Politico reports that, in 2016, the National Security Council under Barack Obama produced a 69-page Pandemic Playbook to help those responsible for protecting the American people from the threat of pandemics monitor and react to emerging pandemic threats.
“Is there sufficient personal protective equipment for healthcare workers who are providing medical care?” the playbook instructs its readers, as one early decision that officials should address when facing a potential pandemic. “If YES: What are the triggers to signal exhaustion of supplies? Are additional supplies available? If NO: Should the Strategic National Stockpile release PPE to states?”
The strategies are among hundreds of tactics and key policy decisions laid out in a 69-page National Security Council playbook on fighting pandemics, which POLITICO is detailing for the first time. Other recommendations include that the government move swiftly to fully detect potential outbreaks, secure supplemental funding and consider invoking the Defense Production Act — all steps in which the Trump administration lagged behind the timeline laid out in the playbook.
“Each section of this playbook includes specific questions that should be asked and decisions that should be made at multiple levels” within the national security apparatus, the playbook urges, repeatedly advising officials to question the numbers on viral spread, ensure appropriate diagnostic capacity and check on the U.S. stockpile of emergency resources.
What did the Trump Administration do with this resource? They ignored it.
The Pandemic Playbook gives the lie to these (and other) pearls of wisdom from Trump, courtesy of The Washington Post:
"I would view it as something that just surprised the whole world,"
he said Thursday at his daily briefing, adding later that it was "
uncharted territory" and saying, "Nobody knew there would be a
pandemic or epidemic of this proportion."
"So there's never been anything like this in history. There's never
been," he said. "And nobody's ever seen anything like this."
He added Wednesday: "Nobody ever saw numbers like this even with
regard to testing."
"I just think this is something ... that you can never really think is
going to happen," he said March 6.
"It's an unforeseen problem," he added the same day. "What a
problem. Came out of nowhere." [....]
And then there was Event 201…
May Trump go down in History as the Worst, Most Incompetent U.S. President ever!