Who is REALLY responsible? China

[ukpumacat]

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/inte...ry?id=70031273

From that warning in November, the sources described repeated briefings through December for policy-makers and decision-makers across the federal government as well as the National Security Council at the White House. All of that culminated with a detailed explanation of the problem that appeared in the President’s Daily Brief of intelligence matters in early January, the sources said. For something to have appeared in the PDB, it would have had to go through weeks of vetting and analysis, according to people who have worked on presidential briefings in both Republican and Democratic administrations.

[ukpumacat]

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/whi...ic-devastation

And again, I will link this one since its from Fox News. If you honestly think that Trump never saw or heard about any of this, I have some land to sell you.

He sent that memo on January 29th. In it, he talked about how many Americans could die and recommended that we shut down travel from China immediately. Two days later Trump did just that.

[ukpumacat]

Here is another:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/u...ronavirus.html

So, again, Navarro, a top advisor to the President wrote two memos warning of how many millions could die in America and what needed to be done about it.
“This lack of protection elevates the risk of the coronavirus evolving into a full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans.”

He wrote of many things that needed to be done immediately to prevent this. One of those was done to a smaller degree (The China travel ban) and the others were not done until later.

This is of course the guy that Trump has put in charge of getting the same medical equipment that he wrote in that memo to hospitals now.

The biggest point is this (which doesn't matter if Trump saw it or not): Navarro knew all of this. And believed it to the point of writing a memo to the National Security Council and the President himself.

But somehow we are to believe that Trump didn't or couldn't know? Please.

His first memo was dated January 29th.

Here are just several things Trump said about the Coronavirus AFTER that date:


Jan. 30: “We think we have it very well under control. 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 us … that I can assure you.”

Feb. 10: “Now, the virus that we’re talking about having to do — you know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat — as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April. We’re in great shape though. We have 12 cases — 11 cases, and many of them are in good shape now.”

Feb. 23: “We have it very much under control in this country.”

Feb. 24: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. 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!”

Feb. 26: “So we’re at the low level. As they get better, we take them off the list, so that we’re going to be pretty soon at only five people. And we could be at just one or two people over the next short period of time. So we’ve had very good luck.”

Feb. 26: “And again, when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”

Feb. 26: “We’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up.”

Feb. 27: “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.”

Feb. 29: “And I’ve gotten to know these professionals. They’re incredible. And everything is under control. I mean, they’re very, very cool. They’ve done it, and they’ve done it well. Everything is really under control.”

March 4: “[W]e have a very small number of people in this country [infected]. We have a big country. The biggest impact we had was when we took the 40-plus people [from a cruise ship]. … We brought them back. We immediately quarantined them. But you add that to the numbers. But if you don’t add that to the numbers, we’re talking about very small numbers in the United States.”

March 7: “No, I’m not concerned at all. No, we’ve done a great job with it.”

March 9: “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!”

March 10: “And we’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”

[ukpumacat]

Here is another:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/act-now...ic-11580255335

An Op-Ed written in the Wall Street Journal in January telling how serious it was and what needed to be done to stop it.

And here is another list that includes a timeline and quotes from the CDC director in January:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/o...ronavirus.html

[ukpumacat]

The South Koreans did get out ahead of it better. They were about the only ones. All of Europe, the Middle east, all with us or behind us on this, but somehow it's still just down to "he". lol.

Not just South Korea (and I know you said "about").

Look at this article on New Zealand. They have had ONE death. One. They did what I was hoping we would do: a 30 day National Lockdown. They have basically let the virus die out there.

The biggest issue in America is that because we didn't do a National Lockdown, its still spreading; in all of those red states that had so few cases and everywhere else. So even if a state flattens the curve (like California), the virus is still spreading like crazy.

Japan only has 93 deaths.
Australia has 50.
Saudi Arabia.
Singapore.

Those are several countries that reacted right away and kept their death totals all below 100 total.

https://thehill.com/policy/internati...ed-in-only-one

[Catonahottinroof]

Chance of getting 5M (New Zealand) people to act upon government recommendation is going to be better than 327M (United States)..
I’ll take those chances every time.

[CitizenBBN]

Ok. But you and I both know it won't matter. I can show example after example. But there will always be an excuse or justification or reason why it doesn't matter. But, I will gladly link.

It can't be links to articles or people who were sounding alarms. From the report I saw today there was a memo on this in the White House and he never saw it.

The point is that he no doubt got conflicting advice at best. Some maybe did tell him it was a risk, some undoubtedly told him it was less of one.

But to single just him out you have to have his staff up in arms warning him to do more and him just refusing, and that just isn't provable.

We KNOW people like Biden even criticized the action he did take. We KNOW other major officials and leaders were still downplaying the risk at the same time he was, some of them even holding out longer.

It just wasn't the world v Trump in this mess. Sure he's an optimist, and yes he wanted the economy to keep humming, what President doesn't want the economy to keep doing well? Is that what is now considered self interest?

My guess is that he got briefings that said there was a risk but that it wasn't significant AT THAT TIME, which is consistent with public comments of various agency officials at that time.

Him choosing to side with the info that it wasn't as significant a risk was an error obviously, but is different from being "responsible" or "guilty" under any Western standard of the concept.

[CitizenBBN]

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/whi...ic-devastation

And again, I will link this one since its from Fox News. If you honestly think that Trump never saw or heard about any of this, I have some land to sell you.

He sent that memo on January 29th. In it, he talked about how many Americans could die and recommended that we shut down travel from China immediately. Two days later Trump did just that.

I do think he heard it. I also think he heard the other side. that is how these briefings usually work, and that is consistent with other reports we've seen.

Now did Trump see the whole memo or just a summary or whatever? I Can't say, I don't know how his briefings work, but I imagine it was a summary given his management approach.

And he did restrict travel.

So look at it the other way: Trump IMO tends to actually listen to his advisors. Yes he's petulant and goes out on limbs constantly and fires people when he doesn't think they are on board, but when it comes to the details of actions the last 3 years he seems to generally run with the advice given to him. There are a ton of policy decisions that are that way.

Now here he did restrict travel, and if he was told to shut down the economy I'm sure he resisted, as would about anyone. but if he was told we needed to produce testing kits what's his reason for not listening?

there isn't one. It's costless politically for him to tell the CDC to get busy and prepare. it's pretty costless politically for him to start gathering up PPE just in case.

So I have to wonder why that didn't happen given that it would be a politically smart move. The only reasons why he wouldn't are a) he thought doing so would instill panic and hurt the economy, etc. (if we want to call that self motivated OK, but that would be the reason) and b) he wasn't told he needed to do it.

Those memos you linked I specifically linked just today.

Like I said, I can also show you the memos on the 9/11 pilots, the memos on the Japanese attack on pearl Harbor, etc. The existence of some memo in the trillion page stack of memos in washington isn't a smoking gun here. Even if it got to him in some form it was also probably given with other information that said something different.

So then he has to decide between all of that information. We can say he then chose wrong, but saying he knew the severity of the problem and did nothing is not the same thing. Saying he was presented with this as a risk, along with being presented information it wasn't as much of a risk, and he chose wrong, is far more accurate.

And he's in good company. The entire EU leadership also made the same decisions, with Italy going so far as to send PPE to China just weeks before they had a massive shortage.

If the Democrats were screaming in January for more measures, if the EU was closing their borders and Trump was refusing to act then you'd have a case. But when almost no nation was acting the way you wanted in response to this it's hard to single out Trump.

The South Koreans seemed to be the only nation that reacted swiftly and severely and got ahead of things. Likely b/c they know better than anyone not to trust a Communist government.

And FWIW you can just about correlate the speed of response with the level of democracy and individual liberty in the country. Asian countries acted faster on average but they are on average much less democratic and place, culturally and legally, much less weight on restricting travel and movement, etc.

The US and Europe are hesitant for many reasons to lock down their populace, and so they tended to lag. Trump was in that group but he was far from alone.

As I said yes he could have seen this coming and done more, but it's unlikely any American President would act with the swiftness or severity of South Korea, and it's very unlikely he was being told to b/c apparently no other Western leader was being told to either.

[ukpumacat]

We can say he then chose wrong, but saying he knew the severity of the problem and did nothing is not the same thing. Saying he was presented with this as a risk, along with being presented information it wasn't as much of a risk, and he chose wrong, is far more accurate.

Yes, we agree on that. This is exactly what I think. He was given the info and largely ignored it. I haven't see any memos saying
the opposite of all of this, but if we assume there was even one...yes, he chose wrongly with the info provided.

But, he did more than that.

He could have listened to the different memos and info and just been wrong. Not prepare as early, etc. That would have been bad if that's all he did. But as you stated, plenty others are to blame.
But instead, he came out publicly and the other side of it. He tweeted it. He gave speeches on it. He did everything possible to publicly downplay it.
He didn't just ignore the memo, he publicly disagreed with it. And then he blamed politics for it. Dems wanted him to act and he called it "their next hoax".
And that strategy was then followed (as it always is) by Fox News. They then completely downplayed it. They ranted and raved on their shows watched by millions about how this is completely being blown out of proportion, we will be fine, zombie apocalypse, on and on.
THAT is what is egregious.
Sure, there was info on 9/11. But Bush didn't come out in between the planes hitting the towers and tell people its safe to fly and that what they are seeing is "Fake news".
This virus spreads by close contact. Trump and Fox helped spread it by telling people there was nothing to worry about when it was overtly clear to this nobody in California that there was something very real to worry about.
I didn't need to rely on memos or intel. All I had to do was watch what was happening in China, Japan, Italy, etc.

As I've said before, I am just so thankful I live in a state with a Governor who listened to the Science and closed down our state right away. That was not popular. The same week Trump said it was under control and would go away, our Governor shut down our state. Turns out, he saved thousands of lives by doing it. And more importantly, by and large Californians listened. They stayed home. They trusted the Governor. They ignored what the President of the United States had been saying and took it deadly serious.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/08/us/ca...ner/index.html

[ukpumacat]

Btw, Trump clearly thinks "being wrong" on this matters. Because he is now saying the WHO "should have known" and "were wrong" and cost thousands of lives because they were.

He's right.

[ukpumacat]

Just want to repeat something I have already posted a few times.

This Virus is not Trump's fault. He could not have stopped it. He has handled the overall crisis (after the beginning) decently (he has overall listened to the Dr's and I am thankful for that alone).

Do I believe he could have done things earlier? Absolutely
Do I think he made a bad problem worse because of his downplaying it (along with Fox News)? No doubt about it. (Thankfully in this case, he has trained many of his followers to quickly rewrite history and once he changed his tune, many of them did as well.)
Do I think there are others to blame? Absolutely (China, WHO, FDA, etc etc).
Do I think some of that blame is political? Of course it is. Trump is an expert at diverting blame. For weeks we heard that "this isn't time to play the blame game". Until they (Fox News especially) found someone else to blame (China and now the WHO). My good friend Mick thinks Trump calling it the "China Virus" was a message aimed at China. I do not. I think it was aimed exactly where it landed...on threads titled just like this one.

Will this hurt him politically? Maybe? A lot will depend on what happens in October and November. I don't think his poor response early will hurt him with most independents. Too much has happened and will happen before the election.

I will just say it this way...nothing that happens in this crisis is likely to change my vote. Or yours (Chuck) or most voters. And if I were undecided, I doubt anything that has happened would lead me to vote one way or the other.

[UKHistory]

Abdicating Federal overbite over a national crisiS is a lack of leadership. Balking at a OIG to oversee the handling of stimulus is terrible governing.

Demanding governors be appreciative of him publicly is beneath the office.

Yes I am a never Trumper because at every turn he gives me no reason to support him.

[Doc]

Chance of getting 5M (New Zealand) people to act upon government recommendation is going to be better than 327M (United States)..
I’ll take those chances every time.

Not only that but its an island (actually 2 islands) with 3 entry points, and the major population centers (Aukland, Christchurch and Queenstown) have a population of approx 1.6 million, which is considerably less than the population of NYC (8.2 million). Its not a world hub like the US, or London, or Rome,.....its an ISOLATED island. Their normal life is social distancing. Hell, I think it is their National Motto

[Doc]

Classic damned if you do, damned if you don't. You want Trump to be the bad guy who failed, there is plenty there....and if you want him to be the good guy who took it seriously, there is plenty there. Did he ignore doomsday predictions? I doubt it...he just didn't follow them because he also had information that stated the armageddon prophecies were incorrect. Makes he neither a liar or incompetent. Even Dr Fauci, somebody who many have used as the end all/be all on this has been incorrect about many issues on this virus because daily we get more information. I see this whole coronavirus situation as much like the Parvo virus outbreak that was happening back in the mid 80s-early 90s in dogs. New virus we knew nothing about. No database for information, nothing in the literature, no science, etc..... and everybody was winging it. I recall examining animals in vet school wearing biohazard suits, having to walk thru pools of bleach going into and out of rooms, etc.......and it was still a major killer of dogs. In fact it had a FAR greater mortality and morbidity rate than Coronavirus. Some vets freaked, some used logic and restraint...but bottom line it did not matter. What mattered was developing treatment which sometimes were often experimental (some helped, some didn't) and off label (since there was NO approved drugs for the treatment as its hard to have an approved treatment for a condition that does not exist), developing protocols in animal care thru trial and error, attenuation of the virus (which I expect in all viruses over time), development of natural immunity, and finally/eventually a vaccine. In the early 90's I probably saw 10-15 cases of parvo a week, now I see maybe one a year. That is in veterinary medicine, where we didn't have billions if not trillions of dollars being spent to resolve that issue. But the idea that those who did not do what you wanted were liars, or not working to defeat the disease is ludicrious. Just because somebody does not agree with your model does not make them a liar or somebody who was derelict in their job. It means they had a different opinion based on the ALL the information they had, which odds are is a whole lot, much of which is not published, as well as access to advisors on both sides (caution vs aggressive). I doubt anything was "ignored". What likely occurred is all the information at hand was considered and a decision made based on that. Because its not the decision those who dislike the president wanted, its now that he suddenly lied or ignored anything. Its he made an informed decision that at the time he felt was correct. Of course had he done something else, anything else the outrage would be the same because then it would be the other information he supposedly ignored. Either way...he was wrong to some but he isn't the only one. Those in glass houses should not cast stones which is why Biden and Sanders have both been relatively silent. It's also why Coumo has not been on his soapbox either. In essence every single person, including the experts, in hindsight, have been wrong about some aspect of the disease. Those that suggest cloistering for a year are wrong as are those who suggested we go to dinner in Chinatown or a movie in NYC.

[Doc]

Abdicating Federal overbite over a national crisiS is a lack of leadership. Balking at a OIG to oversee the handling of stimulus is terrible governing.

Demanding governors be appreciative of him publicly is beneath the office.

Yes I am a never Trumper because at every turn he gives me no reason to support him.

Disagree.... are governors incompetent dolts? Why is it it that my governor should abdicate his responsibility to decide how HIS state should address this? If he needs the federal gov't help, he can ask. FL game plan is different than NY for a reason. Its also different than South Dakotas.

You want no reason to support him which is why you will never find a reason to support him. Such is what this country is about.

[CitizenBBN]

Abdicating Federal overbite over a national crisiS is a lack of leadership.

There is federal oversight. I disagree with some aspects of it, like not tying a knot in Florida early on, but this is actually a constitutionally federal system, and Governors do have key roles to play in dealing with these kinds of events. That's how it's been done from the outset.

And, it's not even unusual. Google about Germany and how their system works. They have 13 states and each has its own health care system/process. Their version of the FDA/CDC only recommend, which is why they weren't in the way when German states began producing tests.

It's arguable we'd have been better off WITHOUT another layer of bureaucracy to go through when this started. I've linked the GQ article about the doctor in Washington who had to wait on the FDA for his test. What if he had only to go to the state board, which would probably have been more influenced that this was a crisis since they were closer to the problem?

More layers of government oversight isn't always a solution to a problem. In this case it was primarily waiting on the FDA and CDC that slowed us down. What if, like Germany, other states' Health Departments could have approved tests on their own?

Maybe one goes well, another doesn't, but we'd have had something quicker, at least possibly.

And, what works for Montana doesn't work for Florida.

I do think Trump should have been more active in pressuring some Governors to act, but I don't think we need to abandon 250 years of relatively responsive government over just this crisis.

And he has done the things the feds are tasked to do, like using the DPA to deal with companies that aren't getting it done.

[Doc]

It is always interesting that more gov't is needed until there is a problem, then its the lawyers. I don't recall if it was here or on facebook where somebody posted a prediction that in the not too distant future you will see law firm adds for class action suits for those who took chloroquinolone and now have any of a wide variety of conditions. Of course there is no approved treatment for a novel disease so any treatment for it is off label and thus subject to future legal action. For me, death now vs potential complication in the future....give me potential complication.

Did the federal gov't delay testing? ABSOLUTELY because FDA regulations are such that they have to approve thru red tape, trials, etc...... People complain about a testing delay AND that the Federal gov't abdicated it responsibility are speaking out of both sides of their mouth (IMO). Personally I have always been in favor of more to the states, less to the federal. Imagine if FL had been able to forego efficacy trials, or been allowed to use a foreign test, how much quicker we could have been testing? What needs to be done in NYC is far different than what needs to be done in Montana. Let Cuomo and DeBlasio handle NY and let DeSantis handle FL! And when you have 50 potential state "trial and error" situations going on compared to 1 federal mandated approach you have 49 additional opportunities to get a better approach.

[dan_bgblue]

EU softened criticism on Chinese disinformation over fear of 'repercussions,' according to reports