'Every American Should Be Outraged' Says Pandemic Expert About Government Response

Authored by wbur.org and submitted by nanopicofared
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What can people do to help as the number of COVID-19 cases continues to climb? Emerging disease expert Laurie Garrett says that’s the wrong question to ask.

“It's not just what you can do,” the author of "The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance" says. “It's what you should do.”

The number of COVID-19 cases worldwide has now topped 214,000, with more than 8,000 deaths. The United States announced that there are cases in all 50 states and cities like San Francisco are in lockdown.

Garrett — whose expertise lies in emerging diseases, foreign policy and global security — says it’s important to prevent the virus from circumnavigating the planet several times and killing hundreds of thousands of people.

The coronavirus is now moving into the southern hemisphere, which she finds concerning. As the virus dies in up north, it could take off in the southern hemisphere in poorer countries and return up north “with a vengeance” during winter, she says.

“Until we have a vaccine that really works and is available affordably to the entire planet, more than 7 billion doses,” she says, “I think this virus is here to stay.”

The president and vice president have said they think things might go back to normal in July. But Garrett thinks that estimate is “wildly optimistic”.

She predicts the virus will peak in late June or even past the Fourth of July. But by then, the coronavirus will be “full bore” in the southern hemisphere, she says.

Unless there’s an effective vaccine by this time, which Garrett doubts will happen, she thinks the virus will return to the U.S. before Christmas and take a “tough toll” again in January and February.

About half of common colds are coronaviruses, but she says COV-2 is so powerful because it’s the first time doctors are seeing such a lethal, contagious virus with a differential impact based on age.

This coronavirus is “considerably more lethal than influenzas” and 20 times more deadly than the 1918 flu epidemic, she says. Compared to 1918, doctors understand the virology of the COV-2 virus and already have more than 600 fully sequenced versions of it to study and compare, she says.

“In 1918, by the time the epidemic had gone around the world three times, they still had no clue what had caused it,” she says.

To prevent the worst possible outcome, Garrett can’t overstate the importance of social distancing.

“My goodness, if people still don't understand that they need to have social distancing, then I don't think we have any hope at all,” she says. “I think we're going to all drop dead.”

People shouldn’t focus on the burden on the individual, but instead “what we expect from our government and aren't getting,” she says. The government is still trying to decide on a strategy and that should outrage Americans, she says.

Garrett thinks the United Kingdom is the only government that looks worse than the United States based on how they’ve handled COVID-19.

Days ago, the UK said its plan was to wait for herd immunity to kick in. When the UK government saw projections that showed thousands of citizens would die due to this “asinine” policy, she says they changed their strategy.

The U.S. government isn’t doing what it should to protect citizens, she says, and President Trump changes his attitude about the epidemic at every press conference.

“It's utterly appalling, utterly inexcusable that we're this far into this epidemic with this many people at risk of dying or actually dying with so many health care workers not even having access to masks and basic protective gear,” she says.

The White House has denied the relevance of three individuals contracting COVID-19 after visiting with Trump at Mar a Lago. But Garrett says whether or not he’s infected, the virus is at Mar a Lago and potentially in the White House.

As the virus continues to spread, people should engage with their communities online or in-person and establish how to protect its vulnerable members, she says.

This can mean taking on an altruistic mission like looking after homeless folks in the area who are losing their jobs, she says. Or if a single mom loses her job because her place of business is closed, Garrett says for example, help her find ways to feed her kids and someone to look after them while she’s at the grocery store.

“We're going to see a tremendous burden of sudden onset poverty,” she says. “If we don't all look out for each other, then it's going to be a very ugly mess when we all wake up at the far end of this.”

On what the government should be doing

“We don't have time for the whole list because they're not doing almost anything they should be doing. But the bottom line here is there's a role for federal government. There's a role for state. There's a role for local. We have this strange hodgepodge system of public health in America that's unlike any other country. And as a result, the real burden that's at the federal level is a combination of setting guidances, providing sort of wise strategic policy analysis, corralling resources in a timely fashion, pushing connections between public and private sector. All should be coming with wise science-based leadership from the top. And we don't have that on any single factor. Every day that we think it looks like suddenly something has emerged of a positive sunray of light out of the federal government, it gets reversed hours later. The president himself seems to change his entire attitude about this epidemic with every single press conference he does. We could ignore the president's verisimilitude and focus on others in the federal government. But it is the case that the whole federal leadership is vacillating all over the place.”

On the impact on the presidential campaign

“I think it's effectively getting canceled slowly but surely. The Democrats have already made quite a number of changes in how they're campaigning, and President Trump has stated repeatedly that he's going to continue to hold rallies and continue to aim towards a massive GOP convention. But in practical terms, he has not in the last couple of weeks had any of those giant rallies. You know, they're still trying to deny the relevance of three individuals having contracted COVID after visiting with him at Mar a Lago. But it's clear that there have already been COVID cases around the president. Whether he's become infected or not is irrelevant in a way. It means that the virus is there. It's potentially in the White House, and it certainly was in Mar a Lago, his secondary White House. What I think is already beginning to shift is much, much more use of digital campaigning and probably digital voting. And then, of course, everybody that knows anything about cyber security is going to be very nervous. But I think for the time being, we absolutely can't have large crowds. We can't have a candidate acting like a vector, like a mosquito shaking hand after hand after hand.”

Karyn Miller-Medzon produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Tinku Ray. Allison Hagan adapted it for the web.

MJamesK on March 19th, 2020 at 03:47 UTC »

Sorry, we've spent the last four years having the following truths revealed to us in crystal clarity:

This administration is the most corrupt and inept in all of U.S. history (thx, Trump voters!) This administration is literally above the law (thx, Senate Republicans!) This administration only cares about enriching themselves and their ultra wealthy friends and literally doesn't give a single fuck about America. (thx, Trump!)

Best we can do is some angry comments online.

MTDreams123 on March 19th, 2020 at 01:51 UTC »

The incompetence has been absurd. Took months to develop and deploy tests and this administration can't even communicate basic facts about the virus.

voteinorout on March 19th, 2020 at 01:48 UTC »

We've been keeping a list of why:

He disbanded his global health security team saying "I'm a business person, I don't like having thousands of people around when you don't need them. When we need them, we can get them back very quickly."https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-struggles-explain-why-he-disbanded-his-global-health-team-n1153221?cid=sm_fb_maddow

in May 2018, the global health section of the CDC was so drastically cut in 2018 that much of its staff was laid off and the number of countries it was working in was reduced from 49 to merely 10.https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/coronavirus-outbreak-continues-trump-fails-inspire-confidence-n1142456?icid=related

There was infighting at the Department of Health and Human Services and the need to flatter Trump impeded the response to the coronavirus.https://www.npr.org/2020/03/12/814881355/white-house-knew-coronavirus-would-be-a-major-threat-but-response-fell-short

Due to his policies, there was a "serious erosion of children’s health coverage [that] is due in large part to the Trump Administration’s actions that have made health care harder to access and have deterred families from enrolling their children.”https://khn.org/news/number-of-americans-without-insurance-rises-in-2018/

One day after Pence was put in charge, he goes to a conservative conference... “I’m here for one reason, and one reason only...our movement, our party, and America need four more years of Donald Trump in the White House.”https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/mike-pence-coronavirus-cpac-959177/

He told a crowd at a rally on Feb. 28 “This is their new hoax,” turning criticism of his coronavirus response into a battle cry.https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1233570800223084544

On February 28th, he said the Coronavirus “It’s going to disappear. One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/watch/trump-coronavirus-will-disappear-one-day-like-a-miracle-79636549723

The United States declined to use coronavirus test kits available from the World Health Organization, while saying yes to company that Trump previously owned stock in, whose CEO was at the 2017 state dinner. https://shero.substack.com/p/update-trump-could-profit-from-coronavirus

After the 2001 anthrax attacks — when white powder in envelopes sparked widespread panic — the CDC created a 450-page manual outlining how U.S. leaders should talk to the public during crises, and Trump doesn’t follow it.https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/14/cdc-manual-crisis-coronavirus-trump/

Due to lack of leadership, we had to rely on Ohio to be the leader...their Governor saying, "It is important for us to take aggressive action to protect Ohioans. The actions that we take now will, in fact, save lives. That we are sure of.”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/03/14/coronavirus-ohio-emerges-leader-u-s-coronavirus-response/5049489002/

Even Ted Cruz said we're moving too slow: Sen. Ted Cruz, a loyal supporter of Trump, was critical of the administration’s response to the ongoing public health crisis over novel coronavirus and its rollout of tests, saying it was "undoubtedly" too slow.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/quarantine-sen-ted-cruz-critical-trump-administrations-handling/story?id=69593208

There were two videos that emerged showing Trump talking about cutting pandemic team in 2018, despite saying last week 'I didn't know about it'. Now is not the time for lies.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/coronavirus-video-trump-pandemic-team-cut-2018-a9405191.html

Watch all the evidence laid out in this video supercut "Anatomy of a Viral Lie", which shows footage of all the lies Trump has said around Covid-19, which came surprisingly from The Bulwark. https://thebulwark.com/anatomy-of-a-viral-lie/

Even more fantastic quick summary Trump Coronavirus Calendar video by The Recount https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1240043597434687489?

A federal judge was forced to block a Trump administration rule change that would have thrown an estimated 700,000 low-income Americans off the food stamp rolls during the Coronavirus epidemic.

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-03-17/judge-coronavirus-blocks-food-stamp-cuts A payroll tax cut proposed by Trump to help w/ the COVID-19 outbreak would mean bigger paychecks for workers, but it could come with big consequences later, as much as $840 billion and a 12% tax increase.

https://www.investmentnews.com/trump-payroll-tax-holiday-social-security-medicare-189958

More research + links to read here: https://www.voteinorout.com/@DonaldTrump/