Tag: Trump botched COVID-19 response

Exclusive: States plan to independently vet COVID-19 vaccine data

Governors express mistrust in federal health agencies’ ability to withstand political pressure from Trump administration

State officials are expressing skepticism about federal reviews of potential COVID-19 vaccines, with some going so far as to plan to independently analyze clinical trial data before distributing a vaccine in a sign of how sharply trust in federal health agencies has fallen this year.

The wariness, which public health experts call highly unusual if not unprecedented, could undercut the goal of a cohesive national immunization strategy and create a patchwork of efforts that may sabotage hopes of containing the coronavirus.

Some red states appear more likely to rely on the Trump administration while blue states may scour the data and be more cautious about vaccinating their residents immediately. Continue reading.

Emails Detail Effort to Silence C.D.C. and Question Its Science

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Emails from a former top Trump health official and his science adviser show how the two refused to accept Centers for Disease Control and Prevention science and sought to silence the agency.

WASHINGTON — On June 30, as the coronavirus was cresting toward its summer peak, Dr. Paul Alexander, a new science adviser at the Department of Health and Human Services, composed a scathing two-page critique of an interview given by an experienced scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Anne Schuchat, a 32-year veteran of the C.D.C. and its principal deputy director, had appealed to Americans to wear masks and warned, “We have way too much virus across the country.” But Dr. Alexander, a part-time assistant professor of health research methods, appeared sure he understood the coronavirus better.

“Her aim is to embarrass the president,” he wrote, commenting on Dr. Schuchat’s appeal for face masks in an interview with The Journal of the American Medical Association. Continue reading.

Trump’s messy attempt to clean up unwelcome coronavirus vaccine news

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President Trump is putting a lot of his reelection hopes on one thing: the imminent arrival of a coronavirus vaccine that he and his administration can take credit for.

We got a glimpse Wednesday of just how dependent the president is on convincing Americans a vaccine is coming to end this pandemic in months.

Earlier in the day, a top public health official in his administration said something that doesn’t jibe with that. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention DirectorRobert Redfield said that even if a vaccine were ready and approved by this fall or winter, it wouldn’t be ready to be widely distributed to Americans until spring or summer 2021. Continue reading.

What Trump is completely missing: Republican states are a total mess

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Donald Trump appears to be seceding from the Union, which is bizarre given his status as the president of it. Make no mistake: Trump appears to be deliberately marginalizing himself by repeatedly insisting that he’s not responsible for certain states and cities, despite technically being the president of the entire United States.

We’ve all heard him say it. On topics ranging from poverty to crime to COVID-19, Trump never hesitates to defer all the blame for whatever onto state and local Democrats rather than acknowledging that he’s supposed to be the president of those cities and states, too.

Earlier this year, for example, Trump tweeted, “The homeless situation in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and many other Democrat Party run cities throughout the Nation is a state and local problem, not a federal problem.” Trump, of course, is the president of those cities, and has been for nearly four years. Has he proposed any national solutions to the homelessness problem? Nope. He’s simply seceding himself from those cities. Continue reading.

Ten days: After an early coronavirus warning, Trump is distracted as he downplays threat

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In explaining why he repeatedly misled the American public about the early dangers posed by the novel coronavirus, President Trump has argued that he did not want to engender panic — and suggested that his actions showed he took the looming pandemic seriously.

But a detailed review of the 10-day period from late January, when Trump was first warned about the scale of the threat, and early February — when he acknowledged to author Bob Woodward the extent of the danger the virus posed — reveals a president who took relatively few serious measures to ready the nation for its arrival.

Instead, enabled by top administration officials, Trump largely attempted to pretend the virus did not exist — spending much of his time distracted by impeachment and exacting vengeance on his political enemies. He also carried on as usual with showy political gatherings and crowded White House events. Continue reading.

‘Herd developed’: Trump’s death cult would rather get COVID-19 than admit they were wrong

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Donald Trump was doing spectacularly bad science again, this time during a town hall in Philadelphia hosted by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Tuesday night. The event went about as well for the president as anyone who has been awake during the past four years could have predicted, which raises the important question: Wasn’t his new campaign manager supposed to be competent?

When asked about an audio clip captured by journalist Bob Woodward in which Trump talks about the coronavirus pandemic and how much he “wanted to always play it down,” Trump slid right into his don’t-believe-your-lying-ears mode, claiming that he, in fact, “up-played it.” Whatever that means. Then the “very stable genius” currently squatting in the Oval Office rolled out his brilliant plan to lick the coronavirus problem (as transcribed by the invaluable Aaron Rupar of Vox):

TRUMP: It is going away.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Without a vaccine?

TRUMP: Sure. Over a period of time.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And many deaths.

TRUMP: It’s gonna be herd developed.

He also used the phrase “herd mentality.” Continue reading.

Trump undercuts GOP, calls for bigger COVID-19 relief package

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President Trump on Wednesday shook up the high-stakes debate over coronavirus relief, undercutting the Republicans’ long-held position by urging GOP leaders to go big.  

Senate Republicans had initially offered a $1.1 trillion emergency aid package, but subsequently voted on a proposal providing just $650 billion — only $350 billion of it in new funding. 

Democrats have howled at the GOP’s “emaciated” offer, arguing that it falls far short of the funding needed to address the dual health and economic crises caused by the deadly coronavirus.  Continue reading.

CDC director says coronavirus vaccines won’t be widely available till the middle of next year

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The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicted Wednesday that most of the American public will not have access to a vaccine against the novel coronavirus until late spring or summer of next year — prompting a public rebuke from President Trump, who declared the CDC chief was wrong.

At a Senate hearing on the government’s response to the pandemic, CDC Director Robert Redfield adhered to Trump’s oft-stated contention that a safe and effective vaccine will become available in November or December — perhaps just before the presidential election seven weeks away.

But Redfield said the vaccine will be provided first to people most vulnerable to covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, and supplies will increase over time, with Americans who are considered at lower risk offered the shot more gradually. For it to be “fully available to the American public, so we begin to take advantage of vaccine to get back to our regular life,” he said, “I think we are probably looking at late second quarter, third quarter 2021.” Continue reading.

Math on Trump Covid strategy has millions dying before it works