Tag: Trump mismanagement of COVID-19 pandemic

‘I haven’t heard about testing in weeks’: Leaked audio reveals Trump dismissed governors’ concerns about lack of coronavirus equipment

AlterNet logoIn a conference call with governors on Monday, President Donald Trump dismissed concerns about shortages of coronavirus testing equipment in states across the nation, claiming he “hasn’t heard about testing being a problem” despite loud warnings from local officials and near-constant reporting on the issue by media outlets.

“I haven’t heard about testing in weeks,” the president said, according to leaked audio of the call obtained by CBS News. “We’ve tested more now than any nation in the world. We’ve got these great tests and we come out with another one tomorrow that’s, you know, almost instantaneous testing. But I haven’t heard about testing being a problem.”

Trump’s remarks came after Montana Gov. Steve Bullock said on the call that his state doesn’t “have enough supplies to even do the testing” for coronavirus, which has officially infected more than 163,000 people in the United States. Continue reading.

As Trump declared coronavirus under control, local leaders faced confusion and chaos as cases piled up

Washington Post logoAs a mysterious respiratory illness tore through China and other countries in mid-January, Kyle Coleman, an emergency management coordinator in Texas, took inventory of his team’s personal protective gear at a warehouse in Bexar County.

The hazmat suits and gloves were in good condition. Some of the respirator masks had expired. Three pallets of hand sanitizer seemed like enough because they seldom used more than one pallet a year.

Over several weeks in January, Coleman followed the outbreak of the novel coronavirus: the first death reported in China on Jan. 11, the spread to Thailand and Japan, and then the first U.S. case in Washington state confirmed on Jan. 21. Continue reading.

Internal Emails Show How CDC Chaos Slowed Coronavirus Response

On Feb. 13, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent out an email with what the author described as an “URGENT” call for help.

The agency was struggling with one of its most important duties: keeping track of Americans suspected of having the novel coronavirus. It had “an ongoing issue” with organizing — and sometimes flat-out losing — forms sent by local agencies about people thought to be infected. The email listed job postings for people who could track or retrieve this paperwork.

“Help needed urgently,” the CDC wrote. Continue reading.

From distraction to disaster: How coronavirus crept up on Washington

Lawmakers have ripped the administration’s bungled handling of the outbreak. But some now wonder if there’s more they could have done when it might have made a difference.

It was just hours before the start of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial when Sen. Tom Cotton started to worry.

The Arkansas Republican had spent Martin Luther King Day weekend poring over news reports from Asia describing a new, highly infectious disease traced to a provincial city of 11 million inside China, hardening his already deeply held disdain for the Chinese Communist Party.

Cotton was struck by the way the Chinese government was putting a positive spin on its handling of the new virus, while taking increasingly drastic steps to try to contain it. “That’s when it really kind of crystalized for me,” he told POLITICO in an interview. “Those two things obviously do not match.” Continue reading.

Trump beats a retreat on opening the country as coronavirus data, images show dark reality

Washington Post logoFor six days straight, President Trump talked about reopening the country quickly. He wanted people filing into offices again, diners returning to restaurants and shoppers gathering at malls without fear of contagion.

Trump mused about a reopening date of April 12, picking it arbitrarily because he thought it would be beautiful to see church pews packed with parishioners on Easter. Then he dug in, seeming to tune out the nearly unanimous assessment of public health experts and governors and mayors fighting to help save lives, which was that Easter would be far too soon because the worst still was yet to come. As the self-described wartime president saw things, the novel coronavirus was a “silent enemy” and America was defeating it.

What a difference a week makes. Continue reading. Continue reading.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom Says Federal Government Sent ‘170 Broken Ventilators’

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Saturday that the federal government had sent the state “170 broken ventilators” amid national concerns about a shortage of the life-saving machines, which can be key to treating the respiratory distress caused by COVID-19.

Newsom said at a press conference that “170 ventilators that came from the national stockpile directly” to Los Angeles county were “not working.” But, he added, “rather than pointing fingers,” authorities in California transported the ventilators to a facility to get them fixed by San Jose-based Bloom Energy.

Newsom said the broken ventilators arrived at the facility on Saturday morning and he expects the ventilators will be functioning and back in Los Angeles on Monday. “That’s the spirit of California,” Newsom said. Continue reading.