And all along we thought Donald Trump would get us into a war that would get Americans killed (Washington Post):
Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services sent more than a dozen workers to receive the first Americans evacuated from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, without proper training for infection control or appropriate protective gear, according to a whistleblower complaint.
The evacuation flight arrived from Wuhan, China on Jan. 29:
The workers were in contact with passengers in an airplane hangar where evacuees were received and on two other occasions: when they helped distribute keys for room assignments and hand out colored ribbons for identification purposes.
In some instances, the teams were working alongside personnel from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in “full gown, gloves and hazmat attire,” the complaint said.
Also (emphasis mine):
After their deployments, the workers returned to their normal duties, some taking commercial airline flights to return to their offices around the country, the lawyers said.
Not to mention:
California is monitoring 8,400 people for possible contagion but lacks lab kits for testing them. The state has only 200.
A Solano County, California woman is receiving treatment at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento having tested positive for the new coronavirus (Covid-19) after over a week’s delay:
Before Thursday, a perfect storm of problems in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s development of test kits — and the agency’s reluctance to expand its recommendation of who should be tested given the limited availability of kits — meant very little testing has been done in the country. As of Wednesday, the CDC said that 445 people had been tested — a fraction of the number of tests that other countries have run.
The new case in California makes it clear the virus is spreading undetected in at least one area of one state. The woman is not believed to have traveled outside the country and had no contact with a known case. As her condition worsened — she is on a ventilator — health officials in California asked the CDC to test her for the virus. Because she had not been to China and had not been a contact of a known case, the agency said no.
Eventually, more than 10 days after she went into hospital, the CDC agreed she could be tested. Dozens of health workers who may have come into contact with her at NorthBay VacaValley Hospital, in Vacaville, Calif., are now being monitored.
After the Sept. 11 and anthrax attacks in 2001, I worked briefly on the design of a smallpox vaccine filling facility. The Department of Health and Human Services meant to stockpile enough doses “to protect every U.S. civilian” in the event of a bioterrorism attack. Our team worked 7-days a week on design. The plant was constructed in just 72 days (without building permits, as I recall).
Baltimore permitting officials only stumbled upon the warehouse conversion near the Ravens’ stadium. As I heard it, they tried to halt construction. But this was a national security and public safety matter. Speed was of the essence. One call from the White House silenced all complaints.
That was late 2001. And in 2020? The Chinese recognized the Covid-19 outbreak the first week of January. While there is no vaccine yet, the U.S. has not even obtained a sufficient supply of test kits. The few sent out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta proved faulty. South Korea so far has tested over 35,000 of its people. The U.S.? Only 426.
Who is in charge? This guy:
In three short years, that guy has lobotomized America’s cabinet agencies and gutted their capacity to respond to national crises. As the George W. Bush administration said of the Sept. 11 attacks, no one could have predicted it, right?
The Trump administration’s paper-towel-pitching response to Hurricane Maria’s devastation of Puerto Rico in 2017 contributed to the nearly 3,000 deaths attributed to the storm’s aftermath. Now, Trump’s mishandling of the coronavirus outbreak could run up an even higher death count on the mainland.
That guy is running for reelection. Has anyone “got a plan for that“?
President Bush and Michael Brown thank you, @realDonaldTrump. Compared to their bumbling response to Hurricane Katrina (1,800+/- dead) in 2005, your job performance makes them look like rocket scientists.
UPDATE for good measure (May 10, 2018):
The abrupt departure of Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer from the National Security Council means no senior administration official is now focused solely on global health security. Ziemer’s departure, along with the breakup of his team, comes at a time when many experts say the country is already underprepared for the increasing risks of a pandemic or bioterrorism attack.
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