Coronavirus Outbreak

[Josh]

Sing Happy Birthday twice, use hot water and soap.

FWIW, I'm flying to Rome for a work trip soon. Italy is on yellow alert. So far, I'm not concerned, but I will bring alcohol wipes to wipe down the tray and handrests and such, and I will carry hand sanitizer.

I just got back for a business trip to Poland through Germany. Airline screening in Europe is really ramping up, be ready for delays ay least. The airline (United) announced that people who have been to mainland China will not be allowed back into the US until they can prove 14 days of no symptoms outide from China. This makes sense - the virus will most likely arrive in North America via airline.

Some airline traffic to northern Italy has already been suspended, Switzerland has suspended gatherings of 1000 people ot more. . I found that Europe is on higher alert than the US at this point, but virus clusters are already showing themselves in their midst.

The bigger question is why the rest of the world didn’t just immediately slam the door shut on travel from China when this could still be contained.

[Ken]

This is not good:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/co ... -response/

Right-click and open in an incognito tab to read the whole thing:

For the United States, the answers are especially worrying because the government has intentionally rendered itself incapable. In 2018, the Trump administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure. In numerous phone calls and emails with key agencies across the U.S. government, the only consistent response I encountered was distressed confusion. If the United States still has a clear chain of command for pandemic response, the White House urgently needs to clarify what it is—not just for the public but for the government itself, which largely finds itself in the dark.

When Ebola broke out in West Africa in 2014, President Barack Obama recognized that responding to the outbreak overseas, while also protecting Americans at home, involved multiple U.S. government departments and agencies, none of which were speaking to one another. Basically, the U.S. pandemic infrastructure was an enormous orchestra full of talented, egotistical players, each jockeying for solos and fame, refusing to rehearse, and demanding higher salaries—all without a conductor. To bring order and harmony to the chaos, rein in the agency egos, and create a coherent multiagency response overseas and on the homefront, Obama anointed a former vice presidential staffer, Ronald Klain, as a sort of “epidemic czar” inside the White House, clearly stipulated the roles and budgets of various agencies, and placed incident commanders in charge in each Ebola-hit country and inside the United States. The orchestra may have still had its off-key instruments, but it played the same tune.

Building on the Ebola experience, the Obama administration set up a permanent epidemic monitoring and command group inside the White House National Security Council (NSC) and another in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—both of which followed the scientific and public health leads of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the diplomatic advice of the State Department.

On the domestic front, the real business of assuring public health and safety is a local matter, executed by state, county, and city departments that operate under a mosaic of laws and regulations that vary jurisdiction by jurisdiction. Some massive cities, such as New York City or Boston, have large budgets, clear regulations, and epidemic experiences that have left deep benches of medical and public health talent. But much of the United States is less fortunate on the local level, struggling with underfunded agencies, understaffing, and no genuine epidemic experience. Large and small, America’s localities rely in times of public health crisis on the federal government.

Bureaucracy matters. Without it, there’s nothing to coherently manage an alphabet soup of agencies housed in departments ranging from Defense to Commerce, Homeland Security to Health and Human Services (HHS).

But that’s all gone now.

In the spring of 2018, the White House pushed Congress to cut funding for Obama-era disease security programs, proposing to eliminate $252 million in previously committed resources for rebuilding health systems in Ebola-ravaged Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. Under fire from both sides of the aisle, President Donald Trump dropped the proposal to eliminate Ebola funds a month later. But other White House efforts included reducing $15 billion in national health spending and cutting the global disease-fighting operational budgets of the CDC, NSC, DHS, and HHS. And the government’s $30 million Complex Crises Fund was eliminated.

[Bootstrap]

FWIW, I'm flying to Rome for a work trip soon. Italy is on yellow alert. So far, I'm not concerned, but I will bring alcohol wipes to wipe down the tray and handrests and such, and I will carry hand sanitizer.

I just got back for a business trip to Poland through Germany. Airline screening in Europe is really ramping up, be ready for delays ay least. The airline (United) announced that people who have been to mainland China will not be allowed back into the US until they can prove 14 days of no symptoms outside from China. This makes sense - the virus will most likely arrive in North America via airline.

Some airline traffic to northern Italy has already been suspended, Switzerland has suspended gatherings of 1000 people or more. more actions to come. I found that Europe is on higher alert than the US at this point, but virus clusters are already showing themselves in their midst, and nearby places like Iran and South Korea are already burgeoning hot spots.

Thanks, this is really helpful.

[temporal1]

This is not good:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/co ... -response/

Right-click and open in an incognito tab to read the whole thing:

For the United States, the answers are especially worrying because the government has intentionally rendered itself incapable. In 2018, the Trump administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure. In numerous phone calls and emails with key agencies across the U.S. government, the only consistent response .. .. .

This reads like a particularly nasty political hit-piece, i’m surprised the author’s name isn’t Ron Klain. i think this is a good example of what people should avoid reading.
expect a LOT of nasty political hit-pieces, worse than what we’ve had.

btw. Ron Klain’s label was Ebola Czar, it wasn’t “sort of,” even that part is questionable rhetoric.
he was an attorney appointed for political PR, when most were longing for an astute medical professional. imho, his involvement in Solyndra should have prevented any high gov appointment.

i understand you’re in Oregon. i’m sorry. i’m sorry for the state of the U.S. and world.
i believe you are cautious about what you read. you need to be. we all do.

This piece doesn’t mean anything without a side-by-side response from DJT/those working with him on what they are doing. Which, may be more+faster than previous admins. Otherwise, it’s more “guilty until proven innocent.”

[Josh]

Ken,

You’ll have more credibility if you try to post things that aren’t anti-Trump hit pieces.

Or we can just all post biased rubbish here and keep talking to our echo chambers.

[Ken]

This is not good:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/co ... -response/

Right-click and open in an incognito tab to read the whole thing:

For the United States, the answers are especially worrying because the government has intentionally rendered itself incapable. In 2018, the Trump administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure. In numerous phone calls and emails with key agencies across the U.S. government, the only consistent response .. .. .

This reads like a particularly nasty political hit-piece, i’m surprised the author’s name isn’t Ron Klain. i think this is a good example of what people should avoid reading.
expect a LOT of nasty political hit-pieces, worse than what we’ve had.

btw. Ron Klain’s label was Ebola Czar, it wasn’t “sort of,” even that part is questionable rhetoric.
he was an attorney appointed for political PR, when most were longing for an astute medical professional. imho, his involvement in Solyndra should have prevented any high gov appointment.

i understand you’re in Oregon. i’m sorry. i’m sorry for the state of the U.S. and world.
i believe you are cautious about what you read. you need to be. we all do.

This piece doesn’t mean anything without a side-by-side response from DJT/those working with him on what they are doing. Which, may be more+faster than previous admins. Otherwise, it’s more “guilty until proven innocent.”

I'm in Washington not Oregon. Unfortunately we don't have a side-by-side response from DJT or the administration because they haven't actually outlined their chains of command and current response team. Although he was on Twitter this morning doing his best to politicize the issue by attacking Democrats and the media.

Do you disagree with the thrust of the article, which was that the US government built up an inter-agency pandemic response and coordinating team in the wake of the Ebola epidemic in 2014 and that it was completely dismantled by the Trump Administration in 2018?

In point of fact, the Administration's response has been particularly bumbling, largely because they don't have actual medical professionals within the chain of command anymore and are relying on political appointees who frankly don't know what they are talking about. Here's one example. Rather than put forward CDC professionals who know what they are talking about, they put forward the DHS secretary Chad Wof, who is not a medical or disease specialist to be the administration's point person. His testimony to Congress was full of mis-information and it was Republican senators who were calling him out for incompetence, not Democrats: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... ronavirus/ Of particular note, Wolf testified incorrectly to Congress that coronavirus and the flu have similar mortality rates when in point of fact, the mortality rate for flu is about 0.1 while coronavirus is about 2% or about 20-times more deadly. Mis-information that Trump has also repeated. Wolf is currently acting DHS chief since November and the 5th person in the Trump Administration to hold that job. The actual position of Secretary of DHS has been vacant for 11 months because Trump has refused to send anyone up to Congress to get confirmed.

After that disaster they put Mike Pence in charge rather than a pandemic disease specialist and today have added Mick Mulvaney and Larry Kudlow who today are going around to various media outlets basically attacking the media for reporting on the crisis rather than providing actual information. They have also ordered that none of the infectious disease experts in the CDC are allowed to talk to the media anymore and that all messaging has to pass through the Office of the Vice President. That does not inspire confidence.

Feel free to dispute any of this.

[Josh]

I think the bigger question is why, when the topic is China unleashing a pandemic disaster on the rest of the world, all you want to talk about is Trump.

I think Trump did the wrong thing. He should have ordered the borders immediately closed and grounded international air travel, and quarantined American citizens repatriated from Wuhan or the Princess Diamond on a remote island in U.S. territory.

The “experts” at the WHO were telling us a few weeks ago this is no big deal. Now they’re saying it is a big deal.

Ken, why aren’t you concerned about the rank incompetence and politicisation at the WHO? That’s far more concerning to me than complaining that Trump somehow undid some wonderful thing Obama built (which is difficult to buy when the reporting comes from an obviously biased source).

[Ken]

I think the bigger question is why, when the topic is China unleashing a pandemic disaster on the rest of the world, all you want to talk about is Trump.

I think Trump did the wrong thing. He should have ordered the borders immediately closed and grounded international air travel, and quarantined American citizens repatriated from Wuhan or the Princess Diamond on a remote island in U.S. territory.

The “experts” at the WHO were telling us a few weeks ago this is no big deal. Now they’re saying it is a big deal.

Ken, why aren’t you concerned about the rank incompetence and politicisation at the WHO? That’s far more concerning to me than complaining that Trump somehow undid some wonderful thing Obama built (which is difficult to buy when the reporting comes from an obviously biased source).

The WHO doesn't control pandemic response in the US, the executive branch of the Federal Government does, through a variety of different agencies, all under the control of the White House and, ultimately, Donald Trump.

[temporal1]

I'm in Washington not Oregon.

my mistake.
i spend substantial time near Seattle, my family is employed by their public schools.
i am beyond depressed at what i witness there. i have an idea where you’re swimming.

i’m aware of the VP Pence appointment, as i posted earlier, it was Ron Klain’s earlier appt as Ebola Czar that kept me from being disgusted the appointment was not a “pandemic disease specialist.”

i intend to follow what results from Pence’s work. appointed 2 days ago.
the idea that Trump-haters are preemptively set EVERYDAY to attack+destroy, no matter how innocuous or important the matter, keeps me from jumping on anything that is so obviously crafted to destroy.

peoples’ lives are at stake. most do not want this politicized. a fantasy.
i knew i was going to (hate) 2020. ugly is just guaranteed. it’s a matter of surviving it.

[Grace]

This is not good:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/co ... -response/

Right-click and open in an incognito tab to read the whole thing:

To bring order and harmony to the chaos, rein in the agency egos, and create a coherent multiagency response overseas and on the homefront, Obama anointed a former vice presidential staffer, Ronald Klain, as a sort of “epidemic czar” inside the White House, clearly stipulated the roles and budgets of various agencies, and placed incident commanders in charge in each Ebola-hit country and inside the United States. The orchestra may have still had its off-key instruments, but it played the same tune.

"Ron Klain is a sharp-elbowed Democratic political operative with no medical expertise. Tapping him as “Ebola czar” may not be the president’s best move when, as it is, no one can believe a word the Obama administration says. And that’s not just because Mr. Klain is yet another lobbyist recruited despite Mr. Obama’s vow that his administration would shun lobbyists.

Klain was also a central player in the president’s Solyndra fraud, which soaked taxpayers for over half a billion dollars for the benefit of Obama cronies.

In Faithless Execution, I recount the Solyndra fraud. It never got the attention it deserved — involving, as it did, potential felony fraud violations of federal law. Even for people who did give it attention at the time, Solyndra is so many Obama scandals ago that its unseemly details are tough to recall. The story is thus worth retelling. As our nerves fray over the Ebola crisis, it is a valuable window into the administration’s priorities and an indicator of the level of trust we can put in the new czar’s assurances."

https://www.nationalreview.com/2014/10/ ... -mccarthy/