By Bob Williams, Stevensville
What a golden opportunity for President Trump. Almost heaven sent. Put the right people in the right places, with appropriate experience, to respond to the COVID-19 disease pandemic. Then run for re-election.
President Trump heard intelligence reports about a dangerous new disease that started in China in November, and continued in December. Then heard from Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, that on January 3, Chinese colleagues warned Dr. Redfield, Director of the USA Center for Disease Control and Prevention, about characteristics of the novel coronavirus active in Wuhan, China. The novel coronavirus that could infect thousands in America. Like it was infecting thousands in industrialized Wuhan. On January 23, the government of China closed down the Wuhan Tianhe airport, and all travel outside of Wuhan, the capital city of the central province, Hubei.
The New York Times reports that in early January the National Security Council office responsible for tracking down pandemics received intelligence reports predicting the novel coronavirus would spread to the USA. And that the NSC soon began raising options of having people stay home from work and shutting down large cities.
President Trump could well have chosen to protect the USA from the COVID-19 disease epidemic, and protect his chance of being re-elected, by putting in place not Jared Kushner and politicians, but professionals, drawing on 15 years of USA experience in reducing the impact of harmful virus epidemics.
Surely Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, emphasized to President Trump that reducing the impact and costs of COVID-19 will sooner get USA back to full employment with a strong economy, maintaining its sector share of the world market. With a growing economy that stock and bond market investors want to see. When corporate earnings go up, stock prices go up.
Therefore, let the professionals manage the USA response to COVID-19.
Secretary Azar, as an attorney, knowing that the Trump transition team was briefed on how to respond to an epidemic, may have argued legal necessity. Necessity to put the right people in the right places, to reduce impact and costs, and sooner put investments and people back to work.
Because that’s the way to win a more decisive victory for the 45th President of the USA.
Campaign that President Trump put the right people in the right place. And point out how good they did, compared to how other countries responded to the COVID-19 disease pandemic. Say with distribution of medical supplies and equipment. And with percentage of population reliably tested for COVID-19.
Some people infected with COVID-19 disease do not present symptoms. Most industrialized countries imposed strict screening of travelers from China.
In conclusion, we have missed the recent opportunity to restrict travelers from China into the USA. Check out the recent breaking story from the New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/04/us/coronavirus-china-travel-restrictions.html
Caution, some of the numbers are not date specified. For instance, supposedly 4,000 travelers from Wuhan (since when, I wonder) entered the USA before the February 2, 2020, partial ban on travelers entering the USA from China. Since then, some 40,000 travelers have entered the USA from China. Importantly, since January 1, some 430,000 people, mostly in January, have entered the USA from China. (430,000 seems big. If so, we should have known that before now.)
Of equal importance are recent reports that in late January, a lot of high ranking federal officials, on a ‘Red Dawn’ type email chain, spoke of probable huge impact of COVID-19, and the gross failure to shut borders, and test for COVID-19, and restrict social interactions.