‘Major surveillance failure’: Former USAID director breaks down why sloppy ‘crisis management’ doomed Trump’s coronavirus response

The United States has seen its first two deaths from coronavirus, both of them in Washington State — where, according to an analysis of virus samples, it had been spreading undetected for weeks. Jeremy Konyndyk, who served as director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under President Barack Obama, analyzes these troubling developments in a lengthy thread for Twitter. And Konyndyk is highly critical of the Trump Administration’s response to the coronavirus threat in the United States.

Konyndyk begins his thread by noting that coronavirus transmission likely went  “undetected” for “weeks, at least” in “parts of the upper West Coast.” The former USAID director asks, “How did we end up with major surveillance failure on par with Italy and Iran?” — then goes on to explain how.

This development, Konyndyk writes, “may get spun as a technical failure: e.g., flaws in the test kits.” But he quickly adds, “It’s not. It’s an interconnected communications, strategy, process, and execution failure, reflecting a serious breakdown of crisis (management).” Continue reading.