Post by BeamMeUpScotty"Of course, everything else is still just failing. The new UK variant
of the virus is spreading at an exponential rate to the extent that
lockdowns are likely to be necessary until Easter"
*MY QUESTION IS*
If the NEW UK STRAIN of the Trump Virus is spreading at an
"exponential rate" then the NEW STRAIN must be different from the old
strain enough for it to NOT be blocked by the immunity to the older
strain and vaccine for the older strain.
The US is only 4% of the world population, but accountable for more than
20% of Trump virus deaths.
Trump is guilty of more than 360,364 counts of "criminal negligence
causing death", and more than 21,140,600 counts of "criminal negligence
causing bodily harm" due to mishandling of the COVID pandemic.
https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/04/09/experts-predicted-a-coronavirus-pandemic-as-far-back-as-2017-trump-ignored-them/
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fcouriernewsroom.com%2F2020%2F04%2F09%2Fexperts-predicted-a-coronavirus-pandemic-as-far-back-as-2017-trump-ignored-them%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNF7hXDB3RNl2Geh7reKSdvYZ8w3Xg>
Experts Predicted a Coronavirus Pandemic as Far Back as 2017. Trump
Ignored Them.
The Trump administration ignored warning signs, failed to adequately
prepare for PPE shortages, botched the rollout of tests, and
repeatedly downplayed the severity of the coronavirus.
The novel coronavirus outbreak didnt become a full-fledged pandemic
until March, but with each passing day, its become increasingly clear
that President Trump and his administration failed to heed numerous
warning signs and wasted two months of valuable time that could have
been used to prepare for the devastation now being unleashed on the
United States.
Here are some of the ways in which the Trump administrations failures
have affected the nations response to the pandemic.
*Ignoring Warning Signs*
American intelligence officials issued a warning as far back as late
November
<https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/intelligence-report-warned-coronavirus-crisis-early-november-sources/story?id=70031273>
that a contagion was spreading through Chinas Wuhan region, ABC News
reported on Wednesday. This warning, which was detailed in a November
intelligence report by the militarys National Center for Medical
Intelligence, was the result of analysis of wire and computer
intercepts, along with satellite images.
Analysts determined that the emerging disease could lead to a
cataclysmic event, and according to ABC News, the report was briefed
multiple times to the White House and various federal agencies.
President Trump reportedly even received a detailed explanation of the
problem in his daily brief of intelligence matters in early January,
weeks before the virus emerged in the U.S., but then spent the better
part of January and February downplaying the severity of the virus.
On Monday, the New York Times also reported that Trumps trade advisor,
Peter Navarro, had written his own memo in late January warning the
administration
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/us/politics/navarro-warning-trump-coronavirus.html>
that the coronavirus could cost the U.S. trillions of dollars and put
millions of American lives at risk.
The lack of immune protection or an existing cure or vaccine would
leave Americans defenseless in the case of a full-blown coronavirus
outbreak on U.S. soil, Navarro wrote in his Jan. 29 memo. This lack of
protection elevates the risk of the coronavirus evolving into a
full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans.
Navarros warning appears to have gone unheeded, and President Donald
Trump has denied
<https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/07/trump-peter-navarro-coronavirus-memos-174237>
he ever saw the January memo or a follow-up February memo from
Navarroeven though that second memo was addressed to Trump directly
through the offices of the National Security Council, Trumps then-chief
of staff Mick Mulvaney, and the White House coronavirus task force.
RELATED: Officials Tried To Warn Trump A Pandemic Was Coming In
January. He Didnt Listen.
<https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/03/20/officials-tried-to-warn-trump-a-pandemic-was-coming-in-january-he-didnt-listen/>
I didnt see them. I didnt look for them, Trump told reporters on
Monday during a coronavirus task force news briefing.
The Trump administration also ignored the results
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-outbreak.html>
of a 2019 simulated exercise imagining how a modern-day influenza
pandemic would affect the United States. In the simulation, 110 million
Americans were expected to become ill, leading 7.7 million people to be
hospitalized and 586,000 Americans to die. The results of that scenario,
reported by the New York Times in March, showed how underfunded,
underprepared, and uncoordinated the federal government would be in
fighting a novel pandemic.
The Pentagon also knew a pandemic caused by a novel coronavirus was
likely and warned the Trump administration of such a possibility in
2017. According to exclusive documents obtained by The Nation, the
Pentagon even predicted the shortages
<https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/covid-military-shortage-pandemic/>
of masks, hospital beds, and ventilators that American hospitals are
currently experiencing. The documents
<https://www.scribd.com/document/454422848/Pentagon-Influenza-Response>,
which detail how the U.S. military could respond to such a pandemic, are
eerily prescient.
The most likely and significant threat is a novel respiratory disease,
particularly a novel influenza disease, the military plan states.
COVID-19 is a respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus, and
the document specifically cites coronaviruses on several occasions, in
one instance saying, Coronavirus infections [are] common around the world.
Despite all these warnings, Trump has repeatedly insisted that no one
could have seen the coronavirus coming.
Nobody knew there would be a pandemic or epidemic of this proportion.
Nobody has ever seen anything like this before, Trump said on March 19,
contradicting the reality that his own Department of Health and Human
Services oversaw the simulation.
*PPE Shortages*
American hospitals are facing severe and widespread shortages
<https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/04/07/trump-doesnt-think-theres-a-medical-supply-shortage-these-hospitals-beg-to-differ/>
of personal protective equipment (PPE), such as N95 masks and surgical
masks, as well as shortages of medical equipment, such as ventilators
according to a new watchdog report from the Department of Health and
Human Services Office of Inspector General.
Doctors and nurses from across the country have spoken out about the PPE
shortage
<https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/04/07/trump-doesnt-think-theres-a-medical-supply-shortage-these-hospitals-beg-to-differ/>
and how it puts their livesand their patients livesat risk. Many
doctors and nurses are breaking protocol and reusing masks, while others
have been forced to use swim goggles, bandanas, and trash bags
<https://www.propublica.org/article/medical-workers-treating-coronavirus-are-resorting-to-homemade-masks>
to protect themselves. Some nurses have even quit their jobs
<https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/04/02/im-a-hospice-nurse-heres-why-i-chose-to-step-away-from-the-job-i-love-during-coronavirus/>
over the lack of protections.
RELATED: Trump Doesnt Think Theres A Medical Supply Shortage.
These Hospitals Beg to Differ.
<https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/04/07/trump-doesnt-think-theres-a-medical-supply-shortage-these-hospitals-beg-to-differ/>
That the United States, the wealthiest country in the world, failed to
prepare enough supplies to deal with the coronavirus has become
something of a scandal, especially because a 69-page National Security
Council playbook on fighting pandemics
<https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/25/trump-coronavirus-national-security-council-149285>
includes guidance on when and how to start obtaining PPE.
The Trump administration ignored that playbook, which says the
government should have begun efforts to obtain personal protective
equipment such as masks, gloves, and gowns in mid to late January.
Instead, as the Associated Press reported this week, the Trump
administration squandered nearly two months
<https://apnews.com/090600c299a8cf07f5b44d92534856bc> that could have
been used to bolster the federal stockpile of critically needed medical
supplies and equipment.
Federal agencies waited until mid-March to begin placing bulk orders of
N95 respirator masks, mechanical ventilators, and other equipment needed
by front-line health care workers. By that time, hospitals in several
states were treating thousands of infected patients without adequate
equipment and pleading for shipments from the Strategic National
Stockpile. That federal cache of supplies was created more than 20 years
ago to help bridge gaps in the medical and pharmaceutical supply chains
during a national emergency.
Now, three months into the crisis, that stockpile is nearly drained just
as the number of patients needing critical care is surging. Some state
and local officials report receiving broken ventilators and decade-old
dry-rotted masks.
We basically wasted two months, Kathleen Sebelius, health and human
services secretary during the Obama administration, told the AP.
Rather than do everything he can to help states deal with the PPE crisis
now, Trump has instead called the federal government a backup,
<https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/04/02/trump-passes-the-buck-to-states-on-giving-nurses-and-doctors-what-they-need/>
told states to find supplies on their own
<https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/03/30/trump-seems-to-be-playing-politics-with-medical-equipment-thats-risking-lives/>,
interfered with their efforts to do just that
<https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/03/28/trumps-personal-grudge-with-whitmer-may-have-led-to-supply-slowdown-to-state/>,
and accused governors of lying about their needs
<https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/5dm8w5/trump-says-states-are-lying-about-how-many-ventilators-they-need-to-fight-coronavirus>.
*Testing Kits*
The national shortage of COVID-19 tests has been well-documented, but
the highlights bear repeating: After deciding not to adopt the test used
by the World Health organization, the CDC botched
<https://apnews.com/c335958b1f8f6a37b19b421bc7759722> the development of
its first coronavirus test, which dramatically slowed the roll-out of
tests and caused a devastating delay.
The federal government was also slow to engage the private sector and
academic labs in testing; the Food and Drug administration waited until
Feb. 29
<https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-issues-new-policy-help-expedite-availability-diagnostics>
to engage private labs in the testing space. These delays and shortages
caused the government to issue strict, inconsistent, and ever-evolving
guidelines on who could be tested for COVID-19. The Trump
administrations testing failures were so severe that in February, as
more people across the U.S. became sick, government labs processed only
352 COVID-19 tests, an average of only 12 per day
<https://apnews.com/c335958b1f8f6a37b19b421bc7759722> in a nation of
more than 300 million people, according to an AP analysis of CDC data.
While testing has since ramped up, issues remain. The shortage of tests
remains substantial
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/30/us/politics/trump-governors-coronavirus-testing.html>,
patients have reported waits of up to two weeks to receive test results
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/health/coronavirus-testing-us.html>,
and many labs are now short on the swabs and chemicals
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/health/coronavirus-test-shortages-face-masks-swabs.html>
needed to run the test.
As Bloomberg wrote
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-07/coronavirus-testing-accuracy-and-availability-shortages-remain>
on Tuesday, Coronavirus testing has become a massive logistical
failure, one thats made it impossible to know how much the virus has
truly spread.
The U.S. has by far the most known cases of COVID-19 in the world, with
more than 430,000 confirmed cases
<https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html>. Nearly 15,000 Americans have
died as of Wednesday evening. While the U.S. has now completed two
million tests <https://covidtracking.com/data/us-daily> according to the
COVID Tracking Project, the country continues to lag behind many other
countries
<https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/02/826368789/fact-check-trump-claims-u-s-testing-for-coronavirus-most-per-capita-its-not>
in testing per capita. In short, the surge in tests came entirely too late.
Many local communities are flying blind, making decisions in the
absence of full information largely due to the failure of the federal
government to provide sufficient testing capacity, Chrissie Juliano,
executive director of the Big Cities Health Coalition, told
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/health/coronavirus-test-shortages-face-masks-swabs.html>
the New York Times. This testing shortage, and lack of available
information about the actual burden of the virus, has set our countrys
response back by an order of magnitude we will never know.
*Downplaying the Coronavirus*
Despite the various warnings the administration received about the
coronavirus, President Trump has repeatedly downplayed the dangers of
the virus
<https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/04/01/pence-says-trump-never-downplayed-coronavirus-19-times-he-did/>.
Since late January, Trump has said We have it totally under control,
declared that the virus would go away in April, said the number of
cases would soon be down close to zero, called it a democratic hoax,
and compared it to the flu.
Trump has minimized the risks of the coronavirus dozens of times, doing
so as recently as late March, after his own administration had already
issued stringent social distancing guidelines.
Mike Pence says Trump never belittled the threat of coronavirus.
We did some digging and here's a bunch of times he did just that.
pic.twitter.com/bMoNEWPk3O <https://t.co/bMoNEWPk3O>
COURIER (@CourierNewsroom) April 2, 2020
<https://twitter.com/CourierNewsroom/status/1245843762506543104?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>
The president has also refused to take any responsibility
<https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2020/03/2020-time-capsule-3-i-dont-take-responsibility-at-all/608005/>
for the administrations missteps, and has instead tried to deflect
blame onto Democrats, former President Obama, China, the media, and the
World Health Organization. He has also said
<https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/animals/trump-im-a-cheerleader-for-the-country/vp-BB11Z6ej>
that he made his previous comments minimizing the severity of the virus
because he regards himself as Americas cheerleader.
He does not appear to be succeeding, either as cheerleader or president.
A new CNN poll
<http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2020/images/04/08/rel4a.-.coronavirus.pdf>
released Wednesday found that 55% of Americans think the federal
government has done a poor job of preventing the spread of COVID-19,
while only 41% think it has done a good job. Similarly, 52% said they
disapprove of Trumps handling of the coronavirus outbreak and 55% said
they think he could be doing more to fight the pandemic.
Only 43% of Americans think Trump is doing everything he can.
https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/04/09/experts-predicted-a-coronavirus-pandemic-as-far-back-as-2017-trump-ignored-them/
<https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/04/09/experts-predicted-a-coronavirus-pandemic-as-far-back-as-2017-trump-ignored-them/>