Post by Chris BuckleyMonday morning quarterbacking.
We are "blessed" in this country with a very adversarial political
setup. Please give me the dates that, say, Biden said we should close
down the country (or take other concrete action). Or Pelosi? Or Schumer?
Well you might want to check the pandemic response plan prepared under Obama
Trump Jan 22
"We have it totally under control. It's one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It's going to be just fine."
Feb 1
"The Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. You know that, right?...
They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation and this is their new hoax."
Mar 7
"What a problem. Came out of nowhere, but we're taking care of it...
And in terms of deaths, I don't know what the count is today. Is it 11? Eleven people? And in terms of cases, it's very, very few. When you look at other countries, it's a very tiny fraction because we've been very strong at the borders."
"They have the tests. And the tests are beautiful. Anybody that needs a test gets a test...
I like the numbers [of reported US coronavirus cases] being where they are. I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship [the Grand Princess cruise ship docked in San Francisco with 21 confirmed coronavirus cases on board at the time]."
Mar 10
"And we're prepared, and we're doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away...
The consumer has never been in a better position than they are right now."
Biden
Jan 27
"...The outbreak of a new coronavirus, which has already infected more than 2,700 people and killed over 80 in China, will get worse before it gets better. Cases have been confirmed in a dozen countries, with at least five in the United States. There will likely be more."
Feb 1
"We are in the midst of a crisis with the coronavirus. We need to lead the way with science — not Donald Trump's record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering. He is the worst possible person to lead our country through a global health emergency."
Feb 28
"No one takes the president's word for these things. He, at a minimum, exaggerates everything. And the idea that he's going to stand there and say, ‘everything is fine, don't worry,' who's going to believe that? Let the experts speak like we did in our administration."
Mar 1
"We knew that this was coming. Back as far as January. They didn't even begin to prepare the testing kits...
Donald Trump said just several days ago this was a Democratic hoax. What in God's name is he talking about? Has he no shame?"
"They have eliminated the office we set up -- we set up in the president's office to deal with pandemic diseases."
Feb 26
"Too little, too late," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said of the president's emergency funding request Monday. "We've seen no sign that President Trump has any plan or urgency to deal with the spread of the coronavirus — we need real leadership and we need it fast."
"Americans need a coordinated, fully-funded, whole-of-government response to keep them and their loved ones safe," Pelosi said in a statement late Monday. "The President's request for coronavirus response funding is long overdue and completely inadequate to the scale of this emergency."
She said the Democratic-majority House of Representatives will work quickly to move their own funding package that "fully addresses the scale and seriousness of this public health crisis."
Post by Chris BuckleyThere was no demand by the Democrats for anything helpful.
Bullshit
Post by Chris BuckleyThey only
started to advocate for a national lockdown at the end of March.
Earlier action would have stopped the need for a lockdown.
Post by Chris BuckleyThe
only consensus I remember of the Democrats was that Trump's thoughts
of quarantining the New York area were absolutely unacceptable and
illegal (ignoring the fact that a national lockdown is just as
illegal).
Considering your lack of memory I don't see your assessment of what was asked for worth considering or your assessment of the legality
Post by Chris BuckleyTrump's tweets and speeches are often ludicrous and that is an important
part of a President's responsibility that he is failing. And he made major
He trusted the scientists at WHO much too long in their early
statements that travel restictions should not happen.
You might want to check what they actually said
Post by Chris BuckleyThey took an
inordinate amount of time to back off those statements. (WHO was
still advising against travel restrictions on February 29, but said
perhaps in certain circumstances such as settings with few
international connections and limited response capabilities.)
He trusted the scientists at CDC much too long as they had assumed the
responsibility of developing, certifying, and deploying a testing
program (as they had done in the previous recent epidemics).
Largely due to Trump's political appointees wanting to reward donors and sidelining the actual science people
Post by Chris BuckleyNote that
CDC is now not leading the efforts in the antibody tests and vaccines,
which has meant some chaos, but lots of options being pursued in
parallel.
But these are mistakes in hindsight. I trust the Democrats to point
out Trump's mistakes, and I can remember no consensus for action from
them at the time that would have affected things (they did demand that
Trump order the car companies to produce ventilators, but by then the
future supply of ventilators was already assured enough). What are
you remembering differently?
Well for a start there was a pandemic response plan
Early on was to check for PPE and incubators
There was the pandemic response body which Trump split up
There was the design for a machine that would over a million N-95 masks a day which they commissioned but Trump didn't fund
There was the Tea Party refusing to fund building up stockpiles of equipment