4/12/20: A quiet Easter passes. Even churches
are closed until the coronavirus abates. The Pope delivers a sermon to
Catholics round the world on the “contagion of hope,” but speaks from a nearly
empty St. Peter’s Basilica. Like many good Christian leaders, Pastor Greg Ball
of Destiny Church Naples in Naples, Florida holds
a drive-in Easter service. “What we’re doing is practicing
social distancing,” he tells a reporter, “asking everyone to stay in their cars
and to separate with a good distance between them.”
Members of the congregation listened to his sermon on the radio.
Some offered praise while standing in open sunroofs. “My heart was filled with
so much joy,” Ball said afterwards. “Everyone waving to each other in the cars
and smiling.”
So that was all good.
____________________
Patriots gather to hug
and shake hands and cough in each other’s faces.
____________________
One man who insisted on exercising his right to gather people together in clusters and scoff at the possibility of infection, was Ammon Bundy, in Idaho. This is the same Mr. Bundy who led an armed occupation of a wildlife refuge in Oregon to protest federal overreach. He had pledged to hold a nondenominational Easter service in a venue holding up to 1,000 people.
Because, let’s face it, nothing says “I am exercising my freedoms,” quite like gathering people together, where they might pass the virus along, and go back out into the world and spread it among family, friends, and innocent bystanders.
Alas, only 60 “patriots” showed up to hug and shake hands and cough in each other’s faces.
*
ACROSS THE NATION, and around the world, the toll continued to rise.
According to Johns Hopkins University, as of Sunday afternoon the U.S. had 550,016 confirmed
cases of COVID-19. Spain stood next, with
166,127. But if we adjust for population, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, and
the United Kingdom have all been harder hit, as have a number of smaller
countries.
As of Sunday, the U. S. had suffered 21,965 deaths.
Several states which were slow to issue stay-at-home orders were seeing
large increases. Those states included Florida (19,895 confirmed cases), Texas
(13,484) and (Georgia 12,452), now ninth, tenth and eleventh worst hit.
Washington, once the state with the most cases, has done a good job of slowing the spread, and fell to thirteenth.
*
MEANWHILE, The New York Times published a scathing report on Saturday,
outlining President Trump’s fumbling efforts to deal with the coronavirus
threat when it first developed. By Sunday, the Narcissist-in-Chief had digested
the article, which meant he spent Sunday raging on Twitter.
If you don’t read the Times, you might not know that six reporters worked on the piece (and updated it Monday). They talked to dozens of sources and had access to numerous documents.
SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS
In early January, the National Security Council office responsible for tracking pandemics had already received intelligence reports “predicting the spread of the virus to the United States.” Discussion focused on what might have to be done to keep Americans home from work and shut down cities the size of Chicago.
In early January, Matthew Pottinger, deputy national security adviser, took a call from a longtime friend and Hong Kong epidemiologist. Pottinger had worked in Hong Kong during the SARS epidemic in 2003.
As the Times explains,
Now, seventeen years later, his
friend had a blunt message: You need to be ready. The virus, he warned, which
originated in the city of Wuhan, was being transmitted by people who were
showing no symptoms – an insight that American
health officials had not yet accepted. Mr. Pottinger declined through a
spokesman to comment.
Around that same time, the State Department’s epidemiologist warned in a report that the virus was likely to spread across the globe, resulting in a pandemic.
Pottinger, reporters said, “began convening daily meetings about the coronavirus. He alerted his boss, Robert C. O’Brien, the national security adviser.”
Trump and his economic advisers continued to focus on keeping
the economy booming, and resisted pressing China for more information about the
spreading virus, rather than upend chances for a trade deal.
January 18: Secretary Azar briefed the president on the coronavirus during a phone call to Mar-a-Lago. “Mr. Trump,” according to the Times, “projected confidence that it would be a passing problem.”
(The Times has also tracked Trump’s visits to golf
courses, his private resorts, and especially Mar-a-Lago. As of March 9, 2020,
he had visited Mar-a-Lago 31 times, and spent a total of 135 days there. Add 90
days spent at his private golf resort in Bedminster, N.J., 85 at Trump International Golf Club, West Palm
Beach, Fla., and 76 at Trump National Golf Club, Sterling, Va. The man
vacations a lot.)
By this time, Trump has spent 386 days as president at private clubs he owns.
Bedminster, N.J.
“I have a great relationship with President Xi.”
Four days later, while attending the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Trump sat down for an interview with Joe Kernen of CNBC.
This exchange followed:
KERNEN: Before we get started – with – we’re going
talk about the economy and a lot of other things – the CDC
– has identified
a case of coronavirus – in Washington state. The
Wuhan strain of this. If you remember SARS, that affected GDP. Travel-related
effects. Do you – have you been briefed by
the CDC? And…
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I have, and…
KERNEN: …are there worries about
a pandemic at this point?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: No. Not at all.
And – we’re – we have
it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it
under control. It’s – going to be just fine.
JOE KERNEN: Okay. And President
Xi – there’s
just some – talk in China that maybe the transparency isn’t
everything that it’s going to be. Do you trust that we’re going to know
everything we need to know from China?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I do. I do. I
have a great relationship with President Xi [emphasis added, unless
otherwise noted]. We just signed probably the biggest deal ever made. It
certainly has the potential to be the biggest deal ever made.
So: the president isn’t worried, and President
Xi of China is his pal.
January 28: A senior medical advisor at Veteran’s Affairs warns colleagues
in an email about the new coronavirus. “Any
way you cut it,” he says, “this is going to be bad. The projected size of
the outbreak already seems hard to believe.”
Health experts are reluctant to shut down air
travel to and from China, which will cut any contacts health officials from the
two countries might have.
“It
is still possible to interrupt virus spread.”
January 30: Dr. Anthony Fauci, Dr. Redfield,
head of CDC, and others call Secretary Azar. They have changed their minds and believe
a travel ban should be put in place with China.
The World Health Organization declares a global public health emergency. “The Committee believes that it is still possible to interrupt virus spread,” they explain, “provided that countries put in place strong measures to detect disease early, isolate and treat cases, trace contacts, and promote social distancing measures commensurate with the risk.
The Centers for Disease Control reports the first confirmed case of person-to-person transmission inside
the United States.
In a phone call to the president on January 30,
Secretary Azar warns that a pandemic is possible. Trump agrees to a travel ban,
but tells Azar to stop panicking.
January 31: The travel ban on China is issued.
Here, an aside from the blogger seems in order: Trump has insisted
he made all the right calls. He consistently cites imposition of the travel ban
as the critical decision.
Unfortunately, it would be another six weeks before he was ready
to admit publicly that the U.S. was confronting a colossal danger. It was as
if, after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Franklin D.
Roosevelt had waited until February 18 to ask Congress to declare war.
In the next six weeks the war against the coronavirus was nearly lost. On February 5, for example, Derek Kan, a senior official from the White House Office of Management and Budget, told a group of senators that the Trump administration had all the money needed to combat the spread of the disease.
“Just left the Administration briefing on Coronavirus,”
Senator Christopher S. Murphy, a Democrat, wrote in a tweet shortly after. “Bottom
line: they aren’t taking this seriously enough.”
February 10: At a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, President Trump tells a crowd of adoring, but-science-challenged fans, he isn’t worried about the coronavirus.
And by the way, the virus, they’re working hard, looks like by April, you know in theory when it gets a little warmer it miraculously goes away. I hope that’s true. But we’re doing great in our country. China, I spoke with President Xi and they’re working very, very hard. and I think it’s going to all work out fine.”
“We were flying the plane with no instruments.”
February 14: Secretary Azar announces the federal government will create a “surveillance” system in five U.S. cities to, in the words of the Times, “measure the spread of the virus and enable experts to project the next hot spots.” The system ends up being delayed for several weeks.
That same day, Dr.
Robert Kadlec, the top disaster response official at the Health and Human
Services Department, puts out a memo. He details what drastic measures to slow
the spread of the disease might look like. Titled “U.S. Government Response to
the 2019 Novel Coronavirus,” it lists steps that might become necessary:
…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.
In days to follow the government botches early testing. The first test kits sent out don’t even work.
In the words of one official, “We were flying the plane with no
instruments.”
By the third week in February, top public health experts had decided to recommend a new approach to the growing threat. The American people, they planned to tell the president, should be urged to observe social distancing rules, and stay home from work.
When Dr. Kadlec, called for a meeting of the White House coronavirus task force on February 21, “his agenda was urgent.” (The Times had a copy of the agenda to use in writing the article). It was already clear, Kadlec believed, that it was going to be necessary to lock down the country to prevent the virus from spreading.
The only real question was: When?
“People are carrying the virus everywhere.”
February 23: Dr. Kadlec learned that a 20-year-old Chinese woman had infected five relatives even though she had never displayed symptoms. That meant Americans who appeared healthy could be spreading the virus. “Is this true?!” Dr. Kadlec wrote back to the researcher who had warned him. “If so we have a huge whole [sic] on our screening and quarantine effort.”
Her response was blunt: “People are carrying the virus everywhere.”
This isn’t “Fake News.” Reporters for the Times had
the emails.
Trump was traveling in India at the time. But on February 24, Dr. Kadlec and a team of other experts made up their minds to present Mr. Trump with a plan titled “Four Steps to Mitigation” when he returned.
The next day, however, Dr. Nancy Messonier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, publicly issued the blunt warning they had all agreed was necessary.
The stock market started to drop. When Trump returned from
his trip, he was furious. The health experts decided to cancel the meeting.
On February 26, Trump did select Vice President Pence to head up the White House coronavirus task force.
February 27: President Trump wasn’t exactly laser-focused on the threat from the virus. Instead, he decided to meet with African American leaders at the White House. That is, African American leaders like “Diamond and Silk,” who would gladly smooch his posterior.
(You’d
almost think Mr. Blogger was making it up. But we have the video!)
With Pence and his staff in charge, the Times says, “the focus was clear: no more alarmist messages. Statements and media appearances by health officials like Dr. Fauci and Dr. Redfield would be coordinated through Mr. Pence’s office.”
On March 6, Trump told reporters that the coronavirus crisis was “an unforeseen problem.” So, you couldn’t blame him!
Five days later, the president told a group of bankers, “We’re having to fix a problem that, four weeks ago, nobody ever thought would be a problem.”
March 10: Trump is still pushing the idea that a wall on the border with Mexico will help stop the spread of the coronavirus. “Going up fast,” he tweets. “We need the Wall more than ever!”
Your house is still going to burn down.
March 11: The president speaks to the American people in an Oval Office address. He announces a travel ban to and from 26 countries in Europe. He does not call for school closures or stay-at-home orders. Nor does he suggest social distancing.
Various health officials and even Trump’s former Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert react to his speech in a series of emails.
They all know the virus is spreading internally – and spreading fast. Shutting off travel from outside no longer matters. It’s as if your house were burning down and you decided to post no trespassing signs on the corners of your property. Your house is still going to burn down.
The Times has emails:
The president was still focused on keeping the economy going strong. Rather than heed the health experts, he reached out to investors like Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chief executive of Blackstone Group.
What did Schwarzman think he should do?
It required a tense Oval Office meeting a few days later to overcome the resistance of the president and his economic advisers. The health experts called for stern measures to stop the spread. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin balked. The economy would tank. According to the Times, “Mr. O’Brien, the national security adviser, who had been worried about the virus for weeks, sounded exasperated as he told Mr. Mnuchin that the economy would be destroyed regardless if officials did nothing.”
According to the Times, three individuals played the biggest role in swaying a stubborn president. They were Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Deborah L. Birx, who the president likes because he thinks she’s “elegant,” and Vice President Pence.
March 16: President Trump announces guidelines calling for two weeks of social distancing.
The next day, during what has since become a daily press conference, the president made a stunning announcement. “This is a pandemic,” he said, which wasn’t stunning at all. That was obvious. “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic,” he added. That was the stunning part.
The brazenness of his lie.
