This does not bode well for the US response:
In the wee hours of a rainy Monday, more than a dozen buses sat on the tarmac at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. Inside, 328 weary Americans wearing surgical masks and gloves waited anxiously to fly home after weeks in quarantine aboard the Diamond Princess, the luxury liner where the novel coronavirus had exploded into a shipwide epidemic.
But as the buses idled, U.S. officials wrestled with troubling news. New test results showed that 14 passengers were infected with the virus. The U.S. State Department had promised that no one with the infection would be allowed to board the planes.
A decision had to be made. Let them all fly? Or leave them behind in Japanese hospitals?
In Washington, where it was still Sunday afternoon, a fierce debate broke out: The State Department and a top Trump administration health official wanted to forge ahead. The infected passengers had no symptoms and could be segregated on the plane in a plastic-lined enclosure. But officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention disagreed, contending they could still spread the virus. The CDC believed the 14 should not be flown back with uninfected passengers.
“It was like the worst nightmare,” said a senior U.S. official involved in the decision, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. “Quite frankly, the alternative could have been pulling grandma out in the pouring rain, and that would have been bad, too.”
The State Department won the argument. But unhappy CDC officials demanded to be left out of the news release that explained that infected people were being flown back to the United States — a move that would nearly double the number of known coronavirus cases in this country.
Why in the hell didn’t they just charter a different plane for them? Jesus. Trump spends millions nearly every weekend to go play golf fergawdsake! He could have just written a check. Or tap some other billionaire to pick up the tab!
This was a ridiculous decision in the midst of a public health crisis.
I fervently hope this turns out to be less virulent than they currently think because this administration is so inept that I truly fear for its ability to deal rationally with it, one way or the other. Ignoring the CDC is the worst thing they could do.
Update:
The Trump administration is bracing for a possible coronavirus outbreak in the United States that could sicken thousands — straining the government’s public health response and threatening an economic slowdown in the heat ofPresident Donald Trump’s reelection campaign.
That stark realization has taken hold in high-level White House meetings, during which some administration officials have voiced concerns the coronavirus is already spreading undetected within U.S. borders, two officials told POLITICO.
Though Trump in public has downplayed the virus, privately he has voiced his own anxieties, rebuking public health leaders over last week’s decision to fly home 14 Americans who tested positive for the virus while aboard a cruise ship off Japan, said three individuals with knowledge of the situation. Trump was worried that transporting the Americans to the United States without adequate precautions could create new risks, the individuals said.
“The biggest current threat to the president’s reelection is this thing getting out of control and creating a health and economic impact,” said Chris Meekins, a Raymond James financial analyst and former Trump administration HHS emergency-preparedness official.
An HHS spokesperson said the administration is committed to protecting public health and preparing for multiple scenarios due to the novel nature of the virus. “As we’ve said all along, the risk to Americans is low, but we expect the numbers to increase,” the spokesperson said, declining to characterize the nature of the discussions.
But there has been tension within the Trump administration over the response so far. Four officials acknowledged that the process has hit bumps, with high-pressure debates over resources and planning occasionally reopening fault lines between the White House and HHS that first emerged over Trump’s broader health agenda.
I’m sure it will all be fine. Trump knows what he’s doing … he is a very stable genius.