The China travel ban was so leaky it wasn’t even funny. And no travel from Europe was shut down- and it was already known the virus had spread to Europe.
CDC inventorying did take place- we can grant this…but Trump did not exercise the Defense Production Act as he should have so supplies lagged. Yes NYC managed to get through it- but the stories of front line workers using absolutely abysmal PPE were all too real and may have allowed spread of the virus
Mask production was not ramped up until March when the pandemic as already upon us
Developing the tests was an unmitigated disaster and trump was too busy downplaying the pandemic to pay attention to this even when warned about it
Vaccine work was not ramped up with government funding until April
Everyone already knew how the virus spread…this was an inconsequential action
The worst part about all these actions is that they were not coordinated together with a strong message warning Americans to hope for the best but be ready for the worst.
Citing a laundry list of things done is not the same thing as a well-coordinated response.
Mask mandate? The President has not authority to enforce a mask mandate. That is a state decision and the police power has to be used to enforce it. We do not need nor have a legal basis for a federal mask police.
What, you want an authoritarian President?
And yet, at least in North Carolina, our governor’s mask edict has no teeth. They stated that they can not force you to wear a mask.
Would anyone know why that is?
They are using a restaurants business license as a means to enforce the states control over the business, by threatening them to make patrons leave who refuse to wear one and if they don’t, have them charged with trespassing, which police would have the power to enforce.
That would be a state issue. Police power is retained by the state. If they cannot force you to wear a mask in North Carolina it is either because of their laws or politicians.
They are having no such problems here in Texas.
I actually feel bad for all of the Governors here, GOP and Democrat alike. There is no way on God’s green earth they would ever have the capability to lock down a pandemic in their state and procure PPE and testing equipment, as well as coordinate contact tracing.
They are supposed to see to paving the roads and running schools, not interpreting epidemiology and virology. We have people who do that, and they work for the Federal Government.
No interpreting was done by any governor. They have state health departments to do that. And the CDC did it. Every epidemiologist and virologist in the world did it.
I mean, let’s say there was on that was bi-partisan and outlined steps and actions that could taken and reviewed all the different laws both state and local.
How could a busy man like Trump, or his administration, in the middle of a impeachent been expected to find that??
It’s not like there is a magical system you could type in “pandemic playbook” and have it come up in seconds.
Travel restrictions - Too late and too ineffective. We let thousand upon thousands in after the restrictions were put in place. Europe had no such restrictions and let the pandemic run wild there, yet it wasn’t until March that we restricted them from coming here. By then, New York was overrun.
CDC met with hospitals to inventory supplies (this was a bid lib talking point at one time but when Cuomo claimed not one in NY died due to lack of supplies that killed it) - Not so, in the dark days every state that was initially hit hard was reusing PPE such as N-95s. They are still in short supply. The DPA has never been used to produce PPE, if it had we would have been in much better shape. I was in one of those hot spots and supplies were sparse.
Mask production increased - This goes with your PPE post above. There were suppliers in the US who would have began production with an DPA order but it never came.
CDC works on developing test sets - The states should have never been asked to run testing. Never. This is not in the wheelhouse of local government and it never has been. At the least there should have been a coordinated effort between the Surgeon General and the state Surgeon Generals. When was the last time you heard from our Surgeon General? Its been months.
Work on virus vaccine begins - And this is one thing I think the Trump administration has done well, ordering potential vaccines ahead of time in lieu of Phase III trials.
6.CDC meets with governors to talk about how to react if the virus spreads, including social distancing - And this messaging has been consistently undermined by the President. He was the one talking about “Liberate Michigan” when the Governor was following CDC guidelines to the letter. TO THE LETTER.
He is the one who refused to wear a mask despite the CDC guidelines. He purposefully weakened the CDC guidelines about reopening because he felt it was too strict. The CDC has been neutered in their response because of folks like Trump, Navarro and Mnuchin.
And Biden never decried banning travel from China, he decried making this about people from China, from calling it the “China Virus”, because there are US Citizens who are of Chinese descent who were and are being ostracized for something they have no part in.
Biden said, in the USA Today, on January 24th, 2020, that this was something we needed to act on, now. It would be almost 2 months before Trump did anything of note outside of the travel ban.
We didn’t have to force our way into China, we were already there. Trump pulled all the CDC folks stationed in China, including a team in Wuhan. We don’t need military in China, we need epidemiologists and bug hunters.
And as far as NSA goes, yes, if a pandemic is afoot all hands should be on deck for contact tracing and they have the best capabilities to trace movements and contacts. These are not normal times.
