[Genuine Realist]

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 only has to 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 other 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, or even just a few days earlier, it would have made a of immense proportions 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.

These would be cogent comments, if the United States was the only country in the world, or if other nations had reacted to the information available about Covid-19 with strong countermeasures and more alacrity. But  - as I have pointed out at wearismone length - no Western nation did so. (The island and peninsular nations that are proximate to China are outliers, which is why I always qualify the point with the word 'Western'. There's a lot of history there we don't know. Methinks both nations were on high alert because of negative experiences with SARS a few years earlier, and serendipity blessed them.)

Which means you can go on castigating the US administration for lacking a clairvoyance that no one anywhere seems to have had, or move on to what to me is the far more interesting question of what it was about that data available on Covid-19 that caused EVERY health service in the Western world to be caught flatfooted. 

Health intelligence is not like military and political intelligence. It's freely shared and circulated. The opposition in the US had the same brerfings, as did other nations in the WEst. There was no wave of action in the West, no op-eds, no leaks trumpeted on the front pages of the Times - in fact, the general tone both in the US and abroad was concern about overreaction in a xenophobic direction. The warnings are never quoted in full - I'd bet money that the reporters these days are quoting the fortune teller language common to all intelligence briefings, and ignoring the gist. I base this intuition on the utter lack of action in response to these dire warnings by anyone. Adam Schiff and the gang are not exactly noted for patience in these matters. But there was dead, cold silence, and even grumbling about what the Administration did do.

And I am now thoroughly sick of reiterating a point that I have made over and over and over, with the opposition endlessly running back to the US experience (as if it were singular and unique), and never anyone posting a contrary data point. 

So fire away. I'm done.

[Genuine Realist]

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 only has to 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 other 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, or even just a few days earlier, it would have made a of immense proportions 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.

These would be cogent comments, if the United States was the only country in the world, or if other nations had reacted to the information available about Covid-19 with strong countermeasures and more alacrity. But  - as I have pointed out at wearismone length - no Western nation did so. (The island and peninsular nations that are proximate to China are outliers, which is why I always qualify the point with the word 'Western'. There's a lot of history there we don't know. Methinks both nations were on high alert because of negative experiences with SARS a few years earlier, and serendipity blessed them.)

Which means you can go on castigating the US administration for lacking a clairvoyance that no one anywhere seems to have had, or move on to what to me is the far more interesting question of what it was about that data available on Covid-19 that caused EVERY health service in the Western world to be caught flatfooted. 

Health intelligence is not like military and political intelligence. It's freely shared and circulated. The opposition in the US had the same brerfings, as did other nations in the WEst. There was no wave of action in the West, no op-eds, no leaks trumpeted on the front pages of the Times - in fact, the general tone both in the US and abroad was concern about overreaction in a xenophobic direction. The warnings are never quoted in full - I'd bet money that the reporters these days are quoting the fortune teller language common to all intelligence briefings, and ignoring the gist. I base this intuition on the utter lack of action in response to these dire warnings by anyone. Adam Schiff and the gang are not exactly noted for patience in these matters. But there was dead, cold silence, and even grumbling about what the Administration did do.

And I am now thoroughly sick of reiterating a point that I have made over and over and over, with the opposition endlessly running back to the US experience (as if it were singular and unique), and never anyone posting a contrary data point. 

So fire away. I'm done.