records.

Note: A report in The Lancet by Chinese doctors from Wuhan’s Jin Yin-tan Hospital refers to the first patient in the study occuring on Dec. 1, 2019.

Late November-December 2019: U.S. intelligence agencies warn of a “cataclysmic” and “out-of-control” disease in Wuhan, China. 

The Pentagon’s National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI) circulates a report identifying a contagion sweeping through Wuhan, China. NCMI bases its report on wire intercepts, computer intercepts, and satellite images. “Analysts concluded it could be a cataclysmic event,” a source tells ABC News (in April 2020).

Intelligence community bulletins begin circulating across the government around Thanksgiving. “Those analyses said China’s leadership knew the epidemic was out of control even as it kept such crucial information from foreign governments and public health agencies,” ABC News reports.

The intelligence reports raise alarms inside the US government because the disease could pose a serious threat to U.S. forces in Asia.

In response to ABC News and other reports in April 2020, the Pentagon issues a denial. “We can confirm that media reporting about the existence/release of a National Center for Medical Intelligence Coronavirus-related product/assessment in November of 2019 is not correct. No such NCMI product exists,” Col. R. Shane Day, Director of the NCMI, says in a statement provided by the Department of Defense.

Special note: In a careful analysis of the emergence of COVID-19 in Wuhan, Josh Marshall casts doubt on the ABC News reporting. He concludes, “I think the simplest answer is that the ABC report is simply wrong. Not in its totality necessarily but in dating the original report back to late November. If it’s a month later that starts to look plausible.” (The New York Times later reports that the NCMI concluded that the virus was likely to spread across the globe and could become a pandemic, but without a date as to that assessment except that it occured by early January.)

December 30, 2019: A whistleblower, Chinese doctor Li Wenliang, alerts more than 100 of his colleagues about a new disease in Wuhan in a widely circulated post on social media.

“7 SARS cases confirmed at Hua’nan Seafood Market,” cautions Dr. Li in a WeChat group with more than 100 of his medical-school classmates. After another group member warns that the group chat might be censored, Dr. Li adds: “Coronavirus confirmed, and type being determined … Don’t leak it. Tell your family and relatives to take care.”

December 31, 2019: Wuhan officials confirm treatment of dozens of cases of pneumonia with an unknown cause. 

Health authorities in the Chinese city of Wuhan confirm that there are dozens of cases of pneumonia that originate from an unknown cause.

January 2020: U.S. intelligence agencies provide a detailed explanation in the President’s Daily Brief, and issue classified reports about the virus; senior U.S. officials begin to form a task force. 

The U.S. intelligence community includes a detailed explanation of the potential cataclysmic disease in Wuhan, China―based in part on wire intercepts, computer intercepts, and satellite images―in the President’s Daily Brief in early January.

U.S. intelligence community classified reports track the spread of the virus, warn that Chinese officials appeared to be minimizing the outbreak, and warn of global danger from the coronavirus.

In early January, deputy national security advisor Matthew Pottinger receives a call from a friend, a Hong Kong epidemiologist who informs of a ferocious outbreak of a new virus that has spread far more quickly than the Chinese government is  admitting. The epidemiologist also explains that the virus is spread by asymptomatic individuals. In ensuing days, Pottinger held the view that the coronavirus problem was far worse than the Chinese government was admitting.

Senior U.S. officials, including CDC Director Robert Redfield, HHS Secretary Alex Azar, and NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, form a task force dedicated to dealing with the novel virus.

“Donald Trump may not have been expecting this, but a lot of other people in the government were — they just couldn’t get him to do anything about it,” a U.S. official with access to the classified briefings told the Washington Post. “The system was blinking red.”

Note: The U.S. intelligence community reports continue in January and February, as the disease spread beyond China, and spy agencies tracked its surge in other countries. The majority of the information came from public sources, but a significant portion came from classified intelligence sources, according to The Washington Post. In early January, the State Department’s epidemiologist gives a report to the Director of National Intelligence stating that the virus was likely to spread across the globe and warning of its potential to become a pandemic.

January 3, 2020: Chinese colleagues alert the CDC Director about the virus. 

Chinese colleagues alert CDC Director Robert Redfield on the spread of the unknown and novel virus. Redfield quickly relayed the information to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar who notified the National Security Council.

January 6, 2020: CDC Director Robert Redfield offers to send a CDC team to China. 

China rejects the offer, and Azar tells CNN (on Feb. 14) that China did not provide permission for them to enter the country.

January 7, 2020: The CDC creates an “incident management” system for the novel coronavirus. 

The CDC activates its “2019-nCoV Incident Management Structure.”

January 9, 2020: China publicly identifies new “pneumonia-like” virus. 

Chinese researchers publicly identify the pneumonia-like virus as a novel  coronavirus that is the cause of the pneumonia-like outbreak in Wuhan.

The same day: WHO issues guidance for other countries to detect and respond to the novel coronavirus. 

The WHO publishes a guidance to help countries perform risk assessments and create response plans to the novel coronavirus.

January 10, 2020: Chinese officials announce the first known death from the new coronavirus. 

The Wuhan health commission in China reports the first known death from a new coronavirus. The commission reports that 41 people have the virus and that 7 of them are in critical condition. The commission advises that there is no evidence that the virus can be spread between humans.

January 11: Chinese scientists publicly release the genetic sequence of COVID-19.

Mid-January 2020: HHS employees begin drafting contingency plans for enforcing the Defense Production Act to compel private companies to produce critical supplies. 

Led by Robert Kadlec, an Air Force officer and physician at the Department of Health and Human Services who is responsible for preparedness and response, HHS begins to draft plans to prepare the administration to use the Defense Production Act to compel private companies to produce critical supplies. On January 14, Kadlec wrote one word in a notebook he carries: “Coronavirus!!!”

Around the third week of January: U.S. diplomats in Wuhan return to the United States on chartered planes.

U.S. diplomats stationed in Wuhan urgently return to the United States, and they alert the State Department that the public health risk in the region is significant.

January 16, 2020: German researchers develop a diagnostic test for COVID-19. 

German researchers at the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin develop and publish the world’s first publicly available diagnostic test.

January 17, 2020: The CDC implements health screenings in three U.S. airports for travelers coming from Wuhan, China. 

The CDC and Department of Homeland Security implement health screenings to detect ill passengers coming from Wuhan, China in San Francisco (SFO), New York (JFK), and Los Angeles (LAX).

January 18, 2020: Alex Azar tries to speak to President Trump about the outbreak for the first time. President Trump ignores the warning. 

Alex Azar speaks to President Trump on the phone for the first time about the virus. President Trump instead asks to discuss vaping and whether flavored vaping products would return to the market.

“Trump’s advisers struggled to get him to take the virus seriously, according to multiple officials with knowledge of meetings among those advisers and with the president,” the Washington Post reports.

January 20, 2020: The United States and South Korea each announce their first case of COVID-19 on the same day.

The CDC confirms the first case of COVID-19 in the United States in Washington State.

South Korea’s National IHR Focal Point (NFP) reports its country’s first case of novel coronavirus on the same day. South Korea quickly proceeds to mobilize vast resources for diagnostic testing, including drive-through screening centers, and quarantines.

January 22, 2020: China closes off the city of Wuhan. President Trump states that the United States has the pandemic “totally under control.” 

Chinese President Xi imposes a “cordon sanitaire” on Wuhan by barring planes and trains from leaving the city and restricting all forms of public transportation.

“That was like, whoa,” a senior U.S. official involved in White House meetings on the crisis told the Washington Post. “That was when the Richter scale hit 8.”

When asked whether he is worried about the pandemic, President Trump states, “No, we’re not at all. And we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China.”

The same day: Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) warns HHS Secretary Azar not to trust Chinese authorities and requests that the Department of Health and Human Services inform Congress if the administration discovers false or misleading information from  Chinese officials.

“I’m deeply concerned that waging an efficient and successful campaign against this virus depends on the trustworthiness and transparency of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), an organization with a horrendous history in these matters,” writes Sen. Cotton, a member of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI).

“As you know, in the past the CCP has lied, falsified statistics, and suppressed information about the outbreak of disease in order to protect its political standing and cover for its own incompetence. … For these reasons, the CCP’s calls for transparency about the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus are deeply suspect. … If you have reason to believe that U.S. officials are being provided with false or misleading information about the disease from Chinese government officials, I ask that you notify Congress immediately.”

January 23, 2020: Singapore bans all inbound flights from Wuhan, China. The WHO releases a statement about the novel coronavirus that includes transmission rates, human-to-human transmission capability, and severity of the virus. 

The Singapore government announces that all inbound flights coming from Wuhan are barred from entering into Singapore.

The WHO releases a statement on the novel coronavirus that includes transmission rates, the success of human-to-human transmission, and severity predictions:

Human-to-human transmission is occurring and a preliminary R0 estimate of 1.4-2.5 was presented. Amplification has occurred in one health care facility. Of confirmed cases, 25% are reported to be severe. The source is still unknown (most likely an animal reservoir) and the extent of human-to-human transmission is still not clear.

January 24, 2020: President Trump thanks Chinese President Xi for his transparency and effort in tackling the coronavirus. 

“China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus,” tweets the President. “The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!”

At the time, “some of Trump’s advisers told him that Beijing was not providing accurate numbers of people who were infected or who had died,” the Washington Post reports.

January 27, 2020: Acting Chief-of-Staff Mick Mulvaney meets with other senior officials about how the Trump administration is handling the virus. The President’s Coronavirus Task Force begins daily meetings. 

During the meeting, Joe Grogan (head of White House Domestic Policy Council) argues that the administration needs to take the virus seriously and that the President’s reelection could be at stake.

The President’s Coronavirus Task Force begins daily meetings. Led by Alex Azar, members include:  Robert O’Brien (NSA), Dr. Robert Redfield (CDC), Dr. Anthony Fauci (NIH), Stephen Biegun (State), Ken Cuccinelli (DHS), Joel Szabat (DOT), Matthew Pottinger (Deputy National Security Advisor), Derek Kan (OMB), Dr. Deborah Birx (State Department), Rob Blair, Joseph Grogan, and Christopher Liddell.

The same day: South Korean officials inform private companies that they should start developing testing kits. 

In an urgent meeting, South Korean officials disclose information on test methods and encourage companies to quickly develop test kits promising fast regulatory approval.

January 28, 2020: Alex Azar holds a coronavirus press briefing and informs the public that the HHS has been monitoring the virus since December. A Department of Veterans Affairs official circulates a warning to government public health experts about the outbreak.

He says that HHS has been monitoring the virus and preparing a response since December and that he is speaking regularly with the president about the situation.

Dr. Carter Mecher, a senior medical adviser at the Department of Veterans Affairs, emails dozens of his colleagues in government and at universities about the coronavirus.

“The chatter on the blogs is that WHO and CDC are behind the curve. I’m seeing comments from people asking why WHO and CDC seem to be downplaying this. I’m certainly no public health expert (just a dufus from the VA), but no matter how I look at this, it looks to be bad,” he warns in the email chain later leaked to the N.Y. Times. “The projected size of the outbreak already seems hard to believe, but when I think of the actions being taken across China that are reminiscent of 1918 Philadelphia, perhaps those numbers are correct. … Any way you cut it, this is going to be bad. You guys made fun of me screaming to close the schools. Now I’m screaming, close the colleges and universities.”

The email chain, dubbed the “the Red Dawn String” by its members based off the 1984 movie about a group of Americans trying to save the United States from a foreign invasion, later includes: Dr. Jerome Adams (Surgeon General of the United States), Dr. Larry G. Padget (State Department), Dr. Anthony Fauci (NIH), Dr. Robert Kadlec (HHS), Dr. Robert Redfield (HHS), Col. Matthew Hepburn (DARPA, DOD), nine other senior officials at the Department of Health and Human Services, eight senior officials from the Department of Homeland Security, among other academics, private sector employees, former government officials and state officials.

The same day: Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) urges senior White House officials to implement a targeted travel ban on China. 

Senator Tom Cotton, a member of U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), urges Secretaries Mike Pompeo, Alex Azar, and Chad Wolf to implement a targeted travel ban on China and warns the senior White House officials not to trust Chinese authorities. He writes in a letter:

China’s own actions demonstrate the severity of the threat. Beijing has quarantined more than 50 million people–the combined population of our entire West Coast–and cancelled school indefinitely. Just this morning, Hong Kong has slashed travel from mainland China. These are not the actions of a government in control of the outbreak. … Thanks to the deadly combination of Chinese duplicity and incompetence, the virus has now spread to most provinces in China and neighboring nations.

He also urges the White House “to marshal the full resources of the federal government to engineer a vaccine to the virus.”

The following day, Sen. Cotton meets with President Trump to discuss the coronavirus.

January 29, 2020: Singapore begins screening for temperatures, enforces mandatory quarantines for travellers coming from Hubei, and restricts entry for all travelers who travelled through China in the past 14 days. 

The Singapore government begins to enforce temperature screenings at all land, air, and sea checkpoints and stations healthcare teams for all passengers coming from China. The government also enforces a two week recommended quarantine for all returning Singapore citizens from abroad as well as a mandatory quarantine for all recent travelers coming from Hubei. The government bars all entry into Singapore from visitors coming from Mainland China.

The same day: Economic Advisor Peter Navarro, in an internal memorandum, urgently recommends that President Trump impose a travel ban on China. 

Peter Navarro sends President Trump and White House colleagues a memo recommending that the administration impose an immediate travel ban on China. The memo includes a detailed economic analysis of the potential for loss of economic activity as well as loss of human life.

January 30, 2020: Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, in a Fox News interview, says the virus will be good for the U.S. economy. Secretary Azar directly warns President Trump that the virus could morph into a pandemic, a warning the president discounts as alarmist. 

“I don’t want to talk about a victory lap over a very unfortunate, very malignant disease,” Ross says. “But the fact is, it does give business yet another thing to consider when they go through their review of their supply chain. It’s another risk factor that people need to take into account. So I think it will help to accelerate the return of jobs to North America.”

Aaron Rupar

 

✔@atrupar

 

 

Secretary Wilbur Ross says coronavirus will be good for [checks notes] American jobs: "I think it will help to accelerate the return of jobs to North America."

 

 

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Secretary Azar, along with Mick Mulvaney, calls Trump aboard Air Force One and gives the president a blunt warning that the virus could morph into a pandemic, The president responds that Azar is being alarmist. Azar also recommends that China should be criticized for not being transparent. Trump rejects the idea of criticizing China.

The same day: The WHO declares that the COVID-19 outbreak is a “Public Health Emergency.” 

WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declares that the COVID-19 outbreak is a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

January 30, 2020: President Trump states that the U.S. has the virus “under control” and hosts a campaign rally in Iowa.  

“We think we have it very well under control,” states President Trump. “We have very little problem in this country at this moment — five. And those people are all recuperating successfully. But we’re working very closely with China and other countries, and we think it’s going to have a very good ending for it. So that I can assure you.”

Later that night, President Trump hosts a campaign rally in Iowa with thousands of people.

Early February 2020: White House officials call for more forceful response to the novel coronavirus, but Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin resists. 

Citing economic concerns, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin resists calls supported by public health officials, including Anthony Fauci, to respond more forcefully to the novel coronavirus. Matthew Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser, argues for restricting the flow of travelers from Italy and other nations in the European Union that were emerging as hot spots, which Fauci supports.

Early February 2020: Officials concerned about testing capacity.

Joe Grogan, the head of the White House Domestic Policy Council, and other officials reportedly worry that there aren’t enough available tests to determine the rate of infection.

February 2, 2020: President Trump restricts entry into the United States from China. 

The Trump administration suspends entry into the United States of “immigrants or nonimmigrants, of all aliens who were physically present within the People’s Republic of China.”.

The suspension comes after 45 other countries implement travel restrictions on China and includes exemptions that allow tens of thousands of passengers to enter the United States.

February 4, 2020: Senator Richard Burr, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, receives a briefing on the coronavirus. 

Senator Burr receives a briefing from intelligence officials about the coronavirus and the status of the global health emergency, including economic fallout.

The same day: China admits to “shortcomings” and “deficiencies” in its handling of the novel coronavirus. 

Chinese government officials admit that they have responded to the coronavirus with “shortcomings and deficiencies.”

February 5, 2020: Senators urge the administration to take the virus more seriously. 

Note: See also Sen. Murphy’s interview with the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent.

February 7, 2020: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announces that the United States has donated nearly 18 tons of medical supplies to China. 

The State Department transports 17.8 tons of medical supplies to China, including masks, gowns, gauze, respirators, and other vital materials. “These donations are a testament to the generosity of the American people,” says Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

February 12, 2020: Burr receives another briefing on the coronavirus about the potential impact of an epidemic and whether the U.S. is prepared.

Senator Burr receives another briefing from intelligence officials about U.S. preparedness to combat an epidemic.

The Senate and House intelligence committees receive briefings from Robert Kadlec, the assistant secretary for preparedness and response, who is joined by CIA and other intelligence officials. Kadlec reportedly tells committee members that the virus posed a “serious” threat.

February 13, 2020: Burr sells 33 major stock holdings worth between $628,000 to $1.7 million. 

Senator Burr sells stocks that are collectively worth between $628,000 to $1.7 million. Some of the stocks include stocks in hotel and tourism industries. Three other senators (Dianne Feinstein, James M. Inhofe, Kelly Loeffler) sell major holdings around the same time. Sen. Loeffler’s husband also purchases stocks in a major PPE provider four times in February and March, as revealed by Sen. Loeffler’s financial disclosure forms.

Special Note: We include this entry in part as evidence that may indicate the intelligence assessments by that time were sufficiently precise and alarming for the senator(s) to take such actions.

February 13, 2020: Secretary Azar announces that the government will establish a “surveillance” program in five cities which will then be expanded nationally, but the plan is delayed for weeks.

The plan is supposed to help experts measure the disease and predict next hot spots. “We were flying the plane with no instruments,” one official told the New York Times. The Washington Post reports that the plan would require diagnostic tests produced on a mass scale for rapid deployment.

February 14, 2020: The HHS and the National Security Council produce a memo titled “U.S. Government Response to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus.” 

In a memo dated February 14, the HHS and National Security Council outline possible U.S. responses to the coronavirus, including what more severe community mitigation measures would look like:

significantly limiting public gatherings and cancellation of almost all sporting events, performances, and public and private meetings that cannot be convened by phone. Consider school closures. Widespread “stay at home” directives from public and private organizations with nearly 100% telework for some.

President Trump later cancels the meeting with senior HHS and National Security Council officials, when officials intended to present the memo and their recommendation for enhanced mitigation measures. “The White House focused instead on messaging and crucial additional weeks went by before their views were reluctantly accepted by the president — time when the virus spread largely unimpeded,” the New York Times reports.

February 16-24, 2020: The WHO sends a team, including two U.S. experts, to China.

After securing permission, the WHO sends a team to China that includes two U.S. experts. By that time, China had reported more than 75,000 cases of the virus.

Mid-February: The coronavirus begins to spread in New York from Europe, according to recent studies. 

According to researchers at ICahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the coronavirus begins to circulate in New York by mid-February. The researchers conclude that the majority of New York cases originated from Europe.

Note: As of publication, the study is still waiting on peer review. A separate team at researchers at N.Y.U. Grossman School of Medicine came to the same conclusions, despite studying genomes from a different group of cases.

February 19, 2020: Trump assures the public against worrying about the coronavirus.

Trump states, “I think it’s going to work out fine. I think when we get into April, in the warmer weather, that has a very negative effect on that and that type of a virus.”

February 21, 2020: Dr. Kadlec (HHS) reportedly convenes an urgent meeting of the White House coronavirus task force in an effort to determine not if but when the country would need to be in lock down to prevent the spread of the virus.

February 23, 2020: In an internal communication, Economic Advisor Peter Navarro urgently requests immediate supplemental appropriation to combat the crisis. He warns that the virus “could infect as many as 100 million Americans, with a loss of life as many as 1-2 million souls” and “inflict trillions of dollars in economic damage.”

“There is an increasing probability of a full-blown COVID-19 pandemic that could infect as many as 100 million Americans, with a loss of life as many as 1-2 million souls,” writes Navarro to the President. “To minimize economic and social disruption and loss of life, there is an urgent need for an immediate, supplemental appropriation of at least $3.0 billion dollars to support efforts at prevention, treatment, inoculation, and diagnostics. … Any member of the Task Force who wants to be cautious about appropriating funds for a crisis that could inflict trillions of dollars in economic damage and take millions of lives has come to the wrong administration.”

February 24, 2020: President Trump gives false assurance that the stock market is “starting to look very good” and the coronavirus is “very much under control.” Stock markets decline sharply following news of the spread of the novel coronavirus. 

“The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA,” tweets President Trump. “We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”

U.S. stocks decline following reports of more cases of coronavirus in China and around the globe.

The same day: Dr. Kadlec (HHS) gives President Trump a plan titled “Four Steps to Mitigation.” 

Alarmed by reports  that healthy people could be asymptomatic carriers and spreading the virus, Dr. Kadlec, a top disaster response official at HHS, gives President Trump a plan. His group’s  report is titled, “Four Steps to Mitigation,” and they tell the president that the administration needs to begin preparing the public for historically extraordinary measures.

February 25, 2020: A CDC director says that a severely disruptive outbreak is inevitable. 

Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, states that the outbreak is inevitable and may lead to severe disruption to everyday life. She adds that she talked to her own children that morning. “While I didn’t think they were at risk right now, we as a family ought to be preparing for significant disruption to our lives.”

On the same day: The President’s National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow is asked about Dr. Messonnier’s comments. He tells CNBC, “We have contained this. I won’t say airtight, but it’s pretty close to airtight.” “I don’t think it’s going to be an economic tragedy at all,” he adds. He also says he sees no problems with supply and availability of medical equipment.

February 26, 2020: President Trump falsely assures the public that the number of cases will go down. 

“We’re going to be pretty soon at only five people,” President Trump falsely assures the public. “And we could be at just one or two people over the next short period of time.”

February 27, 2020: HHS Secretary Alex Azar tells lawmakers that it’s unlikely that large numbers of Americans will need to be hospitalized. 

“The immediate risk to the public remains low,” says HHS Secretary Alex Azar in testimony before the House Committee on Ways and Means. “It will look and feel to the American people more like a severe flu season in terms of the interventions and approaches you will see.”

The same day: Senator Burr informs a private luncheon that the coronavirus is “much more aggressive” than the United States has seen in recent history and is probably “more akin to the 1918 pandemic.”

“There’s one thing that I can tell you about this: It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history,” Senator Burr informs the private luncheon. The Senator had previously received private briefings as a chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee on the matter.

He counsels the group to reconsider sending employees to Europe, predicts that schools may close down, and the United States will mobilize the military to aid in the United States’ domestic response to the outbreak.

And: President Trump complains that senior CDC official’s public warning is scaring the stock markets. 

President Trump calls Azar to complain that CDC Director Nancy Messonier’s warnings about the outbreak are scaring the stock markets.

February 28, 2020: Dr. Carter Mecher emails the Red Dawn email chain and warns that the United States has a narrow window to implement nonpharmaceutical interventions (such as social distancing). 

“[W]e have a relatively narrow window” to implement nonpharmaceutical interventions, writes Dr. Mecher, senior medical adviser at the Department of Veterans Affairs, based on data from the 1918 Spanish Influenza. “And we are flying blind,” he adds.

The same day: President Trump says that the virus “like a miracle” will disappear. 

“It’s going to disappear,” says the president. “One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”

February 29, 2020: Fauci says that Americans do not need to change their daily practices and the current risk is low, but could change.

On the Today Show, Dr. Fauci says, “There’s no need to change anything that you’re doing on a day by day basis. Right now the risk is still low, but this could change.” 

Here’s the full exchange:

Question: “So, Dr. Fauci, it’s Saturday morning in America. People are waking up right now with real concerns about this. They want to go to malls and movies, maybe the gym as well. Should we be changing our habits and, if so, how?”

Fauci: “No. Right now, at this moment, there’s no need to change anything that you’re doing on a day by day basis. Right now the risk is still low, but this could change. I’ve said that many times even on this program. You’ve got to watch out because although the risk is low now, you don’t need to change anything you’re doing. When you start to see community spread, this could change and force you to become much more attentive to doing things that would protect you from spread.”

Question: “Dr. Fauci, quickly, how does this all end?”

Fauci: “You know, it ends if you — it depends on the nature of the outbreak. I mean, this could be a major outbreak. I hope not. Or it could be something that’s reasonably well controlled. At the end of the day, this will ultimately go down. Hopefully we could protect the American public from any serious degree of morbidity or mortality. That’s the reason why we’ve got to do the things that we have in our plan.”

See Politifact’s analysis for more.

Late February: the CDC rejects using the WHO’s Covid-19 diagnostic test.

The CDC declines a diagnostic test made by the WHO. Instead, the CDC chooses to develop its own test, causing a long lag in the ability of the United States to meet testing demands.

Three lost weeks: It takes three more weeks for the administration’s top health experts, among the rising number of COVID-19 cases, to persuade the President. 

The New York Times reports, “By the last week of February, it was clear to the administration’s public health team that schools and businesses in hot spots would have to close. But in the turbulence of the Trump White House, it took three more weeks to persuade the president that failure to act quickly to control the spread of the virus would have dire consequences.”

Early March: Dr. Steven Hahn (Commissioner of the FDA) relaxes rules regulating whether hospitals and labs can create their own tests. 

The regulations, which were activated by Secretary Azar’s emergency declaration, were supposed to allow the FDA to speed up the approval process for new vaccines and therapies during a crisis. Instead, they constrained the ability of researchers to create new Covid-19 tests.

March 1, 2020: Dr. Mecher warns the Red Dawn email chain that the United States “should have pulled all the triggers for NPIs [nonpharmaceutical interventions] by now.” 

Writing to the full Red Dawn email chain, Dr. Mecher says that the United States is late to “pull all the triggers” to implement community mitigation strategies such as social distancing.

Dr. Eva Lee, a Senior Research Professor at the Atlanta VA Medical Center and professor at Georgia Tech, replies a day later: “We need actions, actions, actions and more actions. We are going to have pockets of epicenters across the country, West coast, East coast and the South. Our policy leaders must act now. Please make it happen!”

March 2, 2020: President Trump claims that a vaccine will be readily available.

“We’re moving aggressively to accelerate the process of developing a vaccine,” says the President at a coronavirus roundtable meeting. “A lot of good things are happening and they’re happening very fast. I said, ‘Do me a favor, speed it up, speed it up.’ And they will — they’re working really hard and quick.” The president suggests the vaccine may be ready “over the next few months,” but Fauci quickly interjects to say, it would be “a year to a year and a half.”

At a campaign rally in North Carolina that evening, the president says, “We had a great meeting today with a lot of the great companies and they’re going to have vaccines, I think relatively soon. And they’re going to have something that makes you better and that’s going to actually take place, we think, even sooner.”

Earlier in the week, Dr. Fauci had explained: “So although this is the fastest we have ever gone from a sequence of a virus to a trial, it still would not be applicable to the epidemic unless we really wait about a year to a year and a half.”

March 3, 2020: Vice President Pence announces that the CDC will lift federal restrictions on testing for the coronavirus. 

“Today we will issue new guidance from the CDC that will make it clear that any American can be tested, no restrictions, subject to doctor’s orders,” informs the Vice President.

March 6, 2020: President Trump falsely claims that any American who wants a COVID-19 test can get a test. 

“Anybody that wants a test can get a test,” he says to reporters after a tour of the CDC in Atlanta.  “That’s what the bottom line is.”

Note: as of April 12, 2020, the CDC still warns that it may “be difficult to find a place to get tested.”

March 10, 2020: Vice President Pence announces that over 1 million tests have been distributed and that 4 million would be distributed by the end of the week. 

Vice President Pence promises that 4 million COVID-19 tests would be distributed by the end of the week.

Note: as of April 12, the United States has conducted only 2 million tests and states continue to report testing shortages.

March 11, 2020: The World Health Organization (WHO) declares that COVID-19 is a global health pandemic. 

“This is not just a public health crisis, it is a crisis that will touch every sector,” remarks WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “So every sector and every individual must be involved in the fights. … We have rung the alarm bell loud and clear.”

Later that same day: President Trump announces new travel restrictions from Europe.

In a prime time Oval Office address to the nation, President Trump announces new travel restrictions to and from 26 European countries, says that the United States has taken early intense action, and commends the “dramatically fewer cases of the virus in the United States than are now present in Europe.” The travel restrictions do not apply to the United Kingdom, even though the country has among the highest numbers of reported cases in the region. At the time, Prime Minister Boris Johnson also announces that he does not support social distancing policies.

In the address, Trump decides not to support calls for social distancing, school closures, and other measures in response to views of his business friends and others, the New York Times reports.

President Trump makes misstatements in his address about the U.S. policy. He states, for example, that the policy will “apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo.” The White House subsequently clarifies that trade and cargo are exempt from the ban.

Members of the Red Dawn email chain criticize the president’s decisions. Tom Bossert (President Trump’s former Homeland Security Advisor) writes: “Can anyone justify the European travel restriction, scientifically? Seriously, is there any benefit? I don’t see it, but I’m hoping there is something I don’t know.” James Lawler (professor of internal medicine) replies, “Fuck no. This is the absolute wrong move.” Richard Hatchett (CEO of Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations) chimes in, “No justification that I can see.”

Dr. Eva Lee responds, “I was hoping he would mention about schools, government and private sector tele-work, community gatherings, things that really need everyone to actively engage in. And also extra resources for healthcare providers. We really need to protect providers who care for covid-19 patients.”

These views of the Red Dawn participants are echoed by public health and disaster preparedness experts on social media following the president’s address.

March 12, 2020: A professor of internal medicine writes in the Red Dawn email chain that senior officials are throwing “15 years of institutional learning out the window and are making decisions based on intuition.”

“We are making every misstep leaders initially made in table-tops at the outset of pandemic planning in 2006,” writes James Lawler, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Nebraska in the Red Dawn email chain. “We had systematically addressed all of these and had a plan that would work – and has worked in Hong Kong/Singapore. We have thrown 15 years of institutional learning out the window and are making decisions based on intuition.”

March 13, 2020: President Trump declares a national emergency and promises a new website to link Americans to testing sites. 

President Trump declares that the coronavirus pandemic is a national emergency. He also states: “I don’t take responsibility at all,” in response to a question about the lack of available tests.

President Trump also falsely announces the development of a new website: “Google is going to develop a website … to determine if a test is warranted and to facilitate testing at a nearby convenient location. … Google has 1,700 engineers working on this right now. They have made tremendous progress.”

Google Communications corrects the president’s statement later that day:

Mid-March, 2020: Federal agencies begin placing bulk orders on N95 masks, ventilators, and other medical equipment.  

Based on a review of federal purchasing contracts by the Associated Press, the Trump administration only starts to place bulk orders on necessary medical equipment in mid-March.

March 16, 2020: The President announces Social Distancing Guidelines to be in place for two-weeks.

The Guidelines are subsequently extended through the month of April.

Special Note: The Guidelines appear to be outdated. Even though the presidential task force later pivots to telling the public to try to stay home even if well or asymptomatic, the first line in the president’s guidelines states: “If you feel sick, stay home.”

March 17, 2020: The Trump administration announces strict southern border controls and President Trump falsely states that he felt like the crisis was a pandemic “long before it was called a pandemic.”  

President Trump announces that the CDC will suspend entry into the United States from persons from Mexico and Canada. During the press conference, President Trump contradicts himself and falsely states that he felt like the crisis was a pandemic “long before it was called a pandemic.”

March 18, 2020: President Trump signs an Executive Order allowing for use of the Defense Production Act, but the president and vice president make statements suggesting the administration will not use the Act. 

Donald J. Trump

 

✔@realDonaldTrump

 

 

I only signed the Defense Production Act to combat the Chinese Virus should we need to invoke it in a worst case scenario in the future. Hopefully there will be no need, but we are all in this TOGETHER!

 

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March 19, 2020: The CDC issues updated guidelines instructing medical professionals how to use homemade masks “as a last resort” if PPE is not available. 

“In settings where facemasks are not available, [healthcare personnel] might use homemade masks (e.g., bandana, scarf) for care of patients with COVID-19 as a last resort,” reads the updated CDC guidance. “However, homemade masks are not considered PPE, since their capability to protect [healthcare personnel] is unknown.”

The same day: President Trump states that the responsibility of supplying PPE to medical professionals lies with state governors, not the federal government.

“Governors are supposed to be doing a lot of this work, and they are doing a lot of this work,” President Trump says at the daily White House briefing. “The Federal government is not supposed to be out there buying vast amounts of items and then shipping. You know, we’re not a shipping clerk.”

March 20, 2020: The Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense airlift 500,000 swab and sample kits for COVID-19 tests from a private company located in Italy. 

The Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Defense coordinate an airlift of 500,000 swab and sample kits commonly used in COVID-19 diagnostic tests from Copan Diagnostics, a private company located in Italy.

March 23-27, 2020: Hospitals report facing severe shortages of testing supplies, widespread shortages of PPE, difficulty maintaining adequate staff, and overall shortages of critical supplies. 

Principal Inspector General Christi Grimm at the Department of Health and Human Services surveys 323 hospitals across 46 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico from March 23-27, 2020. Grimm reports that hospitals are facing severe shortages of testing supplies, widespread shortages of PPE, difficulty maintaining adequate staff, and overall shortages of critical supplies. She also finds that in some cases the protective gear that the federal government provided to hospitals was expired or dry-rotted.

Due to shortage of safety gear at a Mount Sinai hospital in New York, nurses resort to wearing trash bags. Their image on Facebook goes viral.

President Trump rebukes the Office of Inspector General’s findings as “Another Fake Dossier!” and questions whether they are politically motivated. “It’s just wrong,” states the president in response to a reporter’s question on the matter. “Did I hear the word ‘Inspector General’? Really? It’s wrong. … Well where did he come from – the inspector general? What’s his name? … Could politics be entered into that?” 

March 26, 2020: Reports emerge that there are still not enough diagnostic tests.   

The New York Times reports that there are still not enough tests to test everyone who needs it due to a lack of tests as well as PPE for medical care workers.

March 27, 2020: President Trump signs H.R. 748, the “Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security” (CARES) Act.

The emergency legislation implements broad ranging remedial measures designed to curb the economic impact of the pandemic. It also modifies the FDA drug approval process, emergency paid sick leave programs, health insurance coverages for COVID-19 testing and vaccination, medical product supplies, and Medicare and Medicaid.

The same day: President Trump issues a statement that he has directed “the Secretary of Health and Human Services to use any and all authority available under the Defense Production Act” to get General Motors to produce ventilators. 

GM says that the company is unaware of any order and that the president’s actions do not change plans that were already in the works to produce the ventilators.

The same day: President Trump questions whether state governors truly need the ventilators that they are requesting. 

“I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than they’re going to be,” President Trump tells Fox News Host Sean Hannity. “I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You go into major hospitals sometimes, and they’ll have two ventilators. And now, all of a sudden, they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?’”

March 27, 2020: The CIA warns its employees not to take hydroxychloroquine, the medication touted by the president, because it can result in sudden death.

The CIA’s message to employees states: 

“At this point, the drug is not recommended to be used by patients except by medical professionals prescribing it as part of ongoing investigational studies. There are potentially significant side effects, including sudden cardiac death, associated with hydroxychloroquine and its individual use in patients need to be carefully selected and monitored by a health care professional.” 

“Please do not obtain this medication on your own,” it adds in bold text.

March 29, 2020: President Trump falsely claims that he inherited “obsolete” and “broken” tests from the Obama administration. 

Despite the virus being entirely novel as of late 2019, President Trump falsely claims that he inherited “obsolete” and “broken” coronavirus tests from the Obama administration.

At the same time: The Trump administration resists nationalizing the supply chain for PPE, causing “bedlam” in the PPE market. 

“Today, I, as leader of FEMA’s supply chain task force, am blind to where all the product is,” says Rear Adm. John Polowczyk, the senior Navy official in charge of  fixing the supply chain. Instead of using the Defense Production Act to nationalize the supply chain for PPE, the federal government resists doing so.

The result is a “global supply-chain bedlam,” with states competing for critical medical supplies in the face of scams, logistical hurdles, and inflated prices.

End of March: Over 6.6 million Americans apply for unemployment benefits bringing the total to over 10 million Americans for the month of March. 

A record number of Americans, over 6.6 million, apply for unemployment benefits in the last week of March. “We’ve never seen anything like this,” report experts. “The scale of the job losses in the past two weeks is on par with what we saw in two years during the Great Recession.” This brings the total number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits in March to over 10 million.

April 2, 2020: The Trump administration continues to adopt an approach allowing states to adopt an uneven patchwork of state stay-at-home orders. 

Multiple states continue to resist implementing stay-at-home orders as the Trump administration continues to reject calling for nationwide stay-at-home orders, but instead says that each governor should decide for themselves.

Note: It is not clear whether a president has the authority under existing federal statutes to adopt a binding nationwide stay-at-home order.

The same day: President Trump blames state governors for supply shortages in their states.  

Massive amounts of medical supplies, even hospitals and medical centers, are being delivered directly to states and hospitals by the Federal Government. Some have insatiable appetites & are never satisfied (politics?). Remember, we are a backup for them,” the President tweets.

“The complainers should [. . .] have been stocked up and ready long before this crisis hit. Other states are thrilled with the job we have done. Sending many Ventilators today, with thousands being built. 51 large cargo planes coming in with medical supplies. Prefer sending directly to hospitals.”

Over the course of the prior week, on multiple occasions the president also tried to blame the Obama administration for leaving an “empty” stockpile, a statement that independent fact-checkers assess is false.

And: Jared Kushner says that the national stockpile is not for states.

When asked about states’ needs for supplies, Kushner surprisingly states, “The notion of the federal stockpile was it’s supposed to be our stockpile. It’s not supposed to be states’ stockpiles that they then use.”

The next morning, the Strategic National Stockpile website is changed to deemphasize its commitment to helping states in alignment with Kushner’s statement.

And: The Trump administration announces that it is finally using the Defense Production Act for N95 masks and ventilators through presidential orders. 

The use of the Defense Production Act comes in the form of orders in two presidential memoranda. The president had previously said he “invoked” the Defense Production Act, but that apparently meant he told companies he could use the DPA if they did not produce certain products. In contrast, the Trump administration had used the Act “hundreds of thousands of times” over the past years for non-COVID products such as body armor for border patrol agents, missiles, and drones, the New York Times reports.

Early April 2020: FEMA reportedly seizes PPE from states.

California, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Jersey, among other states report that the federal government is seizing their PPE supplies.

FEMA denies the charges stating, “FEMA and Customs Border Patrol (CBP) are working together to prevent fraud when PPE and medical supplies enter the United States from overseas.  PPE being distributed internally within the United States is not being seized or re-routed by FEMA. Reports of FEMA seizing or re-routing supplies are FALSE.”

April 6, 2020: Deaths from COVID-19 become the leading cause of death in the United States.

April 7, 2020: President Trump removes Department of Defense inspector general who was in charge of overseeing the $2 trillion coronavirus relief package. 

President Trump removes Glenn Fine as the chair of the Inspector General of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, a committee in charge of overseeing the $2 trillion coronavirus relief package. Fine was nominated to the position by his fellow inspector general colleagues. In response to questions on the matter, President Trump insinuates that there are a lot of inspector generals left over from the Obama administration and that there are reports of bias. 

Note: Glenn Fine was first appointed as Inspector General of the Department of Justice by President Bill Clinton in 2000 and served in that capacity through both the Bush and Obama administrations.

April 8, 2020: State governors consider creating a multi-state consortium to supply PPE. 

Citing concerns over state competition, egregious price gouging, and general confusion as to how to secure PPE from the federal government, the National Governors Association announces that they are discussing creating a cooperative consortium of states to purchase and distribute supplies across the country.

“I’m bidding on a machine that Illinois is bidding on and California is bidding on and Florida is bidding on. We’re all bidding up each other,” says New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo at a briefing. “I’m trying to figure out how to do business with China where I have no natural connection as a state. And every state has to scramble to find business connections with China. It was crazy, that can’t happen again.”

April 9, 2020: The House Oversight and Reform Committee releases federal documents showing that the national stockpile of personal protective equipment is almost empty. 

HHS spokeswoman Katie McKeogh states that the remaining stockpile (10% is left) will be kept in reserve to support federal response efforts. On March 31, Connecticut’s Governor had said, “It was disturbing today to find out that the national strategic stockpile is now empty,” and that the state was “on its own” trying to secure ventilators and masks.

April 10, 2020: In a press conference, President Trump’s answer to a reporter’s question suggests the president confuses the coronavirus with multi-drug resistant bacteria.

April 12, 2020: Dr. Fauci states that “no one is going to deny” that earlier mitigation efforts would have saved lives. 

“Obviously you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives. Obviously no one is going to deny that,” says Dr. Fauci on CNN this past Sunday night. “If we had, right from the very beginning shut everything down, it may have been different. But there was a lot of push back for shutting everything down back then.”

April 13, 2020: Governors on the west coast and northeast announce interstate coalitions to coordinate reopening their regions.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announces the formation of a 7-state coalition to coordinate the reopening of the northeast region. The coalition includes Republican and Democratic governors from Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island. 

The Governors of California, Oregon, and Washington announce a similar joint regional framework called the Western States Pact. In this pact, the three states agree to work together to reopen their communities using the following three principles: (1) residents’ health comes first, (2) health outcomes and science – not politics – will guide decisions, and (3) the states will only be effective by working together.  

April 14, 2020: The Justice Department intervenes on behalf of a small Mississippi church in a lawsuit challenging the city of Greenville’s public health order that restricts church gatherings due to the pandemic.  

The DOJ states: “The United States has a substantial interest in the preservation of its citizens’ fundamental right to the free exercise of religion, expressly protected by the First Amendment. … There is no pandemic exception … to the fundamental liberties the Constitution safeguards. … The facts alleged in the complaint strongly suggest that the city’s actions target religious conduct. If proven, these facts establish a free exercise violation unless the city demonstrates that its actions are neutral and apply generally to nonreligious and religious institutions or satisfies the demanding strict scrutiny standard.” 

The Justice Department’s actions come days after Attorney General Barr, in a Fox News interview (on Apr. 8), said his department will “be keeping a careful eye” on whether states violate Americans’ constitutional rights through public health measures to address the pandemic. 

The same day: President Trump halts WHO funding pending the administration’s investigation into the way the organization has handled the coronavirus pandemic: 

President Trump states that he will stop funding the WHO “to assess the World Health Organization’s role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus.” 

He continues: “One of the most dangerous and costly decisions from the WHO was its disastrous decision to oppose travel restrictions from China and other nations. They were very much opposed to what we did. Fortunately, I was not convinced and suspended travel from China, saving untold numbers of lives. Thousands and thousands of people would have died. Had other nations likewise suspended travel from China countless lives would have been saved. … The reality is that the WHO failed to adequately obtain, vet and share information in a timely and transparent fashion. … The WHO has not addressed a single one of these concerns nor provided an explanation that acknowledges its own mistakes, of which there were many. … It would have been so easy to be truthful and so much death has been caused by their mistakes” 

“We will continue to engage with the WHO to see it can make meaningful reforms. For the time being, we will redirect global health … and we’ll be discussing with other countries and influential global health partners what we do with all that money that goes to the WHO.”

We will continue to update this Timeline in the event of new information concerning the preceding series of events and when new developments occur. As a reminder, readers can send suggestions via email to lte@justsecurity.org.
 

No one could have seen this coming...except for all the people who saw this coming!

Edited April 15, 2020 by DixonHur

[Francisco 2.0 32389]

Oh for fucks sake:

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/us/trump-radio-show-rush-limbaugh.html?action=click&module=Top Stories&pgtype=Homepage

 

Quote

On a Saturday in early March, Donald J. Trump, clad in a baseball cap, strode into the Situation Room for a meeting with the coronavirus task force. He didn’t stop by the group’s daily meetings often, but he had an idea he was eager to share: He wanted to start a White House talk radio show.

Quote

At the time, the virus was rapidly spreading across the country, and Mr. Trump would soon announce a ban on European travel. A talk radio show, Mr. Trump excitedly explained, would allow him to quell Americans’ fears and answer their questions about the pandemic directly, according to three White House officials who heard the pitch. There would be no screening, he said, just an open line for people to call and engage one-on-one with the president.

 

Quote

But that Saturday, almost as suddenly as he proposed it, the president outlined one reason he would not be moving forward with it: He did not want to compete with Rush Limbaugh.

 

Spoiler

No one in the room was sure how to respond, two of the officials said. Someone suggested hosting the show in the mornings or on weekends, to steer clear of the conservative radio host’s schedule. But Mr. Trump shook his head, saying he envisioned his show as two hours a day, every day. And were it not for Mr. Limbaugh, and the risk of encroaching on his territory, he reiterated, he would do it.

One of the officials involved directly in the effort said it wasn’t the first time Mr. Trump had discussed hosting a radio show from the White House. But if some in the room were unsure whether the president’s proposal was a joke, they knew his deference to Mr. Limbaugh was anything but.

When it comes to the president’s favored media figures, most observers tend to fixate on the Fox News lineup of Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity. But several people close to Mr. Trump say that in the midst of a pandemic, he has come to keenly appreciate the extent of Mr. Limbaugh’s reach, and the fact that his show, perhaps more than any other source, offers a real-time metric of how the president’s decisions are playing with his supporters.

Now, as multiple voices vie for the president’s ear on the appropriate timeline for America’s path to normalcy, Mr. Limbaugh is amplifying Mr. Trump’s instinct for swiftness. And for this president, as well as much of his party, Mr. Limbaugh’s affirmation remains a powerful motivator.

“Talk radio is still a powerhouse when it comes to Republican voters,” said Jason Miller, co-host of the War Room podcast and a former Trump communications adviser. And the president, Mr. Miller said, “realizes how big a powerhouse Rush is.”

The White House declined to comment on Mr. Trump’s desire for a radio show.

“The Rush Limbaugh Show” has been the most popular talk-radio show in the country for decades, currently drawing 15.5 million listeners a week. In that time Mr. Limbaugh has traded in the kind of deeply divisive messaging that Mr. Trump regularly brandishes to appeal to his conservative base.

Like the president, Mr. Limbaugh has also dispensed disinformation and falsehoods at a rapid clip. In the last few weeks alone he has repeatedly referred to the coronavirus as the “common cold.” His history of anti-gay remarks was revived as recently as February, when he said Americans would not elect Pete Buttigieg after seeing him “kissing his husband onstage, next to Mr. Man, Donald Trump.” (Mr. Limbaugh later told listeners that Mr. Trump had called him and told him not to apologize for the comments.)

Mr. Limbaugh is among Mr. Trump’s most influential backers, praising him for his politics and leadership well before many other Republicans cast their lot with him. He recently called attacks on the president’s handling of the virus crisis “a political hit job.” The president has returned the favor: In a surprise move during his State of the Union address in February, he awarded Mr. Limbaugh, who had recently revealed he had late-stage lung cancer, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. He highlighted Mr. Limbaugh’s charitable work and called him “the greatest fighter and winner that you will ever meet.”

As public health officials urge caution in relaxing stay-at-home restrictions, corporate executives and conservative activists alike are pleading with the president to reopen the economy. Mr. Trump has argued that he alone has the power to override stay-at-home orders imposed at the state level — a claim that legal scholars reject and that he appeared to walk back on Tuesday. Still, many Republican governors are looking directly to the White House to set the tone for a path forward.

As for his own guidance, Mr. Trump’s preferred media sources have tempered their advocacy. After initially dismissing the severity of the virus, many of Mr. Trump’s go-to talkers on Fox News, including Mr. Hannity, have approached the question with relative delicacy, appearing to take their cues from the president rather than try to proactively urge one path or another.

Mr. Limbaugh, conversely, has been a forceful voice from the get-go. Along with casting medical experts like Dr. Anthony S. Fauci as “Hillary Clinton sympathizers,” he has used his enormous platform to call for a rapid return to normal life.

“Are we just going to sit by and watch $22 trillion — that’s the value, that’s the sum total of the G.D.P., that’s the U.S. economy — are we just going to sit by here and watch it evaporate?” Mr. Limbaugh said in one segment on March 31. “Because that’s what we’re doing, under the guise of not losing any unnecessary life.”

On Monday, Mr. Limbaugh argued that the “shutdown” was “a political effort to get rid of Donald Trump in the election this November” — as well as a Democratic ploy to “keep people fed without them having to go to work” and to “fine them for going to church.

Mr. Limbaugh, a frequent golf partner of Mr. Trump’s in Palm Beach, Fla., has been candid and proud about his direct line to the president. During his show on Friday, Mr. Limbaugh revealed that the president calls him “once a week just to see how I’m doing” and that sometimes Vice President Mike Pence joins. He added that their conversations were only about his health, not policy. (Attempts to reach Mr. Limbaugh through a colleague for this article were unsuccessful.)

But in this moment, as Mr. Trump grapples with what he has called “the biggest decision I’ve ever had to make,” Mr. Limbaugh has an unparalleled perch.

“A lot of politicians — obviously conservatives — tune into his show as they’re trying to figure out what their point of view should be,” said Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union.

Mr. Schlapp noted that with most decisions, the president uses various media sources as a way to “think through questions.” And while the president is listening to his public health advisers in this moment, Mr. Schlapp said, he’s also adhering to the formulas he knows best.

“The school nurse doesn’t run the school,” Mr. Schlapp said. “The principal runs the school.”

Polling shows that the vast majority of Americans support a national stay-at-home order, but Mr. Limbaugh’s audience — in other words, the president’s base — shares his agitation about jump-starting the economy. His recent shows illustrate the extent to which many of Mr. Trump’s supporters remain suspicious of the public health experts and other officials who have recommended stay-at-home orders and similar guidelines to slow transmission of the virus.

“I agree the right person is in office to bring this country out of this,” said a Las Vegas police officer named Marcus who called into Mr. Limbaugh’s show on Monday. “But, you know, when you look at numbers, Rush — the numbers don’t add up as far as, like, you know, the amount of people that die of a normal flu every year and those sort of things. I mean, it’s terrifying how one thing can make us give up our rights so quickly.”

On Friday, a caller from Prescott, Ariz., wondered if experts were urging the shutdown of the economy as a way to model the potential effects of legislation intended to combat climate change. “Isn’t this kind of like a dry run of the Green New Deal?” he asked.

In the midst of everything, Mr. Limbaugh’s listeners unequivocally support the president. On Friday, a New York construction worker named Andy criticized the transformation of Manhattan into a “ghost town,” and said, “There is no better man to be in the White House right now than Donald Trump.”

It is the kind of affirmation that helps illuminate radio’s increasing appeal to Mr. Trump. Television indeed plays an outsize role in the president’s assessment of himself and his administration. But with no campaign rallies to look forward to, people close to the president say he feels stifled in his inability to communicate directly with his supporters, complaining that the news media tries to distort his message at his daily briefings.

The president may have dropped plans for his own talk radio show. But for Mr. Trump, what Mr. Limbaugh offers is perhaps second best: a taste of the validation he craves, as well as a blueprint for how to make his supporters even happier.

“Rush is perfectly confident and competent to play the outsider to the system,” said Kellyanne Conway, the White House counselor. “In that way, he and the president learn from each other.”

 

Edited April 15, 2020 by Francisco 2.0

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