Of course, no one can pinpoint the exact moment that lightning will strike. But a global pandemic? Experts have predicted it, warned about the preparedness gaps and urged action. Again and again and again.
Just look at 2019. In January, the U.S. intelligence community issued its annual global threat assessment. It declared, “We assess that the United States and the world will remain vulnerable to the next flu pandemic or large-scale outbreak of a contagious disease that could lead to massive rates of death and disability, severely affect the world economy, strain international resources, and increase calls on the United States for support. . . . The growing proximity of humans and animals has increased the risk of disease transmission. The number of outbreaks has increased in part because pathogens originally found in animals have spread to human populations.”
In September, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security issued a report titled “Preparedness for a High-Impact Respiratory Pathogen Pandemic.” The report found that if such a pathogen emerged, “it would likely have significant public health, economic, social, and political consequences. . . . The combined possibilities of short incubation periods and asymptomatic spread can result in very small windows for interrupting transmission, making such an outbreak difficult to contain.” The report pointed to “large national and international readiness gaps.”
In October, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, working with the Johns Hopkins center and the Economist Intelligence Unit, published its latest Global Health Security Index, examining open-source information about the state of health security across 195 nations, and scoring them. The report warned, “No country is fully prepared for epidemics or pandemics, and every country has important gaps to address.” The report found that “Fewer than 5 percent of countries scored in the highest tier for their ability to rapidly respond to and mitigate the spread of an epidemic.”
In November, the Center for Strategic and International Studies published a study by its Commission on Strengthening America’s Health Security. It warned, “The American people are far from safe. To the contrary, the United States remains woefully ill-prepared to respond to global health security threats. This kind of vulnerability should not be acceptable to anyone. At the extreme, it is a matter of life and death. . . . Outbreaks proliferate that can spread swiftly across the globe and become pandemics, disrupting supply chains, trade, transport, and ultimately entire societies and economies.” The report recommended: “Restore health security leadership at the White House National Security Council.”
www.washingtonpost.com/...
Don’t let the world forget.
Trump’s behavior is criminal. Was he negligent or was he malicious? I don’t know. But if he isn’t mounting an attack on the US he sure is doing a damn good imitation of one.
1. One week before Trump’s inauguration, officials briefed Trump on a likely viral pandemic.
2. In 2017, Trump cut the Federal health department by nearly 18%.
3. Trump was briefed on a 69-page NSC report in 2017 for dealing with a pandemic, “Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents”.
4. In 2018 Trump fired the NSC pandemic preparedness team and the global health security team.
5. Jan. 2019, the DNI released the “worldwide threat assessment of the intelligence community report” which outlined a pandemic threat for Human Security and Global Health for the US.
6. In 2019, Trump placed large tariffs on Chinese imports of medical supplies that would be needed to fight a pandemic
7. In 2019 a joint CDC/HHS exercise showed large problems with pandemic preparedness.
8. Azar and Tim Morrison, at the BioDefense Summit in April 2019 briefed Trump about the threat of a pandemic
9. FEMA released “The 2019 The National Treat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment” in July that predicted that a nationwide pandemic would result in a shortage of medical supplies, hospitals would be overwhelmed and the economy would shut down.
10. In late 2019 the W.H.O. transmitted real-time information about the Covid-19 discovery and spread in China to Trump.
11. Trump is stalling the release of the 2020 Intel report warning that the U.S. isn’t ready for a global pandemic.
12. Nov. 2019 the military's National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI) analysts reported that the upcoming possible pandemic “could be a cataclysmic event.”
13. Dec. 2019-Feb 2020 NCMI briefed the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s Joint Staff and the WH several times.
14. Trump ended a $200M program of US scientists working in the Wuhan lab who’s job was aimed at detecting novel coronaviruses, USAID’s Predict Program.
15. Trump axed the CDC expert job in China months before virus outbreak (QUICK)
(Note, I found the above list in the comments section of the Post article, its author said people should please publish it far and wide especially to their Republican congresspeople.)
All we can do right now is try to survive, vote Blue of course and do the right things to protect ourselves and others but most of all, we have to document this tragedy and bear witness for the future.
There WILL be a future. And there will be a time of reckoning. But whatever happens to the godforsaken Trump administration it won’t begin to pay for this catastrophe.
I am so sad and angry.
People WARNED the Trump Administration and TRUMP PERSONALLY and he took action to EXACERBATE THE SITUATION.
It’s almost as though he’d studied 20th century history, specifically, the rise of Nazi Germany.
That wouldn’t have happened had it not been for WWI, the Spanish flu pandemic, the Treaty of Versailles probably that saw Germany humiliated — not that they didn’t deserve it probably — but still. And that was followed by tremendous social, political, cultural and economic upheaval — Revolution — the Roaring Twenties — the Great Depression — all of which was accompanied by amazing technological innovation — the emergence of commercial flight — huge international corporations commercializing and exploiting the struggles for resources among Empires pushing their outer boundaries.
In other words the horror of Nazism arose from chaos and destruction and a reaction against change. Nazism was an evil phoenix, a dark phoenix of anger and despair and nihilism and destruction.
But such a ghastly creation would never arise from a sane, healthy, prosperous America. Nazism would never arise from the America of Barack Obama, the healthy, prosperous, peaceful, hopeful, seamless, whole America.