To compile my
timeline, which starts on January 13, 2017, the date the Trump Administration
was briefed on America's pandemic readiness by the Obama Administration, and ends on
March 18, 2020, the date Trump invoked, but did not use, the Defense Production Act, I relied heavily on a number of sources. Among them are a timeline at Just Security Timeline prepared by Just Security, an online forum based at the Reiss Center on Law
and Security at NYU School of Law that analyzes US national security law and
policy; comprehensive investigative reporting by the Washington Post at WaPo Denial and Dysfunction, as updated here WaPo Update, and analyzed here WaPo Timeline; two reports last weekend from the New York Times at NYT Trump Response and NYT Red Dawn Emails; an article on Peter Navarro at NYT Navarro, also reported by Axios here Axios Navarro; and finally, this disputed but intriguing article on the
Department of Defense’s coronavirus response from ABC News online at ABC Intelligence.
The reporting
is consistent. The evidence is damning. Here is the sequence of events. The dates of Trump’s actions to protect
Americans are in GREEN. His aspirational
words are in RED. You be the judge.
Outgoing
Obama team runs Trump transition team through a series of pandemic-scenarios to familiarize the incoming team
with “domestic incident management policy and practices” in the face of major
crises. Key takeaways: (1) a collective understanding of the science and the
disease must drive response decisions; (2) days and even hours are paramount in
order to build as much lead time as possible; (3) a coordinated and unified
national response and message is necessary; and (4) “medical countermeasure
strategy is key for success,” including social distancing and addressing shortages in ventilators and
personal protective equipment.
Trump
administration attendees include: Steven Mnuchin, Rep. Mike Pompeo,
Wilbur Ross, Betsy DeVos, Dr. Ben Carson, Elaine Chao, Stephen Miller, Marc
Short, Reince Priebus (resigned), Rex Tillerson (fired), Gen.
James Mattis (fired), Rep. Ryan Zinke (resigned), Sen. Jeff
Sessions (resigned), Sen. Dan Coats (fired), Andrew Puzder (not
confirmed), Dr. Tom Price (resigned), Gov. Rick Perry (resigned),
Dr. David Shulkin (fired), Gen. John Kelly (resigned), Rep. Mick
Mulvaney, Linda McMahon (resigned), Sean Spicer (fired), Joe
Hagin (resigned), Joshua Pitcock (resigned), Tom Bossert (fired),
KT McFarland (resigned), Gen. Michael Flynn (awaiting criminal
sentencing), Gary Cohn (resigned), Katie Walsh (resigned),
and Rick Dearborn (resigned). (Emphasis added in bold; Just Security Timeline.)
MAY 11,
2017
Director
of National Intelligence (DNI) Dan Coats tells Congress, “A novel or reemerging
microbe that is easily transmissible between humans and is highly pathogenic
remains a major threat because such an organism has the potential to spread
rapidly and kill millions.”
SEPTEMBER,
2017
Trump
Administration contracts with Applied Research Associates to create a prototype
for a reusable N95 respirator mask.
DECEMBER,
2017
Trump
Administration bans the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) from using the words
“evidence-based” and “science-based.”
FEBRUARY
9, 2018
Trump
signs a bill that cuts $1.35 billion in funding for the CDC’s Prevention and Public
Health Fund,
established in 2016 as part of the Affordable Care Act.
FEBRUARY
13, 2018
In
written testimony to Congress, DNI Coats writes:
The
increase in frequency and diversity of reported disease outbreaks—such as
dengue and Zika—probably will continue through 2018, including the potential
for a severe global health emergency that could lead to major economic and
societal disruptions, strain governmental and international resources, and
increase calls on the United States for support. A novel strain of a virulent
microbe that is easily transmissible between humans continues to be a major
threat, with pathogens such as H5N1 and H7N9 influenza and Middle East
Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus having pandemic potential if they were to
acquire efficient human-to-human transmissibility.
APRIL
10, 2018
The day
after John Bolton replaces fired H.R.McMaster as Trump’s National Security
Advisor, he fires Tom Bossert, White House Homeland Security Advisor, who had
called for a comprehensive biodefense strategy against pandemics and biological
attacks.
MAY 7,
2018
The
White House sends budget plan to Congress proposing to cut $252 million for
health security preparedness in funds remaining from the 2014-2015 Ebola
epidemic.
The National Security Council’s (NSC) director of
medical and biodefense preparedness warns that pandemic flu is the top health
security concern and that the country is not prepared for it.
MAY 8,
2018
Bolton removes
Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer from the NSC and disbands Ziemer’s unit, the
Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense established by the Obama Administration
after the Ebola pandemic. Ziemer was the sole senior official focused on
pandemic preparedness. He is not replaced.
SEPTEMBER,
2018
Department
of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar diverts $266 million from
CDC to pay for housing detained immigrant children.
HHS
receives detailed plans from medical manufacturer to create a new machine with
the capacity to make protective masks at high speed (1.5
million masks per day).
The machine was specifically designed to handle pandemic-related medical
shortages and was the culmination of an Obama-era preparedness plan. Trump
Administration pays millions of dollars to the company but does not follow
through with making the machine.
SEPTEMBER
18, 2018
Trump issues a Presidential Memorandum and National
Biodefense Strategy designed to ensure a comprehensive and coordinated approach
to biological incidents. The
National
Biodefense Strategy
outlines a high-level roadmap of the US response to biological threats and
incidents, identifying the need to “establish manufacturing surge capacity” for
diagnostic tests and personal protective equipment in anticipation of a pandemic. The roadmap is not implemented.
DNI warns that a major disease outbreak is
one of the top global threats, writing: “We assess that the United States and
the world will remain vulnerable to the next flu pandemic or large-scale
outbreak of a contagious disease that could lead to massive rates of death and
disability, severely affect the world economy, strain international resources,
and increase calls on the United States for support.”
APRIL,
2019
HHS
Secretary says what keeps everyone in the biodefense world up at night is the
threat of a pandemic flu.
JULY,
2019
Trump
Administration eliminates an American public health position designed to detect
disease outbreaks in China.
SEPTEMBER,
2019
The
President’s Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) warns that an influenza pandemic
may cause tremendous health and economic losses:
The
United States is unprepared to deliver a sufficient number of vaccine doses
quickly enough to stop the rapid initial spread of a pandemic virus. Pandemic
influenza is a low-probability but high-cost problem that should not be
ignored. The current influenza vaccine manufacturing infrastructure in the U.S.
is dependent on egg-based production that is too slow to produce adequate doses
of vaccines for unexpected pandemic outbreaks and may impair vaccine efficacy.
This could lead to tremendous, avoidable costs.
Trump Administration concludes a months-long
simulation (above), code-named “Crimson Contagion,” designed to respond to a global
influenza pandemic. HHS determines the US is underprepared, underfunded, and
under-coordinated to fight an influenza-like pandemic. The deficiencies are not addressed.
Trump Administration cuts funding for a government
research program designed to recognize animal viruses that could infect humans
and prevent pandemics.
NOVEMBER
17, 2019
The
first case of someone in China suffering from the disease caused by the novel
coronavirus can be traced back to November 17, according to government data
seen by the South China Morning Post. Chinese authorities have so far [March
13, 2020] identified at least 266 people who were infected last year, all of
whom came under medical surveillance at some point. Some of the cases were
likely backdated after health authorities had tested specimens taken from
suspected patients.
LATE
NOVEMBER, 2019 - DISPUTED
According
to ABC Intelligence, citing four unnamed sources
familiar with a classified intelligence report, the White House NSC, the
Pentagon’s Joint Staff, and the Defense Intelligence Agency were briefed on the
coronavirus in an intelligence report from the military’s National Center for
Medical Intelligence(NCMI) around Thanksgiving,
2019. The NCMI report was compiled
through wire and computer interception and satellite imagery and reportedly concluded
that an outbreak of the virus “could be a cataclysmic event” for US forces in
Asia. After multiple briefings and
vetting throughout December, an explanation of the warnings appeared in the
President's daily intelligence reports (PDB) in early January. For something to
have appeared in the PDBs, it would have had to go through weeks of vetting and
analysis, according to people who have worked on presidential briefings in both
Republican and Democratic administrations.
Per ABC Intelligence, “If it were true that America’s
spy agencies were caught that off guard, one intelligence officer told ABC
News, ‘that would be a massive intel failure on the order of 9/11. But it wasn’t. They had the intelligence.’”
Jon
Cohen, former acting undersecretary of DHS, said, "It’s not surprising to
me that the intelligence community detected the outbreak; what is surprising
and disappointing is that the White House ignored the clear warning signs,
failed to follow established pandemic response protocols and were slow to put
in place a government-wide effort to respond to this crisis."
DECEMBER
10, 2019
One of
the first known coronavirus patients begins to feel ill in Wuhan. (NOTE:
according to Johns Hopkins, symptoms occur within a two- to 14-day
incubation period; therefore, this person could have been infected in late November,
giving some credence to the disputed NCMI report. Also, see the November 17, 2019 entry above.)
DECEMBER
16, 2019
Patient suffering
from respiratory illness is admitted to Wuhan hospital.
DECEMBER
27, 2019
Wuhan
health officials are told a novel coronavirus caused the illness.
DECEMBER
30, 2019
A whistleblower, Chinese
doctor Li Wenliang, alerts more than 100 of his colleagues about a new disease
in Wuhan in a widely circulated post on social media.
DECEMBER
31, 2019
China
tells the World Health Organization’s (WHO) China office about cases of an
unknown illness.
The CDC hears
about a cluster of mysterious respiratory cases in China and begins developing
reports for HHS on January 1.
JANUARY
2, 2020
Chinese
researchers map the new coronavirus' complete genetic information.
JANUARY
3, 2020
CDC gets
a call from a Chinese epidemiologist about a ferocious, new viral outbreak that
on the surface appears similar to the SARS epidemic of 2003, which has emerged
in China, spread far more quickly than the government is admitting to, can also
spread asymptomatically, and won’t be long before it reaches other parts of the
world. CDC tells HHS, which notifies the NSC, which puts the information in the
PDB. The PDB warnings persist into February. Trump does nothing, except...
Trump
holds a rally in Miami, FL (below).
CDC
offers help to China, which refuses and declines to send the US a sample of the
virus.
HHS
convenes inter-agency task force including CDC, HHS, and Dr. Anthony Fauci of the
National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), with HHS
Secretary Alex Azar in charge.
US official with access to coronavirus classified briefings tells the Washington Post, “Donald Trump may not
have been expecting this, but a lot of other people in the government were —
they just couldn’t get him to do anything about it. The system was blinking
red.”
JANUARY
8, 2020
CDC
issues its first public alert about the virus.
JANUARY
9, 2020
Chinese
researchers publicly identify the pneumonia-like virus as a
novel coronavirus that is the cause of the pneumonia-like outbreak in
Wuhan.
WHO
publishes a guidance to help countries perform risk
assessments and create response plans to the novel coronavirus. Trump does nothing, except...
Trump
holds a rally in Toledo, OH (below).
China
announces the first known death from the coronavirus.
Chinese scientists publicly release the genetic sequence of the SARS-CoV-2virus, facilitating the development of a diagnostic test. Trump does nothing, except...
JANUARY 14, 2020
Trump holds a rally in Milwaukee, WI (below).
White
House meets with NSC and Department of State to discuss repatriation of US
government employees from China. By the
third week of January, US diplomats stationed in Wuhan urgently return to the US
and alert the State Department that the public health risk in the region is
significant.
HHS
draws up contingency plans to enforce the Defense Production Act (DPA). There is no implementation.
Five days after the Chinese release the coronavirus genome, German
researchers at the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin develop
and publish the
world’s first publicly available diagnostic test, which forms the basis of the
WHO test.
JANUARY 17, 2020
CDC begins
to monitor three major airports (San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York) for
passengers arriving from China. Some
passengers report they receive little or no airport screening.
WHO publishes
protocol from German researchers with instructions necessary to manufacture
coronavirus test.
US health
official says the CDC has developed an early version of its own test -- not
relying on WHO protocols.
Secretary
Azar of HHS, who has been trying to reach Trump, finally gets through
by phone to Mar-a-Lago. Before he can speak
about the virus, Trump interrupts to ask about vaping and when flavored
products will be back on the market.
Senior administration officials report Trump seems distracted by
perceived enemies and impeachment and is not focused on virus threat.
JANUARY
20, 2020
South
Korea reports its first case and quickly mobilizes diagnostic
testing, including drive-through screening centers, and quarantines.
CDC confirms its first US case of COVID-19 on the same day in Washington State. There is no testing mobilization.
CDC confirms its first US case of COVID-19 on the same day in Washington State. There is no testing mobilization.
JANUARY
21, 2020
CDC
announces its own test.
JANUARY
21 to 22, 2020
Trump attends
the World Economic Forum at Davos.
JANUARY
21, 2020
HHS
urges the NSC to take control of the virus response, citing “mayhem” at the
White House.
Chinese
President Xi imposes a “cordon sanitaire”
on Wuhan by barring planes and trains from entering or leaving the city and
restricting all forms of public transportation.
“That
was like, whoa,” a senior US official involved in White House meetings on the
crisis told the Washington Post. “That was when the Richter scale hit 8.”
Trump
makes his first public comments about the virus in Davos interview. Asked if worried about a pandemic, he
replies, “No. Not at all. And we have it totally under
control. It’s one person coming in from China….It’s going to be just fine.”
JANUARY
23, 2020
Singapore bans all inbound flights from Wuhan,
China.
WHO releases a statement that includes transmission
rates, human-to-human transmission capability, and severity of the virus.
HHS
moves to establish nationwide surveillance system to track the virus, but lacks
a diagnostic test that works.
JANUARY
24, 2020
Trump
advisors suggest China is not providing accurate infection statistics. Trump is in the middle of trade negotiations
with China and doesn’t want to upset talks.
Disregarding
his advisors’ assessment, Trump tweets, “China has been
working very hard to contain the Coronavirus.
The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and
transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American
People, I want to thank President Xi!”
White
House aides meet with Chief-of-Staff Mick Mulvaney to urge senior officials to
pay more attention to the virus issue, arguing it could cost Trump the election
and dominate life in the US for many months.
The
President’s Coronavirus Task Force is unofficially created and begins daily
meetings. Led by Alex Azar, members include: Robert O’Brien (NSA), Dr.
Robert Redfield (CDC), Dr. Anthony Fauci (NIH), Stephen Biegun (State), Ken
Cuccinelli (DHS), Joel Szabat (DOT), Matthew Pottinger (Deputy National
Security Advisor), Derek Kan (OMB), Dr. Deborah Birx (State Department), Rob
Blair, Joseph Grogan (head of White House Domestic Policy Council), and
Christopher Liddell. The State
Department agenda of border controls and repatriation of US citizens from China
dominates. One senior official who
attended the meetings says, “It wasn’t a comprehensive, whole-of-government
group to run everything.”
South Korean officials inform private companies they
should start developing testing kits.
JANUARY 28, 2020
Infectious
disease experts inside and outside the US government form an email group which identifies
the coronavirus threat early on and tries to warn the Administration. (See NYT Red Dawn Emails.)
The “Red Dawn String” includes: Dr. Jerome Adams (Surgeon General of the
United States), Dr. Larry G. Padget (State Department), Dr. Anthony Fauci
(NIH), Dr. Robert Kadlec (HHS), Dr. Robert Redfield (HHS), Col. Matthew Hepburn
(DARPA, DOD), nine other senior officials at HHS, eight senior officials from
the DHS, among other academics, private sector employees, former government
officials and state officials.
Sen. Tom
Cotton (R-AR), a member of U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI),
urges Secretaries Mike Pompeo, Alex Azar, and Chad Wolf (acting Secretary of Homeland Security) to implement a targeted
travel ban on China and warns the senior White House officials not to trust
Chinese authorities.
He also urges the White
House “to marshal the full resources of the federal government to engineer a
vaccine to the virus.” Trump does nothing, except...
NSC
announces Coronavirus Task Force will now be chaired by Vice President Mike Pence
(Trump having demoted Alex Azar after the Messonier dust-up) with Dr. Deborah
Birx as “coronavirus response coordinator.”
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is put in charge of “key
areas,” but Jared Kushner takes over a floor in the FEMA building and creates a
shadow team which eventually concentrates on procurement and distribution of
critical medical supplies. Instead of
mobilizing for the coming pandemic, the task force is focused on border control
and repatriation—keeping infected people
from China out.
Trade
advisor Peter Navarro writes memo to NSC, warning of 500,000 or more American
deaths and saying the virus is unlikely to mimic a seasonal flu with low
contagion and mortality rates.
Recommends immediate travel ban on China. See copy here: Axios Navarro 1/29/20 Memo.
JANUARY
30, 2020
China
locks down Hubei Province.
WHO
declares global emergency.
HHS Secretary
Azar, along with Mick Mulvaney, calls Trump aboard Air Force One and gives the
president a blunt
warning that the
virus could morph into a pandemic. The
president responds that Azar is being “alarmist.” Azar
recommends that China be criticized for not being transparent. Trump rejects
the idea, with China trade talks ongoing, and does nothing, except...
Secretary
of Agriculture Wilbur Ross tells Fox News, “I don’t want to talk about a
victory lap over a very unfortunate, very malignant disease, but the fact is,
it does give business yet another thing to consider when they go through their
review of their supply chain. It’s another risk factor that people need to take
into account. So I think it will help to accelerate the return of jobs to North
America.”
So, here
comes the Big Bazooka. After three major
airlines halt flights and at Trump's direction, HHS restricts entry to any non-US citizen who was in
China within the preceding two weeks. NOTE:
Ban exempts US citizens, who are not subject to self-quarantine upon
entry. The ban comes after 45 other
countries implement travel
restrictions on China and includes exemptions that allow tens of
thousands of passengers
to enter the US. Moreover, prior to the ban, during the month of
January, 300,000 passengers have already entered the US from China, per WaPo Denial and Dysfunction.
LATE
JANUARY – FEBRUARY, 2020
Despite
the China travel ban, Trump continues to downplay the virus and doesn’t believe
it has spread widely throughout the US.
White House officials worry that there are not sufficient tests to determine
the scale of the outbreak and call for a more forceful response. Trump resists.
On
February 2, 2020, Trump says, “We pretty much shut it
down coming in from China.”
HHS
sends two letters to White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) asking for
a shift of $136 million of OMB funds to combat coronavirus. White House Domestic Policy Council (DPC) and
budget hawks rebuff request.
EARLY
FEBRUARY, 2020
US spy
agencies track outbreaks in Iran, South Korea, Taiwan, Italy, and elsewhere in
Europe.
HHS pushes
to extend travel ban to Italy and elsewhere in Europe. Fauci endorses, but
Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin and others resist because of the economic
impact. Those backing the economy
prevail with Trump.
The
Federal Drug Administration (FDA) is concerned about relying exclusively on a
CDC test and seeks authority to call private diagnostic and pharmaceutical
companies for help. Azar at HHS tells them to stand down in favor of his plan: securing a test from the CDC and then
building a national coronavirus surveillance system by relying on an existing
network of labs used to track the ordinary flu.
In task force
meetings, HHS and CDC push for $100 million to fund the plan, but are shot down
because of the cost. The effort collapses when CDC fails to create a working
test and the task force rejects HHS’s plan.
FEBRUARY
to MARCH 13, 2020
Hundreds
of thousands of passengers enter the US from Europe, without screening or
requirement to self-quarantine.
FEBRUARY 4, 2020
China
admits shortcomings and deficiencies in its handling of coronavirus.
FEBRUARY
4 and 12, 2020
Sen.
Richard Burr (R-NC) and other members of the Senate and House Intelligence
Committees receive classified briefings on the coronavirus and its global
health implications. Intelligence officials, including the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA), tell committee members the virus poses a “serious” threat and it’s
necessary to get out ahead of it.
CDC
begins sending diagnostic tests to a network of 100 state, city, and county
public health laboratories.
The labs must verify the tests before using and find they do not work. Of 160,000 tests shipped, only about 200 are
usable, making it impossible to get accurate picture of how far and how fast
the disease is spreading, in turn making containment (quarantine, contact
tracing, and testing) impossible. (For
more on tests and testing, see: New Yorker Testing and WaPo Testing.)
HHS
drafts request for $4 billion to combat coronavirus; OMB officials greet this
as an outrage and a shouting match erupts in the Situation Room. Weeks later, OMB, fearing a surge of cases,
offers HHS $2.5 billion. Congress will
later ignore that figure and approve an $8 billion supplemental bill on March
6.
The
one-month delay in funding costs the US a narrow window within which to
stockpile ventilators, masks, and other protective equipment, and leaves the US
bidding against other nations for scarce materials. States realize they are on their own and
search for supplies, bidding against each other and eventually, FEMA.
WHO reports
it is shipping 250,000 diagnostic tests to 70 laboratories around the world.
CDC ships
90 test kits to a few state-run health labs.
The results are inconclusive in trial runs at more than half the
labs. CDC instructs labs to send tests
to its Atlanta headquarters, causing further delays in results.
FEBRUARY
9, 2020
Governors
attend black tie affair at White House and get briefing from Fauci and CDC,
which rattles them, as it bears no resemblance to what Trump has been saying.
FEBRUARY
10, 2020
Trump
proposes 16% cut in CDC funding 11 days after WHO declares COVID-19 a public
health emergency. He also...
Trump
holds a rally in Manchester, NH (below).
The day
after Sen. Burr’s second intelligence briefing on the virus, he and his wife
sell 33 different stocks collectively worth $628,000 to $1.7 million, including
as much as $150,000 in two hotel chains.
(I mention this because it indicates how specific the internal government
warnings were.)
FEBRUARY
14, 2020
Trump
says, “We have a very small number of people in the
country, right now, with it. It’s like
around 12. Many of them are getting
better. Some are fully recovered
already. So we’re in very good shape.”
MID-FEBRUARY,
2020
Jeremy
Konyndyk, who led the US government’s response to international disasters at USAID from 2013 to 2017, attends meeting in mid-February with top Trump
Administration officials in which the only topic of conversation is the travel
bans. “I thought, ‘Holy Jesus!’ Where’s
the discussion on protecting our hospitals? Where’s the discussion on high-risk
populations, on surveillance so we can detect where the virus is. I knew then
that the president had set the priority, the bureaucracy was following it, but
it was the wrong priority.”
The coronavirus begins to spread to
New York from Europe.
Testing
continues to be an issue. Scarcity leads
to severe limitations on who can be tested, causing a lack of meaningful data
on the spread of the virus and leading Fauci and CDC to say in a Situation Room
meeting that there is no evidence yet of community spread. Fauci later concedes
that his views changed on community spread as he learned more.
FEBRUARY
16-24, 2020
WHO sends a team, including two US experts, to
China. (This makes the Trump Administration's argument--that because WHO's China office hid information and misled the US, the US is justified in cutting off WHO funding--very curious.)
Red Dawn
email group worries it will be hard to convince governors and mayors to require
non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), such as school closures, social
distancing and lockdowns, and urges the federal government to take the lead to
give states and cities cover. Trump does not take the lead, but...
Trump
holds a rally in Phoenix, AZ (below).
FEBRUARY
20, 2020
Trump
holds a rally in Colorado Springs, CO (below).
Dr. Kadlec (HHS) reportedly convenes an urgent meeting of the White House
coronavirus task force in an effort to determine not if, but when, the country
will need to lock down to prevent the spread of the virus. Trump does not consider a lock-down. Instead...
Trump holds a rally in Las Vegas, NV (below).
Italy
begins to see evidence of a major outbreak in the Lombardy region.
Red Dawn
email group concludes containment is no longer an option in the US and decides
to recommend public support for mitigation to Trump. Before they can discuss it
with the President, another official (Dr. Nancy Messonnier of CDC) goes public
with a warning, sending the stock market down sharply and angering Trump (See
February 25, 2020). The meeting is canceled and it will be another three weeks
before Trump calls for mitigation.
Navarro
writes second memo, this one to Trump:
"There is an increasing probability of a full-blown COVID-19
pandemic that could infect as many as 100 million Americans, with a loss of
life of as many as 1-2 million souls." He recommends an "immediate
supplemental appropriation of at least $3 billion" to support efforts at
prevention, treatment, inoculation and diagnostics. Specifically, he describes expected needs for
"Personal Protective Equipment," (PPE) estimating that over a four-to-six
month period, "We can expect to need at least a billion face masks,
200,000 Tyvek suits, and 11,000 ventilator circuits, and 25,000 PAPRs (powered
air-purifying respirators)." Trump
takes no action.
After an
outbreak in Daegu, South Korea, Camp Humphreys, a US base of more than 37,000,
the largest overseas Army garrison and home to the main military headquarters
on the divided peninsula, goes on high alert and partial lock-down. Stars and Stripes. The Commander in Chief does nothing.
Iran
becomes a hotspot; WHO Director warns of a possible pandemic.
Trump
tweets the outbreak is "very much under control in
the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC &
World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to
look very good to me!”
Alarmed
by reports that healthy people could be asymptomatic carriers and spreading the
virus, Dr. Kadlec at HHS gives Trump a plan titled, “Four
Steps to Mitigation,”
and tells the President his Administration needs to begin preparing the public
for historically extraordinary measures.
The President does nothing.
FEBRUARY
25, 2020
Nancy
Messonnier, the CDC’s top official on respiratory diseases, tells reporters
that the coronavirus is likely to spread within communities in the US and that “disruptions
to everyday life might be severe.” Trump,
on Air Force One returning from India, is so angered by Messonnier’s comment
and its impact on share prices that he demotes her boss, HHS Secretary Alex
Azar, on the spot, appoints Vice President Mike Pence in his stead, and effectively
puts CDC under a gag order (See February 26, 2020).
Trump tweets,
“CDC and my Administration are doing a GREAT job of
handling Coronavirus.”
Trump responds
to a reporter, “I think that’s a problem that’s going
to go away…They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we’re very close
to a vaccine.”
The
President’s National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow is asked about Dr.
Messonnier’s comments. He tells CNBC, “We have contained this. I won’t say
airtight, but it’s pretty close to airtight. I don’t think it’s going to be an
economic tragedy at all.” He also says he sees no problems with supply and
availability of medical equipment.
FEBRUARY
26, 2020
The push to convince Trump of the urgent need for more
assertive action stalls and the focus turns to messaging. With
Pence in charge, statements and media appearances by health officials like Dr.
Fauci must be coordinated through Pence. It will be more than three weeks
before Trump announces on March 16 serious social distancing efforts, a lost
period during which the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the US grows
from 15 to 4,226.
Trump
says, “When you have 15 people—and the 15 within a
couple of days is going to be down to close to zero—that’s a pretty good job
we’ve done. We’re going very
substantially down, not up.”
Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) also receives Senate virus briefings in early February. She and her husband, the Chairman of the NY Stock Exchange, report 27 stock sales beginning on February 26 and continuing until March 11, worth up to millions of dollars. Sen. Loeffler’s husband also purchases stocks in a major PPE provider four times in February and March, as revealed by Sen. Loeffler’s financial disclosure forms. (Again, I mention this to show how specific the internal government warnings were.)
FEBRUARY
27, 2020
“The immediate
risk to the public remains low,”
says HHS Secretary Alex Azar in testimony before the House Committee on Ways
and Means. “It will look and feel to the American people more like a severe flu
season in terms of the interventions and approaches you will see.”
Testing
continues to be a problem. US officials
discover CDC is failing to meet basic quality-control standards. FDA’s director for devices and radiological
health tells CDC that if it were subjected to the same scrutiny as a privately
run lab, “I would shut you down.”
By the
end of February, WHO has shipped tests to nearly 60 countries. The US is not
among them, even though it has no working test.
To date, despite Congressional inquiries, including pointed questions from Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA), there has been no answer as to
why the US did not take advantage of the WHO test while it was developing and revising its
own. Politico
FEBRUARY
28, 2020
Federal
officials revise the CDC test and begin to loosen FDA rules to allow labs at
universities, hospitals, and private companies to develop their own diagnostic
test.
Dr. Carter Mecher, senior medical adviser to the
Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA), emails the Red Dawn email chain and warns
that the US has a narrow window to implement non-pharmaceutical interventions
(such as social distancing),
based on data from the 1918 Spanish Influenza. “And we are flying blind,” he
adds. Trump does nothing, except...
Trump
holds a rally in North Charleston, SC (below).
Trump also tweets about the virus,
“DEMOCRATS. THIS IS THEIR HOAX.”
FEBRUARY 29, 2020
The US
records its first coronavirus death and announces travel restrictions for
Italy, Iran, and South Korea.
Dr.
Fauci says on the Today Show that Americans do not need to change their
daily practices and the current risk is low, but could change if there is evidence
of community spread. (At that time,
there was no testing widely available, so community spread was masked.)
FDA releases guidance allowing private labs to
develop their own diagnostics.
EARLY
MARCH, 2020
The FDA
relaxes rules regulating whether hospitals and labs can create their own
tests.
MARCH 2,
2020
Slow
pace of enacting mitigation measures alarms Red Dawn email chain, as cities and
states are hard hit.
Trump
asks a reporter, “You take a solid flu vaccine, you
don’t think that could have an impact, or much of an impact, on corona?”
Trump falsely
claims at a press briefing that a vaccine will be readily available. “We’re moving aggressively to
accelerate the process of developing a vaccine. A lot of good things are
happening and they’re happening very fast. I said, ‘Do me a favor, speed it up,
speed it up.’ And they will — they’re working really hard and quick.” The president suggests the vaccine may
be ready “over the next few months,” but Fauci
quickly interjects to say, it would be “a year to a year and a
half.” Trump continues to hold out the false hope of an imminent vaccine and therapy, while...
Trump holds a rally in Charlotte, NC (below).
MARCH 3,
2020
Pence
announces that CDC will lift federal restrictions on testing for the
coronavirus. He says, “Today
we will issue new guidance from the CDC that will make it clear that any
American can be tested, no restrictions, subject to doctor’s orders.” (Note the use of the future tense.)
MARCH 4,
2020
Trump
says, “If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of
people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to
work—some of them go to work, but they get better.”
MARCH 5,
2020
Trump
claims in a tweet, “I NEVER said people that are
feeling sick should go to work.”
MARCH 6,
2020
Complaints
of testing scarcity and critical shortages of swabs, machines to extract
genetic material from swabs, reagents, and personnel continue.
Trump
says, “I think we’re doing a really good job in this
country at keeping it down…a tremendous job at keeping it down.”
Trump visits
CDC in Atlanta wearing a “Keep America Great” hat, boasts that CDC tests are
nearly perfect, and says,
“I like this stuff. I really get it. People here are surprised
that I understand it. Every one of these doctors says, ‘How do you know so much
about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that
instead of running for president. Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a
test. They’re there. And the tests are
beautiful…the tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The
transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty
good.”
This claim
about universal availability of testing is untrue, as the CDC has no nationwide
testing capability, and never did. NOTE: as of April 12, 2020, the CDC still warns
that it may “be difficult to find a place to get tested.”
MARCH 7,
2020
Speaker
Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) works with Secretary Mnuchin all weekend to craft relief
bill, but Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) sends the Senate home without a vote. The President is not involved in the
negotiations.
Trump tells
reporters, “No, I’m not concerned at all. We’ve done a great job.”
MARCH 8,
2020
Trump
tweets, “We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned
plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus.”
MARCH 9,
2020
Trump
tweets that the common flu kills tens of thousands each year and “nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on.”
And
later, “This blindsided the world.”
MARCH
10, 2020
Pence announces
that over 1 million tests have been distributed and promises that 4 million
would be distributed by the end of the week. (NOTE the use of the
aspirational tense, "would be." As of April 12, the US has conducted only 2
million tests and States
continue to report testing
shortages.)
With 949
Americans infected and 30 dead, Trump says, “And it
will just go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”
MARCH
11, 2020
WHO
declares the coronavirus outbreak is a pandemic.
Trump
addresses the nation and announces limits on European flights to go into effect
on March 13— but still no move to curb gatherings in cities where the virus has
spread, angering and alarming the experts on the Red Dawn email chain. In the address, Trump does not call for
social distancing, school closures, or other measures, responding to views of
his business friends and others, the New
York Times reports.
Trump makes misstatements about US policy in his address, stating that
the policy will “apply to the tremendous amount of
trade and cargo.” The White House subsequently has to clarify that trade
and cargo are exempt from the ban.
Trump
says the US has taken early intense action, and commends the “dramatically fewer cases of the virus in the United States
than are now present in Europe.”
Members
of the Red Dawn email chain criticize
the president’s decisions
in his national address. Tom Bossert
(President Trump’s former Homeland Security Advisor) writes: “Can anyone
justify the European travel restriction, scientifically? Seriously, is there
any benefit? I don’t see it, but I’m hoping there is something I don’t know.”
James Lawler (professor of internal medicine) replies, “Fuck no. This is the
absolute wrong move.” Richard Hatchett (CEO of Coalition for Epidemic
Preparedness Innovations) chimes in, “No justification that I can see.”
Dr. Eva
Lee responds, “I was hoping he would mention about schools, government and
private sector tele-work, community gatherings, things that really need
everyone to actively engage in. And also extra resources for healthcare providers.
We really need to protect providers who care for covid-19 patients.”
MARCH
12, 2020
Professor Lawler writes in the Red Dawn email chain, “We are making every misstep leaders
initially made in table-tops at the outset of pandemic planning in 2006. We had systematically addressed all of these
and had a plan that would work – and has worked in Hong Kong/Singapore.
We have thrown 15 years of institutional learning out the window and are making
decisions based on intuition.”
MARCH
13, 2020
At a
press briefing, Trump insists, without offering evidence, and in apparent
ignorance of the fact that the coronavirus wasn’t present in the US between
2008-2016, that his administration’s failure to test is Barack Obama’s fault. “No, I don't take
responsibility at all,” Trump says defiantly, pointing to an unspecified
“set of circumstances” and “rules, regulations and specifications from a different
time.” Politico.
Trump falsely
announces a new website to link Americans to testing sites: “Google is going to develop a website … to determine if a
test is warranted and to facilitate testing at a nearby convenient location. …
Google has 1,700 engineers working on this right now. They have made tremendous
progress.” Google Communications corrects the president’s statement later
that day.
MARCH 13, 2020
With 8,940 Americans infected and 150 dead, Trump finally declares the coronavirus to be a national emergency.
Trump’s ban on travel into the US from 26 European countries goes into effect; applies to non-citizens who have been in a Schengen country in the preceding 14 days. The UK and Ireland are exempt, even though the UK has among the highest numbers of reported cases in the region.
With 8,940 Americans infected and 150 dead, Trump finally declares the coronavirus to be a national emergency.
Trump’s ban on travel into the US from 26 European countries goes into effect; applies to non-citizens who have been in a Schengen country in the preceding 14 days. The UK and Ireland are exempt, even though the UK has among the highest numbers of reported cases in the region.
MID-MARCH,
2020
Based on
a review
of federal purchasing contracts
by the Associated Press, the Trump Administration only starts to place bulk
orders on necessary medical equipment in mid-March.
Trump
reaches out to Stephen Schwartzman of Blackstone Group, a private equity firm,
to understand potential effect of a lockdown on the stock market. During an Oval Office meeting, Mnuchin says
the economy would be ravaged by a shutdown.
A national security adviser says the economy will be destroyed
regardless, if officials do nothing. Reflecting
on this later, Trump says, “Everybody questioned it [a
shutdown] for a while, not everybody, but a good portion questioned it. They
said, ‘Let’s keep it open. Let’s ride it.’”
Red Dawn
email participants are upset when CDC questions the value of closing schools. Governors
ignore this advice, and most schools in the US are shut, largely without federal
leadership.
MARCH
16, 2020
Governors
beg Trump to unleash the full might of the US government on the crisis in tests
and PPE. He responds, “Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment – try getting
it yourselves. We will be backing you, but try getting it yourselves. Point of
sales, much better, much more direct if you can get it yourself. ” (For more on missteps in the
federal PPE response, see AirMail.)
Asked
about his repeated comments that everything is under control, Trump says, “If you’re talking about the virus, no, that’s not under
control for any place in the world….I was talking about what we’re doing is
under control, but I’m not talking about the virus.”
Trump
issues The President’s Coronavirus
Guidelines for America—15 Days to Slow the Spread. The trial set of non-mandatory national
guidelines discourage unnecessary travel, congregating in groups of more than
10, and visits to nursing homes and long-term care facilities, and recommend
home-schooling. The guidelines are
suggestions, not requirements, and fall short of a national quarantine and
internal travel restrictions, which many health officials had urged.
MARCH
17, 2020
Trump Administration announces strict southern
border controls and Trump falsely claims, “I’ve felt it was a pandemic
long before it was called a pandemic."
MARCH
18, 2020
Trump signs an Executive Order allowing for use of the
Defense Production Act, but the President and Vice President make
statements suggesting the administration will not use the Act. To
date, the US has not compelled any US corporation to produce masks, ventilators,
or other PPE. It has, however, used its wealth
and purchasing power to outbid States and other countries for those materials.
At his
daily press briefing, Trump insists he is justified in branding the coronavirus
pandemic as the “Chinese Virus,” saying, “It’s not
racist at all. No, not at all. It comes from China, that’s why. It comes from
China. I want to be accurate.”
He adds
he doesn’t believe China was “inflicting” the coronavirus upon Americans, but
argues that Beijing “could have given us a lot earlier
notice. I know where it came from. I don’t know if you’d say China is to blame.
Certainly we didn’t get an early run on it. It would have been helpful if we
knew about it earlier. But it comes from China. It’s not a question about that.
Nobody’s questioning it.”
Yes, I think we can
all agree on one thing: Trump certainly didn’t
get an early run on it.
What this
timeline makes crystal clear to me is that the US was not ready for the
coronavirus pandemic, or any other pandemic, even though it was advised of that
lack of readiness on January 13, 2017--three years ago.
The Trump Administration
had three years to prepare, from
January 13, 2017 to March 13, 2020, and yet it did nothing to keep Americans safe from a pandemic during that
three-year period, except: (1) monitor three airports for passengers arriving
from China, starting on January 17, 2020, (2) cancel some flights from China on January 31, 2020, (3) restrict travel from Iran, Italy, and South Korea on February 29, 2020, (4) cancel some
flights from Europe on March 13, 2020, and (5) issue some non-mandatory Guidelines on March 16, 2020. And in the critical 70 days from formal notification of a novel coronavirus on January 3, 2020 until the issuance of mitigation Guidelines on March 16, 2020, the Trump Administration monitored three airports and restricted some flights. Big F*ing Deal.
It’s tragic.
It’s irresponsible. It was foreseeable
and foreseen. For a president
obsessed with winning, he's a loser. And for a man who has branded himself a wartime president, the question remains: Does that make him a war criminal?
Keep it
real! Wear your mask.
Marilyn
Lock Him Up!
ReplyDeletePreferably in a COVID-19 ward.
DeleteAmazing research M!
ReplyDeleteNightmare. And it will be for months (maybe even years) to come.
I hear they are still allowed to golf in Florida. Maybe a hungry alligator will take our avid golfer?