The available evidence contradicts the idea that the administration didn't know enough to take aggressive action until mid-March.
In my last post, I gave some examples of what the administration knew in January and February. For example, in January, people within the administration were saying things like "the system was blinking red," "the Richter scale hit 8," "any way you cut it, this is going to be bad," "Now I’m screaming close the colleges and universities," and the like. January, not March.
U.S. intelligence agencies were warning about the risk of a pandemic starting in early January. The Defense Intelligence Agency, the Director of National Intelligence, the National Security Council, and the State Department were among these agencies. One of the news articles I linked said this: "Intelligence agencies 'have been warning on this since January,' said a U.S. official who had access to intelligence reporting . . . . 'Donald Trump may not have been expecting this, but a lot of other people in the government were — they just couldn’t get him to do anything about it.'" January, not March.
The administration's China travel restrictions prove the point that the administration recognized the risk we were facing. By January 31, the administration knew that aggressive action was needed. So they announced the China travel restrictions. The administration acknowledged the risk to the U.S., citing the CDC's conclusion that "the virus presents a serious public health threat."
But the travel restrictions weren't enough to protect Americans. The travel restrictions were too little, too late, and more importantly, they weren't accompanied by any other aggressive actions to prepare for the pandemic. One need only read the proclamation announcing the China travel restrictions to see why those restrictions wouldn't be enough to keep the virus out of America. The proclamation stated that the virus already was present in 22 countries including the U.S., that it had spread to people who had not visited China, and that human-to-human transmission was occurring in the U.S. and elsewhere. The idea that they could stop the virus merely by limiting some (but not all) travel from China was never going to work, not with the virus already being transmitted in 22 countries including ours. Relying only on the travel restrictions was woefully inadequate. The administration thought that the China travel restrictions were a silver bullet and they could go back to denying the problem and declare victory. Wrong. Much more was needed.
What needed to happen was for the administration to lead a concerted effort to educate the public, prepare for arrival of the virus, organize supplies of PPE and ventilators, coordinate the efforts of federal, state, and local authorities, develop testing and tracing, and so forth. Taking the virus seriously in early days could have made a big difference. If the U.S. had been brought to the point of imposing "shelter in place" a couple weeks earlier, or even just a few days earlier, it would have made a big difference in the numbers of cases and fatalities. Strong leadership could have made that happen. But that didn't happen, and couldn't happen, because the President was pursuing a different policy -- a policy of ignorance, denial, and inaction.
In my last post, I gave some examples of what the administration knew in January and February. For example, in January, people within the administration were saying things like "the system was blinking red," "the Richter scale hit 8," "any way you cut it, this is going to be bad," "Now I’m screaming close the colleges and universities," and the like. January, not March.
U.S. intelligence agencies were warning about the risk of a pandemic starting in early January. The Defense Intelligence Agency, the Director of National Intelligence, the National Security Council, and the State Department were among these agencies. One of the news articles I linked said this: "Intelligence agencies 'have been warning on this since January,' said a U.S. official who had access to intelligence reporting . . . . 'Donald Trump may not have been expecting this, but a lot of other people in the government were — they just couldn’t get him to do anything about it.'" January, not March.
The administration's China travel restrictions prove the point that the administration recognized the risk we were facing. By January 31, the administration knew that aggressive action was needed. So they announced the China travel restrictions. The administration acknowledged the risk to the U.S., citing the CDC's conclusion that "the virus presents a serious public health threat."
But the travel restrictions weren't enough to protect Americans. The travel restrictions were too little, too late, and more importantly, they weren't accompanied by any other aggressive actions to prepare for the pandemic. One need only read the proclamation announcing the China travel restrictions to see why those restrictions wouldn't be enough to keep the virus out of America. The proclamation stated that the virus already was present in 22 countries including the U.S., that it had spread to people who had not visited China, and that human-to-human transmission was occurring in the U.S. and elsewhere. The idea that they could stop the virus merely by limiting some (but not all) travel from China was never going to work, not with the virus already being transmitted in 22 countries including ours. Relying only on the travel restrictions was woefully inadequate. The administration thought that the China travel restrictions were a silver bullet and they could go back to denying the problem and declare victory. Wrong. Much more was needed.
What needed to happen was for the administration to lead a concerted effort to educate the public, prepare for arrival of the virus, organize supplies of PPE and ventilators, coordinate the efforts of federal, state, and local authorities, develop testing and tracing, and so forth. Taking the virus seriously in early days could have made a big difference. If the U.S. had been brought to the point of imposing "shelter in place" a couple weeks earlier, or even just a few days earlier, it would have made a big difference in the numbers of cases and fatalities. Strong leadership could have made that happen. But that didn't happen, and couldn't happen, because the President was pursuing a different policy -- a policy of ignorance, denial, and inaction.