Donald Trump

[Rileybobs]

Emotional claptrap. You don't even know the man. Why do you never make a rational argument? Or maybe you have n't got one?

I forgot you needed to know someone to know if they were a bad person.

[RingoMcCartney]

https://nypost.com/2020/03/20/who-haunt ... ronavirus/


The Jan. 14 tweet came less than two months before WHO declared COVID-19 to be a global pandemic.

“Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China,” the organization had said.

It also relied on information from Chinese health authorities who have been accused of obscuring facts and figures during the course of the outbreak.

The Chinese government reportedly knew the disease was spreading before the tweet was sent, according to the South China Morning Post.

Axios reporter Jonathan Swan drew attention to Quin’s story on social media the next day and went on to criticize the Chinese government for instituting a cover-up and failing to deliver life-saving information to the public.

“Terrible. We desperately need accurate reporting from China,” he tweeted. “The pandemic originated in Wuhan & was initially covered up by Chinese authorities. University of Southampton study found there would have been a 95 % REDUCTION in cases & less spread if Beijing intervened 3 wks sooner.”

“The world is directly affected by China’s domestic governance,” he added. “The suppression of doctors sounding the alarm, censoring of public health info online and now the expulsion of the journalists who are working to reveal what happened in the crucial early days of this pandemic.”

[Loyalclaret]

Was that the only tweet WHO sent around that time?

[RingoMcCartney]

Watch "Senior WHO official dodges questions about Taiwan’s WHO membership; praises China" on YouTube

https://youtu.be/UlCYFh8U2xM



Dodgy sod. Dare not acknowledge the existence of Taiwan.

[ksrclaret]

Now is not the time to be scoring political points. Questions should not be asked until the outcome is clear. Anything else is simply spouting conjecture.

Shame on you. Never let a good crisis go to waste.

[Uwe Noble]

Now is not the time to be scoring political points. Questions should not be asked until the outcome is clear. Anything else is simply spouting conjecture.

Shame on you. Never let a good crisis go to waste.

You seen more concerned about the WHO and, by implication,, China than Britain and the US.

[steve_f]

Latest bulletin

9F2DD859-5AB3-472F-8E90-9AA236442970.jpeg (54.8 KiB) Viewed 4035 times

[ksrclaret]

You seen more concerned about the WHO and, by implication,, China than Britain and the US.

Here, Uwe, have a big 'whooooooooosh', on me.

[RingoMcCartney]

On 11 March a pandemic was declared by the WHO. By this time, 114 countries had reported cases.

[RingoMcCartney]

The WHO had been warned of the problem in Wuhan from a reliable but awkward source. In common with most international organisations, at China’s insistence the WHO does not include Taiwan as an independent member.That is why those looking for evidence of Taiwan’s performance in the struggle against Covid-19 will search in vain on the WHO website. Yet, as Aso also noted, Taiwan can claim to be a “world leader” in responding to the virus and its impressive record should be known. By screening people arriving on flights from China and tracing the contacts of all known cases, this island country of some 24 million people has so far limited the number of cases to 393, with 6 deaths. thanks to its early interventions - recording no new cases today for the first time in a month. As at 15th April 2020.

[ksrclaret]

On 11 March a pandemic was declared by the WHO. By this time, 114 countries had reported cases.

This is what you said yesterday.

Post by RingoMcCartney » Tue Apr 14, 2020 5:23 am

We are slap bang in the middle of this crisis. When it's over and only when it's over, will it be the time to assess how well the country, the government, the opposition the NHS, Public Health England, the media and all stakeholders in this crisis have performed. Good , bad or indifferent. Attempting to make a judgement and forming an opinion right now, is far too premature. There could easily be 2nd, 3rd and 4th waves of this hideous evil virus to contend with

People should wait till it's over.

conjecture
/kənˈdʒɛktʃə/

Learn to pronounce
See definitions in:

noun
an opinion or conclusion formed on the basis of incomplete information.

Dear, dear, dear. Credibility = zero.

[KateR]

Was that the only tweet WHO sent around that time?

China first informed the WHO of "a pneumonia of an unknown cause, on 31 December".

On 5 January, the organisation said the information it had from China at that time showed there was "no evidence of significant human-to-human transmission". On 14 January, it tweeted preliminary Chinese investigations had found "no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission" of the new virus.

The same day, however, the Wuhan Health Commission said the possibility of limited human-to-human transmission could not be excluded, although the risk of sustained transmission was low. Around the same time, other WHO statements raised the possibility of some human-to-human transmission, referring to what was known about other coronaviruses such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars). And on 22 January, the WHO, following a brief field visit, made a much clearer statement human-to-human transmission was happening in Wuhan.

Although, it's worth saying a full delegation with international experts did not visit China until the second week of February.

Then at the end of January, the WHO praised China for its efforts to contain the virus, including its "commitment to transparency".

"Constructive criticism of the WHO's effusive praise for China is warranted," public health expert Lawrence Gostin told BBC News. "The WHO should have been more critical and looked more closely at the situation."

But he added President Trump's remarks were an attempt to shift blame for the US's own lack of preparedness.

The WHO has said in response to Mr Trump that it will review its actions, but added that all its guidance was intended to limit human transmission. [/b]

Mr Trump himself praised the Chinese, in a tweet, on 24 January.

The Who did publish initial advice, on 10 January, recommending no international restrictions and repeated this the same day it declared a public health emergency, in late January. The WHO has said: "Restricting the movement of people and goods during public health emergencies is ineffective in most situations." It believes closing borders could lead to a rise in people trying to travel illegally and so possibly spread rather than stop infection.

But this advice was eventually ignored by most countries, including the US, where Mr Trump stopped all foreign nationals who had been in China in the 14 days prior from entering the US from 2 February. This was early, followed by EU criticized by EU, UK followed shortly after in terms of travel bans. There are varying opinions of "experts" as to whether travel bans are effective or not, but action was definitely taken

And the White House's top medical adviser, Dr Anthony Fauci, has said: "Our shutting off travel from China and, more recently, travel from Europe has gone a long way to not seeding very, very intensively the virus in our country."

But a study published in February by the Journal of Emergency Management found travel bans had been effective in decreasing the spread of previous viruses, such as Ebola and Sars, in the short term only.

Above is only the timeline of events, not blame or praise for actions, but I think most people following all this knew sometime ago the funding to the WHO from the US was going to be delayed/stopped/cut, so not really a surprise is it.

[RingoMcCartney]

This is what you said yesterday.

Post by RingoMcCartney » Tue Apr 14, 2020 5:23 am

We are slap bang in the middle of this crisis. When it's over and only when it's over, will it be the time to assess how well the country, the government, the opposition the NHS, Public Health England, the media and all stakeholders in this crisis have performed. Good , bad or indifferent. Attempting to make a judgement and forming an opinion right now, is far too premature. There could easily be 2nd, 3rd and 4th waves of this hideous evil virus to contend with

People should wait till it's over.

conjecture
/kənˈdʒɛktʃə/

Learn to pronounce
See definitions in:

noun
an opinion or conclusion formed on the basis of incomplete information.

Dear, dear, dear. Credibility = zero.

In the post you quote I'm not expressing an opinion. I'm simply stating a fact.

Can you see the difference?

Opinion or conclusion formed on the basis of incomplete information.


Fact.

Dear, dear, dear. Intellect = zero.

So. Shhhhhhh

[ksrclaret]

In the post you quote I'm not expressing an opinion. I'm simply stating a fact.

Can you see the difference?

Opinion or conclusion formed on the basis of incomplete information.


Fact.

So. Shhhhhhh

Credibility = zero.

[KateR]

This is what you said yesterday.

Post by RingoMcCartney » Tue Apr 14, 2020 5:23 am

We are slap bang in the middle of this crisis. When it's over and only when it's over, will it be the time to assess how well the country, the government, the opposition the NHS, Public Health England, the media and all stakeholders in this crisis have performed. Good , bad or indifferent. Attempting to make a judgement and forming an opinion right now, is far too premature. There could easily be 2nd, 3rd and 4th waves of this hideous evil virus to contend with

People should wait till it's over.

conjecture
/kənˈdʒɛktʃə/

Learn to pronounce
See definitions in:

noun
an opinion or conclusion formed on the basis of incomplete information.

Dear, dear, dear. Credibility = zero.

it's good that you stick to grammer and spelling and keep reminding everyone that's what you are good at, other people will try to stick to facts and analysis but your input is always welcome. I am sure it will be so valuable to so many and you can get lots of likes from the other English majors on here. Lots of ticks for presentation, absolute zero for content that you add, except for the comedy factor that is.

[RingoMcCartney]

Credibility = zero.

True to form you make zero attempt to either counter, or for that matter, agree with the content of my posts. Nothing. Zilch. Nowt.

No , just an attempt to try and play the man not the ball.

And by clearly demonstrating your lack of verbal reasoning, in so much not being able to differentiate between conjecture and fact.

You failed even that!

[Uwe Noble]

Here, Uwe, have a big 'whooooooooosh', on me.

Thanks for not addressing my point. Your problem is that you hate Trump so much that you will defend literally any behavior by the WHO and the Chinese Communist Party. Maybe you're a communist?

You're very big on emotion and hyperbole but you can't seem to muster an argument. Calm down, take a deep breath, read the posts nice and slowly and then try to engage with my arguments. If you can't manage that you're probably not suited for thus thread and maybe you should go back on your Xbox.

[ksrclaret]

it's good that you stick to grammer and spelling and keep reminding everyone that's what you are good at, other people will try to stick to facts and analysis but your input is always welcome. I am sure it will be so valuable to so many and you can get lots of likes from the other English majors on here. Lots of ticks for presentation, absolute zero for content that you add, except for the comedy factor that is.

If you go back and read the post again, carefully this time, you'll see that it was Ringo's post that contained content related to grammar and spelling.

That's grammar, by the way, not grammer.

[RingoMcCartney]

Thanks for not addressing my point. Your problem is that you hate Trump so much that you will defend literally any behavior by the WHO and the Chinese Communist Party. Maybe you're a communist?

You're very big on emotion and hyperbole but you can't seem to muster an argument. Calm down, take a deep breath, read the posts nice and slowly and then try to engage with my arguments. If you can't manage that you're probably not suited for thus thread and maybe you should go back on your Xbox.

I'm tempted to call him an idiot.

But why give him a promotion!?

[ksrclaret]

True to form you make zero attempt to either counter, or for that matter, agree with the content of my posts. Nothing. Zilch. Nowt.

No , just an attempt to try and play the man not the ball.

And by clearly demonstrating your lack of verbal reasoning, in so much not being able to differentiate between conjecture and fact.

You failed even that!

Credibility = zero.

[ksrclaret]

Thanks for not addressing my point. Your problem is that you hate Trump so much that you will defend literally any behavior by the WHO and the Chinese Communist Party. Maybe you're a communist?

You're very big on emotion and hyperbole but you can't seem to muster an argument. Calm down, take a deep breath, read the posts nice and slowly and then try to engage with my arguments. If you can't manage that you're probably not suited for thus thread and maybe you should go back on your Xbox.

Oh dear, perhaps a bigger 'whhoooooooooooooosh' might be in order?

[KateR]

If you go back and read the post again, carefully this time, you'll see that it was Ringo's post that contained content related to grammar and spelling.

That's grammar, by the way, not grammer.

I know that's exactly who you were responding to, same as I know I was responding to you.

Thank you for English lesson it adds so much to the discussion, it really does, kind of exactly what I was trying to convey in my previous message to you, so thank you for the confirmation of my point, it's much appreciated.

Since this seems to be of the highest priority to you why don't you start a separate thread regarding this point?

[ksrclaret]

I know that's exactly who you were responding to, same as I know I was responding to you.

Thank you for English lesson it adds so much to the discussion, it really does, kind of exactly what I was trying to convey in my previous message to you, so thank you for the confirmation of my point, it's much appreciated.

Since this seems to be of the highest priority to you why don't you start a separate thread regarding this point?

You're welcome, and thanks for the suggestion but I'm having too much fun on this thread at the moment running rings around the village idiots. You know you're wiping the floor with them when they can't even get a post right first time, and they have to edit their responses. "awww damn and blast, I should have said that!!".

Luckily for them you can edit it in on a message board.

[KateR]

comedy gold, best I've heard for a while, I needed that thank you

you spelt that wrong, yippee, look at me running rings around someone, Ohhh look you missed a comma, ha ha got them as well, can you see how smart I am, chest all puffed out patting yourself on the back for the world to see, try responding to comments or at least accept one challenge avoiding your spelling etc. answering two questions:

Did the WHO do a bang up job and got everything right each step of the way, are they an organization that are so good there should be no criticism of them what so ever by anyone, simple yes or no answer please.

If no, could they have saved "some/one lives/life, simple yes or no.

[Devils_Advocate]

Its all well and good highlighting errors the WHO undoubtedly made but this does not detract from the fact Trump has completely mishandled the crisis in the US and had endless warnings and briefings around what was happening and what the risks of his actions were

2020: COVID-19 Arrives

January 3, 2020: The CDC is first alerted to a public health event in Wuhan, China (This fact was revealed publicly later by HHS Secretary Alex Azar.)

January 6, 2020: The CDC issues a travel notice for Wuhan due to the spreading coronavirus.

Note: The Trump campaign claims that this marks the beginning of the federal government disease control experts becoming aware of the virus. It was 10 weeks from this point until the week of March 16 when Trump began to change his tone on the threat.
January 8, 2020: The CDC issues an official health advisory about COVID-19.

January 10, 2020: Former Trump Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossert warns that we shouldn’t “jerk around with ego politics” because “we face a global health threat…Coordinate!”

January 18, 2020: After two weeks of attempts, HHS Secretary Alex Azar finally gets the chance to speak to Trump about the virus. The president redirects the conversation to vaping, according to the Washington Post.

January 20, 2020: First U.S. case is reported in Washington state.

January 21, 2020: Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Disease at the CDC tells reporters, “We do expect additional cases in the United States.”

January 27, 2020: Top White House aides meet with Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney to encourage greater focus on the threat from the virus. Joe Grogan, head of the White House Domestic Policy Council warns that “dealing with the virus was likely to dominate life in the United States for many months.”

January 28, 2020: Two former Trump administration officials—Gottlieb and Borio—publish an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal imploring the president to “Act Now to Prevent an American Epidemic.” They advocate a 4-point plan to address the coming crisis:

(1) Expand testing to identify and isolate cases.
Note: This did not happen for many weeks. The first time more than 2,000 tests were deployed in a single day was not until almost six weeks later, on March 11.
(2) Boost flu vaccination efforts to reduce the load on hospitals.
(3) Prepare hospital units for isolation with more gowns and masks.
Note: There was no dramatic ramp-up in the production of critical supplies undertaken. As a result, many hospitals quickly experienced shortages of critical PPE materials. Federal agencies waited until Mid-March to begin bulk orders of N95 masks.
(4) Vaccine development.
January 28, 2020: A group of Trump Administration public health officials and outside experts began a “Red Dawn” email chain which a medical advisor for the VA kicks off saying the “size of the outbreak already seems hard to believe” and alludes to the 1918 pandemic. A director for the Global Center for Health Security compares the Wuhan outbreak to Pompeii and Hiroshima. A U.S. Army infectious disease expert says “we should treat this as the next pandemic.”

January 29, 2020: Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro circulates an internal memo warning that America is “defenseless” in the face of an outbreak which “elevates the risk of the coronavirus evolving into a full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans.”

January 29, 2020: The New York Times reports that “mask hoarders” may cause further shortages when the outbreak reaches America.

January 29, 2020: Republican Senator Tom Cotton reaches out to President Trump in private to encourage him to take the virus seriously.

January 30, 2020: Dr. James Hamblin publishes another warning about critical PPE materials in the Atlantic, titled “We Don’t Have Enough Masks.” At the time, it was clear that mask shortages would be a serious problem. Other countries coping with COVID-19 were already running short on masks and ordering them from America and, in addition, almost the entire CDC stockpile had been consumed during the 2009 flu season.

Late January, 2020: HHS sends a letter asking to use its transfer authority to shift $136 million of department funds into pools that could be tapped for combating the coronavirus. White House budget hawks argued that appropriating too much money at once when there were only a few U.S. cases would be viewed as alarmist.

January 31, 2020: Trump puts into action a temporary travel ban on China. This decision has been the centerpiece of his claim to have responded to the coronavirus. But even here, the truth is somewhat different.

Trump’s Chinese travel ban only banned “foreign nationals who had been in China in the last 14 days.” This wording did not—at all—stop people from arriving in America from China. In fact, for much of the crisis, flights from China landed in America almost daily filled with people who had been in China, but did not fit the category as Trump’s “travel ban” defined it.
January 31, 2020: On the same day Trump was enacting his fake travel ban, Foreign Policy reports that face masks and latex gloves are sold out on Amazon and at leading stores in New York City and suggests the surge in masks being sold to other countries needs “refereeing” in the face of the coming crisis.

February 4, 2020: Gottlieb and Borio take to the WSJ again, this time to warn the president that “a pandemic seems inevitable” and call on the administration to dramatically expand testing, expand the number of labs for reviewing tests, and change the rules to allow for tests of people even if they don’t have a clear known risk factor.

Note: Some of these recommendations were eventually implemented—25 days later.
February 4 or 5, 2020: Robert Kadlec, the assistant secretary for preparedness and response, and other intelligence officials brief the Senate Intelligence Committee that the virus poses a “serious” threat and that “Americans would need to take actions that could disrupt their daily lives.”

February 5, 2020: HHS Secretary Alex Azar requests $2 billion to “buy respirator masks and other supplies for a depleted federal stockpile of emergency medical equipment.” He is rebuffed by Trump and the White House OMB who eventually send Congress a $500 million request weeks later.

February 5, 2020: Senator Chris Murphy tweets:


Chris Murphy
✔
@ChrisMurphyCT
Just left the Administration briefing on Coronavirus. Bottom line: they aren't taking this seriously enough.

Notably, no request for ANY emergency funding, which is a big mistake. Local health systems need supplies, training, screening staff etc. And they need it now.

48.6K
4:09 PM - Feb 5, 2020
Twitter Ads info and privacy
19.9K people are talking about this
February 9, 2020: The Washington Post reports that a group of governors participated in a jarring meeting with Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Robert Redfield that was much more alarmist than what they were hearing from Trump. “The doctors and the scientists, they were telling us then exactly what they are saying now,” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said.

February 12, 2020: Gottlieb (remember, he’s the former head of Trump’s FDA) testifies before Congress that actions must be taken to address medical supply chain issues and the possibility of shortages.

February 20, 2020: Borio and Gottlieb write in the Wall Street Journal that tests must be ramped up immediately “while we can intervene to stop spread.”

It’s important to understand that the Trump campaign brags about the fact that the administration lifted CDC restrictions on tests. This is a factually true statement.
But it elides that fact that they did so on March 3—two critical weeks after the third Borio/Gottlieb op-ed on the topic, during which time the window for intervention had shrunk to a pinhole.
February 21, 2020: Dr. Robert Kadlec, the top disaster response official at HHS, convened an urgent meeting of the coronavirus task force. At the meeting he suggested social distancing measures “such as school dismissals and cancellations of mass gatherings and warned we would have to “lock down” the country. Two days later upon learning about the level of contagiousness among asymptomatic individuals, Kadlec put together a plan to immediately brief the president on the distancing recommendations. The meeting with the President was cancelled, Vice President Pence was put in charge.

February 23, 2020: Harvard School of Public Health professor issues warning on lack of test capability: “As of today, the US remains extremely limited in#COVID19 testing. Only 3 of ~100 public health labs haveCDC test kits working and CDC is not sharing what went wrong with the kits. How to know if COVID19 is spreading here if we are not looking for it.

February 24, 2020: The Trump administration sends a letter to Congress requesting a small dollar amount—between $1.8 billion and $2.5 billion—to help combat the spread of the coronavirus. This is, of course, a pittance compared to the massive recovery package still being debated at the time of this writing. At the time the administration was widely criticized by members of Congress for not going big enough to deal with the problem.

February 25, 2020: Messonier says she expects “community spread” of the virus in the United States and that “disruption to everyday life might be severe.” Trump is reportedly furious and Messonier’s warnings are curtailed in the ensuing weeks.

February 26, 2020: Congress, recognizing the coming threat, offers to give the administration $6 billion more than Trump asked for in order to prepare for the virus.

Trump mocks Congress in a White House briefing, saying “If Congress wants to give us the money so easy—it wasn’t very easy for the wall, but we got that one done. If they want to give us the money, we’ll take the money.”
Note: The wall did not get “done.” Trump never got sufficient funding for completion of his promised border wall and in any case, as of early February 2020, only 110 miles of new fencing had been constructed.
February 27, 2020: In a leaked audio recording Sen. Richard Burr, chairman of the Intelligence Committee and author of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA) and the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation Act (reauthorization of PAHPA), was telling people that COVID-19 “is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic.”

March 3, 2020: Vice President Pence is asked about legislation encouraging companies to produce more masks. He says the Trump administration is “looking at it.”

Note: Recall that the concern about masks was raised publicly by high-profile former Trump appointees, on January 28.
March 4, 2020: HHS says they only have 1 percent of respirator masks needed if the virus became a “full-blown pandemic.”

March 7, 2020: Fox News host Tucker Carlson, flies to Mar-a-Lago to implore Trump to take the virus seriously in private rather than embarrass him on TV. Even after the private meeting, Trump continued to downplay the crisis, forcing Carlson to obliquely criticize him publicly on his show two nights later.

Note: Carlson, after hearing from an expert with “access to intelligence” who was concerned about the virus began covering the issue on his show February 3rd, over a month prior to the private meeting.This is a good glimpse into how a competent populist might’ve acted.
March 9, 2020: Tom Bossert, Trump’s former Homeland Security adviser, publishes an op-ed saying it is “now or never” to act. He advocates for social distancing and school closures to slow the spread of the contagion.

Trump says that developments are “good for the consumer” and compares COVID-19 favorably to the common flu.
March 16, 2020: Trump announces his support for a 15-day period of social distancing in order to slow the spread of coronavirus.

March 17, 2020: Facing continued shortages of the PPE equipment needed to prevent healthcare providers from succumbing to the virus, Oregon Senators Jeff Merkeley and Ron Wyden call on Trump to use the Defense Production Act to expand supply of medical equipment.

March 18, 2020: Trump signs the executive order to activate the Defense Production Act, but declines to use it. At the White House briefing he is asked about Senator Chuck Schumer’s call to urgently produce medical supplies and ventilators.

Trump responds: “Well we’re going to know whether or not it’s urgent.”
Note: At this point 118 Americans had died from COVID-19.
March 20, 2020: At an April 2nd White House Press Conference, President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner who was made ad hoc point man for the coronavirus response said that on this date he began working with Rear Admiral John Polowczyk to “build a team” that would handle the logistics and supply chain for providing medical supplies to the states. This suggestion was first made by former Trump Administration officials January 28th.

March 22, 2020: Six days after calling for a 15-day period of distancing, Trump tweets that this approach “may be worse than the problem itself.”


Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF. AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!

324K
4:50 AM - Mar 23, 2020
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135K people are talking about this
March 24, 2020: Trump tells Fox News that he wants the country opened up by Easter Sunday (April 12).

Trump says, “You will have packed churches all over our country, I think it would be a beautiful time and it is just about the timeline that I think is right.”
As Trump was speaking to Fox, there were 52,145 confirmed cases in the United States and the doubling time for daily new cases was roughly four days.
The pace of the viral spread was increasing.
Testing was still in the process of ramping up, and unavailable in many areas.
Doctors were still “desperate” for masks and other basic PPE supplies.
Update, March 26, 2020, 10:48 a.m.: The article has been updated to include the revelation that the Trump administration had been given a “Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents” in 2017.

Update, March 29, 2020 12:39 p.m.: This article has been updated to include the revelation first reported by The Washington Post that HHS Secretary Alex Azar requested $2 billion for medical equipment in early February but was rebuffed by White House officials who were upset about the price tag and the fact that Azar had gone around them to Congress. ”

Update, April 1, 2020 10:40 p.m.: This article has been updated to include reports by the National Review and Arkansas Gazette that Tom Cotton met privately with President Trump about the virus in January.

Update, April 2, 2020: 9:22 p.m.: This article has been updated to include Trump pandemic czar Jared Kushner’s self-described start date for when the task force began ramping up supply chain efforts.

Update, April 4, 2020: 6:07 p.m.: This article has been updated to include a Covid-19 budget request from HHS in late January that White House officials rejected for fear of seeming “alarmist.”

Update, April 4, 2020: 6:07 p.m.: This article has been updated to include a meeting that Governors had with medical experts in the White House which expressed much greater concern about the virus than the President’s public statements would indicate.

Update, April 5, 2020: 1:08 p.m.: This article has been updated to include the shuttering of PREDICT, the USAID program dedicated to early identification of viruses that may become pandemics, two months before COVID-19 emerged in China. Correction: The first version of this update dated the shuttering of PREDICT as September 2020. It was September 2019.

Update, April 5, 2020: 1:08 p.m.: This article has been updated to include an Associated Press report indicating federal agencies waited until mid-March to begin bulk ordering N95 masks, nearly two months after former Trump Admin officials and other experts were raising alarms about the shortage.

Update, April 6, 11:23 p.m.: This article has been updated with a New York Times report on Peter Navarro’s 1/29 memo on the risks of a pandemic.

Update, April 8, 3:42 p.m.: This article has been updated with an ABC News report that a military intelligence unit warned of a contagion in Wuhan Province in November that was changing patterns of life and posing a threat to the population based on intercepts and satellite images.

Update, April 8, 10:33 p.m: The ABC News report added earlier today has been removed due to a Defense Intelligence Agency statement that the November memo referenced in the story did not exist.

Update, April 13, 3:43 p.m.: This article has been updated with a New York Times report that Trump Administration health officials were emailing about the urgency of the pandemic in January and February and that Dr. Robert Kadlec in HHS requested a meeting with President Trump February 24th to propose social distancing measured. The media was cancelled because Trump was upset about the alarmism hurting the stock market.

All embedded links to support the article can be found at the link below
https://thebulwark.com/warnings-ignored ... -response/

[ksrclaret]

comedy gold, best I've heard for a while, I needed that thank you

you spelt that wrong, yippee, look at me running rings around someone, Ohhh look you missed a comma, ha ha got them as well, can you see how smart I am, chest all puffed out patting yourself on the back for the world to see, try responding to comments or at least accept one challenge avoiding your spelling etc. answering two questions:

Did the WHO do a bang up job and got everything right each step of the way, are they an organization that are so good there should be no criticism of them what so ever by anyone, simple yes or no answer please.

If no, could they have saved "some/one lives/life, simple yes or no.

I'd not actually corrected any spelling or grammar until you suggested as such in your first post to me, so not really sure where that's come from. Bizarre.

And in answer to your questions, I don't know if the WHO have got everything correct. How could I know that? What I do know is that we've been told throughout this crisis though that we should wait until it's over to ask the difficult questions. Overall, I get that logic. So why should the WHO not be afforded that too?

[KateR]

DA,
I don't think anyone, well I will qualify that, I for one was never attempting to say Trump had not made mistakes, clearly he has, no argument what so ever from me.

So on that basis let's try to reverse what someone else on the thread tried to say a few days ago, which I am modifying somewhat:

Did the leaders of Italy/France/Spain do everything right at the right time and made no mistakes? When you answer that you can add it to the WHO mistakes, which in reality were the earliest ones that might have saved many, we wont go into did China make mistakes or lie. Yet here we are with a thread all about good old Donald for the many to air the grievances at because he is really such an easy target, which is also littered with lies and misinterpretation of facts. Plus of course the good old intelligent insults around his hair and tan/skin colour, let's not forget the age insult too while we are at it.

How about a thread around, which world leader has done great and why, we don't have one of those do we, I wonder why, I really do.

[KateR]

I'd not actually corrected any spelling or grammar until you suggested as such in your first post to me, so not really sure where that's come from. Bizarre.

And in answer to your questions, I don't know if the WHO have got everything correct. How could I know that? What I do know is that we've been told throughout this crisis though that we should wait until it's over to ask the difficult questions. Overall, I get that logic. So why should the WHO not be afforded that too?

there is a word for it when people don't answer questions directly and try to deflect, always obvious, but I wouldn't dare to try and spell it in todays climate on here but you'll definitely know it and am sure advise us sub-mortals. You've used the let's wait and see in a few discussions with others and on other threads but you never do you always keep coming back.

You do know, you absolutely do know but you're simply not will to say it, you will not concede the point that the WHO might have got something wrong, so wrong that thousands of people around the world have died from it. Far easier to keep Trump baiting and trying to be a smart ass around some spelling mistake and you have the cheek & gall to call someone a village idiot, and my new favorite, wiping the floor with people when they edit a response because they can't get it right first time. These are all so great, you can't even see you have next to zero credibility and it's heading to zero really fast.

See how easy it is to just tell people they are silly, it's an easy game that anyone can play it, most of us grow out of it though when we become adults. PS, be very very careful to ensure no spelling mistakes or editing on any post on any thread from now on, we will be watching

[ksrclaret]

there is a word for it when people don't answer questions directly and try to deflect, always obvious, but I wouldn't dare to try and spell it in todays climate on here but you'll definitely know it and am sure advise us sub-mortals. You've used the let's wait and see in a few discussions with others and on other threads but you never do you always keep coming back.

You do know, you absolutely do know but you're simply not will to say it, you will not concede the point that the WHO might have got something wrong, so wrong that thousands of people around the world have died from it. Far easier to keep Trump baiting and trying to be a smart ass around some spelling mistake and you have the cheek & gall to call someone a village idiot, and my new favorite, wiping the floor with people when they edit a response because they can't get it right first time. These are all so great, you can't even see you have next to zero credibility and it's heading to zero really fast.

See how easy it is to just tell people they are silly, it's an easy game that anyone can play it, most of us grow out of it though when we become adults. PS, be very very careful to ensure no spelling mistakes or editing on any post on any thread from now on, we will be watching

What the bloody hell are you going on about here?

[KateR]

no point shouting, try answering the question it was a simple one, needs yes or no, does not need anything else, I think you can do it if you try really hard, I believe in you.

[Bfcboyo]

I think the WHO have messed up and China should be held to account .

I also think Trump has been clear , concise comedy gold and has cheered me up through this sad time with daily stand up . His points are good points and the way he gets them across is comedy genius.

Is it allowed on here to be in agreement on some of Trumps ideas whilst thinking he is a bit of a joke how he delivers them . The middle ground a new found land for realists.

[Bfcboyo]

If you go back and read the post again, carefully this time, you'll see that it was Ringo's post that contained content related to grammar and spelling.

That's grammar, by the way, not grammer.

This boards full of failed grammar school boys who never really made it and took that big swing to the left bitter about what they should have achieved.

[evensteadiereddie]

Irony ?

[pushpinpussy]

This boards full of failed grammar school boys who never really made it and took that big swing to the left bitter about what they should have achieved.

Bring back grammer schools I say

[Erasmus]

One fact is that Trump has cut funding to the WHO during the height of a global pandemic. I can't see how this will make the situation better. The likelihood is that coronavirus will start to have a bigger impact on the poorer countries of the world, which will make the work of the WHO even more vital as such countries have less effective health services.

There is scope for criticism of the WHO but the praise for the Chinese response was probably the best way to get China to open up about the situation. Show that you get international praise for openness and China is likely to become more open. But the real point here is that cutting the funding to the WHO at the present time is such a stupid thing to do, even if you do think it hasn't functioned well up till now.

What seems clear is that the motivation for this is purely self-centred and political and will almost certainly make a bad situation worse. Trump is in conflict with China and has been for months, so when the WHO praises China he seeks to damage the WHO regardless of the fact that this will make the global situation worse. How can anyone defend such crass, egocentric stupidity.

[Holmeclaret]

Its all well and good highlighting errors the WHO undoubtedly made but this does not detract from the fact Trump has completely mishandled the crisis in the US and had endless warnings and briefings around what was happening and what the risks of his actions were

2020: COVID-19 Arrives

January 3, 2020: The CDC is first alerted to a public health event in Wuhan, China (This fact was revealed publicly later by HHS Secretary Alex Azar.)

January 6, 2020: The CDC issues a travel notice for Wuhan due to the spreading coronavirus.

Note: The Trump campaign claims that this marks the beginning of the federal government disease control experts becoming aware of the virus. It was 10 weeks from this point until the week of March 16 when Trump began to change his tone on the threat.
January 8, 2020: The CDC issues an official health advisory about COVID-19.

January 10, 2020: Former Trump Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossert warns that we shouldn’t “jerk around with ego politics” because “we face a global health threat…Coordinate!”

January 18, 2020: After two weeks of attempts, HHS Secretary Alex Azar finally gets the chance to speak to Trump about the virus. The president redirects the conversation to vaping, according to the Washington Post.

January 20, 2020: First U.S. case is reported in Washington state.

January 21, 2020: Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Disease at the CDC tells reporters, “We do expect additional cases in the United States.”

January 27, 2020: Top White House aides meet with Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney to encourage greater focus on the threat from the virus. Joe Grogan, head of the White House Domestic Policy Council warns that “dealing with the virus was likely to dominate life in the United States for many months.”

January 28, 2020: Two former Trump administration officials—Gottlieb and Borio—publish an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal imploring the president to “Act Now to Prevent an American Epidemic.” They advocate a 4-point plan to address the coming crisis:

(1) Expand testing to identify and isolate cases.
Note: This did not happen for many weeks. The first time more than 2,000 tests were deployed in a single day was not until almost six weeks later, on March 11.
(2) Boost flu vaccination efforts to reduce the load on hospitals.
(3) Prepare hospital units for isolation with more gowns and masks.
Note: There was no dramatic ramp-up in the production of critical supplies undertaken. As a result, many hospitals quickly experienced shortages of critical PPE materials. Federal agencies waited until Mid-March to begin bulk orders of N95 masks.
(4) Vaccine development.
January 28, 2020: A group of Trump Administration public health officials and outside experts began a “Red Dawn” email chain which a medical advisor for the VA kicks off saying the “size of the outbreak already seems hard to believe” and alludes to the 1918 pandemic. A director for the Global Center for Health Security compares the Wuhan outbreak to Pompeii and Hiroshima. A U.S. Army infectious disease expert says “we should treat this as the next pandemic.”

January 29, 2020: Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro circulates an internal memo warning that America is “defenseless” in the face of an outbreak which “elevates the risk of the coronavirus evolving into a full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans.”

January 29, 2020: The New York Times reports that “mask hoarders” may cause further shortages when the outbreak reaches America.

January 29, 2020: Republican Senator Tom Cotton reaches out to President Trump in private to encourage him to take the virus seriously.

January 30, 2020: Dr. James Hamblin publishes another warning about critical PPE materials in the Atlantic, titled “We Don’t Have Enough Masks.” At the time, it was clear that mask shortages would be a serious problem. Other countries coping with COVID-19 were already running short on masks and ordering them from America and, in addition, almost the entire CDC stockpile had been consumed during the 2009 flu season.

Late January, 2020: HHS sends a letter asking to use its transfer authority to shift $136 million of department funds into pools that could be tapped for combating the coronavirus. White House budget hawks argued that appropriating too much money at once when there were only a few U.S. cases would be viewed as alarmist.

January 31, 2020: Trump puts into action a temporary travel ban on China. This decision has been the centerpiece of his claim to have responded to the coronavirus. But even here, the truth is somewhat different.

Trump’s Chinese travel ban only banned “foreign nationals who had been in China in the last 14 days.” This wording did not—at all—stop people from arriving in America from China. In fact, for much of the crisis, flights from China landed in America almost daily filled with people who had been in China, but did not fit the category as Trump’s “travel ban” defined it.
January 31, 2020: On the same day Trump was enacting his fake travel ban, Foreign Policy reports that face masks and latex gloves are sold out on Amazon and at leading stores in New York City and suggests the surge in masks being sold to other countries needs “refereeing” in the face of the coming crisis.

February 4, 2020: Gottlieb and Borio take to the WSJ again, this time to warn the president that “a pandemic seems inevitable” and call on the administration to dramatically expand testing, expand the number of labs for reviewing tests, and change the rules to allow for tests of people even if they don’t have a clear known risk factor.

Note: Some of these recommendations were eventually implemented—25 days later.
February 4 or 5, 2020: Robert Kadlec, the assistant secretary for preparedness and response, and other intelligence officials brief the Senate Intelligence Committee that the virus poses a “serious” threat and that “Americans would need to take actions that could disrupt their daily lives.”

February 5, 2020: HHS Secretary Alex Azar requests $2 billion to “buy respirator masks and other supplies for a depleted federal stockpile of emergency medical equipment.” He is rebuffed by Trump and the White House OMB who eventually send Congress a $500 million request weeks later.

February 5, 2020: Senator Chris Murphy tweets:


Chris Murphy
✔
@ChrisMurphyCT
Just left the Administration briefing on Coronavirus. Bottom line: they aren't taking this seriously enough.

Notably, no request for ANY emergency funding, which is a big mistake. Local health systems need supplies, training, screening staff etc. And they need it now.

48.6K
4:09 PM - Feb 5, 2020
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19.9K people are talking about this
February 9, 2020: The Washington Post reports that a group of governors participated in a jarring meeting with Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Robert Redfield that was much more alarmist than what they were hearing from Trump. “The doctors and the scientists, they were telling us then exactly what they are saying now,” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said.

February 12, 2020: Gottlieb (remember, he’s the former head of Trump’s FDA) testifies before Congress that actions must be taken to address medical supply chain issues and the possibility of shortages.

February 20, 2020: Borio and Gottlieb write in the Wall Street Journal that tests must be ramped up immediately “while we can intervene to stop spread.”

It’s important to understand that the Trump campaign brags about the fact that the administration lifted CDC restrictions on tests. This is a factually true statement.
But it elides that fact that they did so on March 3—two critical weeks after the third Borio/Gottlieb op-ed on the topic, during which time the window for intervention had shrunk to a pinhole.
February 21, 2020: Dr. Robert Kadlec, the top disaster response official at HHS, convened an urgent meeting of the coronavirus task force. At the meeting he suggested social distancing measures “such as school dismissals and cancellations of mass gatherings and warned we would have to “lock down” the country. Two days later upon learning about the level of contagiousness among asymptomatic individuals, Kadlec put together a plan to immediately brief the president on the distancing recommendations. The meeting with the President was cancelled, Vice President Pence was put in charge.

February 23, 2020: Harvard School of Public Health professor issues warning on lack of test capability: “As of today, the US remains extremely limited in#COVID19 testing. Only 3 of ~100 public health labs haveCDC test kits working and CDC is not sharing what went wrong with the kits. How to know if COVID19 is spreading here if we are not looking for it.

February 24, 2020: The Trump administration sends a letter to Congress requesting a small dollar amount—between $1.8 billion and $2.5 billion—to help combat the spread of the coronavirus. This is, of course, a pittance compared to the massive recovery package still being debated at the time of this writing. At the time the administration was widely criticized by members of Congress for not going big enough to deal with the problem.

February 25, 2020: Messonier says she expects “community spread” of the virus in the United States and that “disruption to everyday life might be severe.” Trump is reportedly furious and Messonier’s warnings are curtailed in the ensuing weeks.

February 26, 2020: Congress, recognizing the coming threat, offers to give the administration $6 billion more than Trump asked for in order to prepare for the virus.

Trump mocks Congress in a White House briefing, saying “If Congress wants to give us the money so easy—it wasn’t very easy for the wall, but we got that one done. If they want to give us the money, we’ll take the money.”
Note: The wall did not get “done.” Trump never got sufficient funding for completion of his promised border wall and in any case, as of early February 2020, only 110 miles of new fencing had been constructed.
February 27, 2020: In a leaked audio recording Sen. Richard Burr, chairman of the Intelligence Committee and author of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA) and the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation Act (reauthorization of PAHPA), was telling people that COVID-19 “is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic.”

March 3, 2020: Vice President Pence is asked about legislation encouraging companies to produce more masks. He says the Trump administration is “looking at it.”

Note: Recall that the concern about masks was raised publicly by high-profile former Trump appointees, on January 28.
March 4, 2020: HHS says they only have 1 percent of respirator masks needed if the virus became a “full-blown pandemic.”

March 7, 2020: Fox News host Tucker Carlson, flies to Mar-a-Lago to implore Trump to take the virus seriously in private rather than embarrass him on TV. Even after the private meeting, Trump continued to downplay the crisis, forcing Carlson to obliquely criticize him publicly on his show two nights later.

Note: Carlson, after hearing from an expert with “access to intelligence” who was concerned about the virus began covering the issue on his show February 3rd, over a month prior to the private meeting.This is a good glimpse into how a competent populist might’ve acted.
March 9, 2020: Tom Bossert, Trump’s former Homeland Security adviser, publishes an op-ed saying it is “now or never” to act. He advocates for social distancing and school closures to slow the spread of the contagion.

Trump says that developments are “good for the consumer” and compares COVID-19 favorably to the common flu.
March 16, 2020: Trump announces his support for a 15-day period of social distancing in order to slow the spread of coronavirus.

March 17, 2020: Facing continued shortages of the PPE equipment needed to prevent healthcare providers from succumbing to the virus, Oregon Senators Jeff Merkeley and Ron Wyden call on Trump to use the Defense Production Act to expand supply of medical equipment.

March 18, 2020: Trump signs the executive order to activate the Defense Production Act, but declines to use it. At the White House briefing he is asked about Senator Chuck Schumer’s call to urgently produce medical supplies and ventilators.

Trump responds: “Well we’re going to know whether or not it’s urgent.”
Note: At this point 118 Americans had died from COVID-19.
March 20, 2020: At an April 2nd White House Press Conference, President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner who was made ad hoc point man for the coronavirus response said that on this date he began working with Rear Admiral John Polowczyk to “build a team” that would handle the logistics and supply chain for providing medical supplies to the states. This suggestion was first made by former Trump Administration officials January 28th.

March 22, 2020: Six days after calling for a 15-day period of distancing, Trump tweets that this approach “may be worse than the problem itself.”


Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF. AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!

324K
4:50 AM - Mar 23, 2020
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March 24, 2020: Trump tells Fox News that he wants the country opened up by Easter Sunday (April 12).

Trump says, “You will have packed churches all over our country, I think it would be a beautiful time and it is just about the timeline that I think is right.”
As Trump was speaking to Fox, there were 52,145 confirmed cases in the United States and the doubling time for daily new cases was roughly four days.
The pace of the viral spread was increasing.
Testing was still in the process of ramping up, and unavailable in many areas.
Doctors were still “desperate” for masks and other basic PPE supplies.
Update, March 26, 2020, 10:48 a.m.: The article has been updated to include the revelation that the Trump administration had been given a “Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents” in 2017.

Update, March 29, 2020 12:39 p.m.: This article has been updated to include the revelation first reported by The Washington Post that HHS Secretary Alex Azar requested $2 billion for medical equipment in early February but was rebuffed by White House officials who were upset about the price tag and the fact that Azar had gone around them to Congress. ”

Update, April 1, 2020 10:40 p.m.: This article has been updated to include reports by the National Review and Arkansas Gazette that Tom Cotton met privately with President Trump about the virus in January.

Update, April 2, 2020: 9:22 p.m.: This article has been updated to include Trump pandemic czar Jared Kushner’s self-described start date for when the task force began ramping up supply chain efforts.

Update, April 4, 2020: 6:07 p.m.: This article has been updated to include a Covid-19 budget request from HHS in late January that White House officials rejected for fear of seeming “alarmist.”

Update, April 4, 2020: 6:07 p.m.: This article has been updated to include a meeting that Governors had with medical experts in the White House which expressed much greater concern about the virus than the President’s public statements would indicate.

Update, April 5, 2020: 1:08 p.m.: This article has been updated to include the shuttering of PREDICT, the USAID program dedicated to early identification of viruses that may become pandemics, two months before COVID-19 emerged in China. Correction: The first version of this update dated the shuttering of PREDICT as September 2020. It was September 2019.

Update, April 5, 2020: 1:08 p.m.: This article has been updated to include an Associated Press report indicating federal agencies waited until mid-March to begin bulk ordering N95 masks, nearly two months after former Trump Admin officials and other experts were raising alarms about the shortage.

Update, April 6, 11:23 p.m.: This article has been updated with a New York Times report on Peter Navarro’s 1/29 memo on the risks of a pandemic.

Update, April 8, 3:42 p.m.: This article has been updated with an ABC News report that a military intelligence unit warned of a contagion in Wuhan Province in November that was changing patterns of life and posing a threat to the population based on intercepts and satellite images.

Update, April 8, 10:33 p.m: The ABC News report added earlier today has been removed due to a Defense Intelligence Agency statement that the November memo referenced in the story did not exist.

Update, April 13, 3:43 p.m.: This article has been updated with a New York Times report that Trump Administration health officials were emailing about the urgency of the pandemic in January and February and that Dr. Robert Kadlec in HHS requested a meeting with President Trump February 24th to propose social distancing measured. The media was cancelled because Trump was upset about the alarmism hurting the stock market.

All embedded links to support the article can be found at the link below
https://thebulwark.com/warnings-ignored ... -response/

Damning and wholly relevant to the thread title.

[Uwe Noble]

Damning and wholly relevant to the thread title.

A waste of time. All it proves is that he can copy and paste.

[Devils_Advocate]

A waste of time. All it proves is that he can copy and paste.

Fake news!! Show me proof that Trump is capable of being able to copy and paste cos Im not having it

[TVC15]

I’ll give him one thing - he’s utterly predictable is Trump.
As soon as he had the spat with the WHO and started to point how much America funded them it was clear as day he was going to announce withdrawal of support.
It’s what he does - finds someone else to blame. Tells his fellow countrymen - usually throwing in lies. And the follow up is his rousing cheerleading withdrawal of support, membership, money - whatever he thinks will gain political favour for him....because winning the next election and staying in power is the only thing that matters to him.
He’s got blood on his hands because of his own arrogance and mistakes.
By the time he finishes his term in office he will have alienated America from any worthwhile world organisation and whilst he is in charge that’s no bad thing for the rest of the world.
When he eventually goes back to his proper job of losing his fathers billions America can come back and take back their role of world leader in many fields instead of begging Germany for more ventilators and bullying Swedish school girls

[Bordeauxclaret]

Classy

[Bfcboyo]

Not really but true.

[tiger76]

DA,
I don't think anyone, well I will qualify that, I for one was never attempting to say Trump had not made mistakes, clearly he has, no argument what so ever from me.

So on that basis let's try to reverse what someone else on the thread tried to say a few days ago, which I am modifying somewhat:

Did the leaders of Italy/France/Spain do everything right at the right time and made no mistakes? When you answer that you can add it to the WHO mistakes, which in reality were the earliest ones that might have saved many, we wont go into did China make mistakes or lie. Yet here we are with a thread all about good old Donald for the many to air the grievances at because he is really such an easy target, which is also littered with lies and misinterpretation of facts. Plus of course the good old intelligent insults around his hair and tan/skin colour, let's not forget the age insult too while we are at it.

How about a thread around, which world leader has done great and why, we don't have one of those do we, I wonder why, I really do.

If there was to be a thread about world leaders and how well they've handled this crisis so far,3 come to mind as deserving praise.

Jacinda Ardern,Angela Merkel & Moon Jae-in the South Korean president,whose party has just been reelected by a landslide,this trio all acted quickly and decisively before the outbreak could take hold in their respective countries,and thus far they and their populace are reaping the benefits.

Trump's certainly not alone in not taking the covid-19 threat seriously,but you do wonder how much of his motivation is influenced by wanting a 2nd term,and his realisation the US economy could be contracting,this would prove a major obstacle,as his main selling point is the large growth which the US has enjoyed since he took office,hence why he is pushing for some states to reopen ASAP,this could well bring him into direct conflict with governors of Democratic and Republican persuasion,and the resulting fall out could be interesting to say the least.

China and the WHO aren't immune from criticism,but i can't help feeling this move from Trump is a deflection strategy to cover up his own failings,and let's face it,it wouldn't be the first time he's pulled this trick.

[KateR]

If there was to be a thread about world leaders and how well they've handled this crisis so far,3 come to mind as deserving praise.

Jacinda Ardern,Angela Merkel & Moon Jae-in the South Korean president,whose party has just been reelected by a landslide,this trio all acted quickly and decisively before the outbreak could take hold in their respective countries,and thus far they and their populace are reaping the benefits.

Trump's certainly not alone in not taking the covid-19 threat seriously,but you do wonder how much of his motivation is influenced by wanting a 2nd term,and his realisation the US economy could be contracting,this would prove a major obstacle,as his main selling point is the large growth which the US has enjoyed since he took office,hence why he is pushing for some states to reopen ASAP,this could well bring him into direct conflict with governors of Democratic and Republican persuasion,and the resulting fall out could be interesting to say the least.

China and the WHO aren't immune from criticism,but i can't help feeling this move from Trump is a deflection strategy to cover up his own failings,and let's face it,it wouldn't be the first time he's pulled this trick.

thank you Tiger, I agree with all of it, even the last sentence, he is a politician and of course will be looking at all of those points and more, it's just with him we get to it all in action out front, open, warts and all, nothing Machiavellian about him at all is there, subtle is not his strong suit but a lot of people seem to like it this way.

[evensteadiereddie]

Truth is not his strong point either but, hey ho.

[Devils_Advocate]

Fox News chyron writers want to brush up on their grammatical use of colons and commas.

Might not be intentional but got to give them credit for nailing the situation

[tiger76]

US job losses: A decade of growth erased in four weeks

In just a month, the coronavirus pandemic has erased the equivalent of all the jobs created in the US since the 2008-2009 recession.

Analysts say the US has not faced such an economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Economists are hopeful unemployment numbers will begin to come down in the coming days, as small businesses get help from the government, and governors discuss how to reopen parts of the country where the virus has peaked.

President Trump is expected to announce new guidance for re-opening states ahead of 1 May later today.

As part of a $2tn coronavirus aid package, the federal government has also started sending out economic relief cheques to some 80 million Americans - up to $1,200 per individual and $500 for each child.

However, it's worth noting the jobless claims do not capture the full picture as not everyone qualifies for unemployment benefits. The self-employed and gig workers have also seen delays in filing for benefits as they only qualified thanks to the March relief bill.

Trump could just have been unlucky with the timing of this outbreak in an election year,how the American electorate react will be intriguing,as the incumbent president Trump can argue he's implemented the stimulus package,and i'm sure he will strongly,although it was bi-partisan,a lot hinges on whether this is a short-lived economic downturn,if it is then Donald Trump could still be in a good place to gain a 2nd term.

They say a week is a long time in politics,well it's 6 months until the presidential election,plenty could change for both sides in that period.

[Vegas Claret]

^^^^^^^^
Donald Trump could have released the virus himself and you would still get his loyal followers voting for him. The only hope is that Biden can persuade more people to vote because another 4 years of the fat orange turd isn't worth thinking about

[KateR]

Now come on Vegas, stop sitting on the fence and tell us what you really think.

[Pstotto]

I like him. He's not afraid to speak his mind. China messed up, China has to pay.

[Steve1956]

I like him. He's not afraid to speak his mind. China messed up, China has to pay.

Say it like it is......Donald. .....