[Genuine Realist]

Of course, all the crisis planning in the world doesn't do you any good if you don't know there's a crisis. The more I read, the more I'm struck by the quantum of activity that begins about January 28th. People begin to buy face masks in bulk. A White House staffer writes a memo on January 29th. Trump imposes a travel ban on the 31st. 

Except for the part where Trump was briefed by Alex Azar on the developing pandemic on Jan 18 (link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/health-chie...1587570514)  Azar himself had been alerted by the CDC 2 weeks earlier. And the WHO issuing its first situation on January 21.  Moreover, Trump imposed the travel ban and then slept through the month of February, which is my problem.  Whatever else you think, he was aware enough of the situation by the end of January to try to do something about it, but he didn't follow through by doing all the other things that I've written at length about, and that would have been required to keep this from going out of control.

Here's a list of Trump comments as the epidemic spread:

Jan. 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”
Feb. 10: “Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.”
Feb. 24: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. … Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”
Feb. 27: “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
March 4: “Some people will have this at a very light level and won’t even go to a doctor or hospital, and they’ll get better. There are many people like that.” (to be fair to Trump, this statement is factually correct, so maybe exclude it)
March 9: “The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power ... to inflame the CoronaVirus situation.” (speaks to some people's point about this being a bipartisan blindness)
March 10: “We’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”

It wasn't until March 14 that Trump finally acknowledged the seriousness of the pandemic, when he declared a national emergency: “We’re using the full power of the federal government to defeat the virus, and that’s what we’ve been doing.”


BC

That is a rather unusual interpretation of the article, to put it mildly. The gist damns Azar in about every way possible. At that January 18tb briefing, he also reassured the Administration that he had all the resources necessary for containment. The tune changed at the end of January , when just about everything changed. Some sort of tipping point occurred on the 28th.

[Genuine Realist]

Of course, all the crisis planning in the world doesn't do you any good if you don't know there's a crisis. The more I read, the more I'm struck by the quantum of activity that begins about January 28th. People begin to buy face masks in bulk. A White House staffer writes a memo on January 29th. Trump imposes a travel ban on the 31st. 

Except for the part where Trump was briefed by Alex Azar on the developing pandemic on Jan 18 (link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/health-chie...1587570514)  Azar himself had been alerted by the CDC 2 weeks earlier. And the WHO issuing its first situation on January 21.  Moreover, Trump imposed the travel ban and then slept through the month of February, which is my problem.  Whatever else you think, he was aware enough of the situation by the end of January to try to do something about it, but he didn't follow through by doing all the other things that I've written at length about, and that would have been required to keep this from going out of control.

Here's a list of Trump comments as the epidemic spread:

Jan. 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”
Feb. 10: “Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.”
Feb. 24: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. … Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”
Feb. 27: “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
March 4: “Some people will have this at a very light level and won’t even go to a doctor or hospital, and they’ll get better. There are many people like that.” (to be fair to Trump, this statement is factually correct, so maybe exclude it)
March 9: “The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power ... to inflame the CoronaVirus situation.” (speaks to some people's point about this being a bipartisan blindness)
March 10: “We’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”

It wasn't until March 14 that Trump finally acknowledged the seriousness of the pandemic, when he declared a national emergency: “We’re using the full power of the federal government to defeat the virus, and that’s what we’ve been doing.”


BC

That is a rather unusual interpretation of the article, to put it mildly. The gist damns Azar in about every way possible. At that January 18tb briefing, he also reassured the Administration that he had all the resources necessary for containment. The tune changed at the end of January , when just about everything changed. Some sort of tipping point occurred on the 28th.