Article claims Trump Has Sabotaged America’s Coronavirus Response

foreignpolicy.com...

I will NOT put this in the mudpit because I think it's vital to be known and discussed without the hyperbolic political fighting.

As it improvises its way through a public health crisis, the United States has never been less prepared for a pandemic.

For the United States, the answers are especially worrying because the government has intentionally rendered itself incapable.In 2018, the Trump administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure. In numerous phone calls and emails with key agencies across the U.S. government, the only consistent response I encountered was distressed confusion. If the United States still has a clear chain of command for pandemic response, the White House urgently needs to clarify what it is
If the United States still has a clear chain of command for pandemic response, the White House urgently needs to clarify what it is
—not just for the public but for the government itself, which largely finds itself in the dark.
When Ebola broke out in West Africa in 2014, President Barack Obama recognized that responding to the outbreak overseas, while also protecting Americans at home, involved multiple U.S. government departments and agencies, none of which were speaking to one another. Basically, the U.S. pandemic infrastructure was an enormous orchestra full of talented, egotistical players, each jockeying for solos and fame, refusing to rehearse, and demanding higher salaries—all without a conductor. To bring order and harmony to the chaos, rein in the agency egos, and create a coherent multiagency response overseas and on the homefront, Obama anointed a former vice presidential staffer, Ronald Klain, as a sort of “epidemic czar” inside the White House, clearly stipulated the roles and budgets of various agencies, and placed incident commanders in charge in each Ebola-hit country and inside the United States. The orchestra may have still had its off-key instruments, but it played the same tune.

In the spring of 2018, the White House pushed Congress to cut funding for Obama-era disease security programs, proposing to eliminate $252 million in previously committed resources for rebuilding health systems in Ebola-ravaged Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. Under fire from both sides of the aisle, President Donald Trump dropped the proposal to eliminate Ebola funds a month later. But other White House efforts included reducing $15 billion in national health spending and cutting the global disease-fighting operational budgets of the CDC, NSC, DHS, and HHS. And the government’s $30 million Complex Crises Fund was eliminated.

I think this is an atrocity and can only hope this money-saving, or whatever the motive for cutting this operation, doesn’t cost American lives.

Bureaucracy matters. Without it, there’s nothing to coherently manage an alphabet soup of agencies housed in departments ranging from Defense to Commerce, Homeland Security to Health and Human Services (HHS).

So two-years ahead of time, Trump was planning on a Chinese pandemic to hit the shores of America.

God damn, I knew it! That bastard!

a reply to: sine.nomine

Yes my dude. Now watch this very important news about Trumps food selections for his meeting with the leader of India.

TRUMP HAS ALREADY HAMSTRUNG THE U.S.’S CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE
www.vanityfair.com...

The White House is expected to request funds from Congress this week—but its disorganized response, and past cuts, may have complicated efforts to tackle the crisis.

Even if Congress provides additional funding, there remain fears that the Trump administration has already hamstrung it’s ability to address this emergency. As Foreign Policy’s Laurie Garrett wrote last month, the administration has “intentionally rendered itself incapable” of dealing with a problem of this scale. It wiped out its “entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure,” Garrett wrote, and shut down the National Security Council’s global health security team, as well as its counterpart in the Department of Homeland Security. In addition to proposing funding cuts for national and global health programs, the administration has also kneecapped its public health teams by declining to replace officials who have left. While the president established a Coronavirus Task Force led by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar last month, “it’s not clear how it will function,” Garrett noted—essentially forcing the administration to “[resort] to improvisation” in its approach to the crisis.

Trump administration wants to cut funding from public health preparedness programs

As the US health care system watches the ongoing coronavirus epidemic in China and braces for a potential local outbreak, President Trump is looking to cut funding for public health preparedness programs.
The administration’s proposed 2021 budget for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) cuts $25 million from the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response and $18 million from the Hospital Preparedness Program. The administration also asked for over $85 million in cuts to the Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases program.
“To be clear, these programs are already underfunded,” tweeted Nicolette Louissaint, executive director of Healthcare Ready, a nonprofit that works to make health care supply chains more resilient.
www.theverge.com...

It’s the age-old government wants to save money on the backs of the vulnerable.

But this is LIFE AND DEATH


Not a partisan job here just looking at this government actually cutting programs that save lives.


I'm sure the elite will have access to private communities where they won't allow ordinary people in.

They don't have to go out shopping or go to work.

The US government SHOULD NOT HAVE CUT THE PANDEMIC PROGRAM!!!!

Does that make sense?

This all highlights the point that it is pure ignorance to attempt government by the principles of business.

Good business demands efficiency.

Good government requires efficacy; which sometimes requires the “inefficiency” of planning and preparedness for the improbable.

We all should lobby the government and Congress to cut the crap and refund the Pandemic program the administration cut.

THIS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS!!!!

AND DONT EVER CUT IT AGAIN!

What the hell is going on here?

originally posted by: drewlander
a reply to: sine.nomine

Yes my dude. Now watch this very important news about Trumps food selections for his meeting with the leader of India.

I saw that. CNN said today President Trump was suffering because there's no Steaks or Beef Hamburgers in India. The media is bored stiff while Congress is on vacation.

a reply to: Willtell

You're using all caps, multiple punctuation marks and quoting vanity fair while telling me to petition the government. Hard pass.

a reply to: Willtell

In 2018, the Trump administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure.

I'm not clear on what needs to be discussed?

Trump removed the USs capability to counter any pandemics overseas, which includes the coronavirus.

US underprepared for coronavirus due to Trump cuts, say health experts

www.theguardian.com...

US preparedness to deal with the threat of coronavirus has been hampered by the personnel and budget cuts made by the Trump administration over the past three years, according to health experts.
There is no one in the White House tasked specifically to oversee a coordinated government-wide response in the event of a pandemic, since the post of senior director for global health security and biothreats on the national security council (NSC) was eliminated last May.

The office was established in 2016 after the outbreak of the Ebola virus in Africa demonstrated the US government was not set up to move with the speed and decisiveness necessary to react to a really lethal epidemic.
The White House global health “czar” was supposed to coordinate international, national, state and local organisations, public and private, to confront a global epidemic, backed by the direct authority of the president.
After he became national security adviser, John Bolton eliminated the office as part of an NSC reorganisation, as he did not see global health issues as a national security priority.

Just tell me the sense this makes?


They cut taxes for rich corporations and now want to cut programs like this.


Now we need these programs. This pandemic requires a prudent organization not a slapstick, put-me-together idea of cut-government philosophy. This is a nation of 300 million people. A society where we intermingle so we need programs like htis.

a reply to: myselfaswell

Flu has killed 16,000 Men/Women/Children right here in America since last July. Only people who aren't well-balanced are more concerned about this Corona illness, than they are about the predominate threats to our lives.

Oh, just because the party of small government cut funding to things that turned out to be important doesn't mean dear leader isn't nearly godlike in scent and 'cognotions.'

Never fear, capitalistic corporate hands will organize the health care professionals while segregating the diseased masses because one cannot trust an elected, representative government to handle crowds and research a cure! It's obviously a job for sociopathic corporate dollar chasers.

Just kidding... both governments and corporations will step over our corpses while holding scented handkerchiefs to their elite nosies.

I'm dealing with objective reality. The facts noted above.

If some don't think a conversation about the cutting of a pandemic response team, when we are faced with a pandemic, is not relevant at this time, then what is relevant to discuss?

The facts are laid out above. It s only for people to see for themselves the facts.

If they desire to not ignore these facts then one must wonder why.

a reply to: myselfaswell
Your government cut pandemic response capability now we're in the middle of a pandemic.

You don't see the logic in discussing this?

Strange

I can only deliver the clear open truth. Deliver the message. For those who want to avoid REALITY
so-be-it.

One day it will catch up with you

I've done my job

a reply to: Willtell

I guess Americans keep picking the worst Presidents possible. If so, we'll reap what we sew.

Perhaps he saw too many desk jobs and emptied "pandemic " buildings for rent paid by the tax payers and cut the budget. I would. Too many paper pushers just doing non sense repeat research stuff. There's good of course, but govt. spending just seems to be wasted on non essentials these days. Its hard to say, but Trump comes across as peoples president. Something big is missing in the report. He has advisors and top brass in the military, behind the scenes , there is something in the works. Right now stuff is being downplayed. Someone said congress is out on vacation? If true, they all need to be feathered.

Hm, these posts show where the federal government has authorized contracts totaling well over 3 million dollars for expenditures related to the coronavirus:

post 1
post 2
post 3
post 4

The last one listed above, is a single contract for over $2.5 million for the following:

Description of Requirement
EMERGENCY RESPONSE SUPPORT SERVICES, (ERSS) FOR LAUNDRY, CUSTODIAL, MEALS AND TRASH SERVICE, ETC., AT BLDG 28, CENTER FOR DOMESTIC PREPAREDNESS (CDP) ANNISTON, AL 36205, IN SUPPORT OF THE CORONAVIRUS EMERGENCY RESPONSE.

It would seem to me that the issue is being addressed. How effectively certainly could be questioned, but to say that there is no response or that the response has been hamstrung is erroneous.

a reply to: Willtell

It's easy to find reasons to be angry when the goal is to find something to be angry about.

There is one source for the article: Laurie Garrett. Laurie Garrett has a history of writing articles predicting pandemic and epidemic doom and gloom. I guess it's hard to keep up that sort of response if one actually looks into the facts.

The Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act of 2006 was allowed to expire in 2018 by Congress. Donald Trump never had the opportunity to sign the bill, as it died in the Senate. Without funding, it sounds perfectly reasonable to fire (or more properly, lay off) those working in a department that is no longer funded... people expect to be paid. Donald Trump then signed the re-authorization bill, the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation Act of 2019, otherwise known as S.1379, on June 24. 2019. This act re-authorizes the previous bill and actually expands it.

Thus far, there are less than 20 cases of the virus in the United States. There have been no related deaths in the United States that I have heard of. I find it interesting that Ms. Garrett praises China for their efforts to contain the virus; the vast bulk of the cases and almost all the deaths resulting from the virus are in China. The coronavirus kills through pneumonia, and the air pollution in China is quite poor and likely is damaging the lungs of the citizens... leaving them more vulnerable to the virus.

But the guy who signed the re-authorization bill to combat the virus, in a country which has experienced no major outbreak, is at fault of course, while the country which has weakened its citizens and tried to keep the outbreak quiet as long as they could is doing an outstanding job and leading the way in pandemic control.

TheRedneck