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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump Has Sabotaged America's Coronavirus Response
As it improvises its way through a public health crisis, the United States has never been less prepared for a pandemic.https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/
For the United States, the answers are especially worrying because the government has intentionally rendered itself incapable. In 2018, the Trump administration fired the governments entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure. In numerous phone calls and emails with key agencies across the U.S. government, the only consistent response I encountered was distressed confusion. If the United States still has a clear chain of command for pandemic response, the White House urgently needs to clarify what it isIf the United States still has a clear chain of command for pandemic response, the White House urgently needs to clarify what it isnot just for the public but for the government itself, which largely finds itself in the dark.
When Ebola broke out in West Africa in 2014, President Barack Obama recognized that responding to the outbreak overseas, while also protecting Americans at home, involved multiple U.S. government departments and agencies, none of which were speaking to one another. Basically, the U.S. pandemic infrastructure was an enormous orchestra full of talented, egotistical players, each jockeying for solos and fame, refusing to rehearse, and demanding higher salariesall without a conductor. To bring order and harmony to the chaos, rein in the agency egos, and create a coherent multiagency response overseas and on the homefront, Obama anointed a former vice presidential staffer, Ronald Klain, as a sort of epidemic czar inside the White House, clearly stipulated the roles and budgets of various agencies, and placed incident commanders in charge in each Ebola-hit country and inside the United States. The orchestra may have still had its off-key instruments, but it played the same tune.
Building on the Ebola experience, the Obama administration set up a permanent epidemic monitoring and command group inside the White House National Security Council (NSC) and another in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)both of which followed the scientific and public health leads of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the diplomatic advice of the State Department.
On the domestic front, the real business of assuring public health and safety is a local matter, executed by state, county, and city departments that operate under a mosaic of laws and regulations that vary jurisdiction by jurisdiction. Some massive cities, such as New York City or Boston, have large budgets, clear regulations, and epidemic experiences that have left deep benches of medical and public health talent. But much of the United States is less fortunate on the local level, struggling with underfunded agencies, understaffing, and no genuine epidemic experience. Large and small, Americas localities rely in times of public health crisis on the federal government.
Bureaucracy matters. Without it, theres nothing to coherently manage an alphabet soup of agencies housed in departments ranging from Defense to Commerce, Homeland Security to Health and Human Services (HHS).
But thats all gone now.
In the spring of 2018, the White House pushed Congress to cut funding for Obama-era disease security programs, proposing to eliminate $252 million in previously committed resources for rebuilding health systems in Ebola-ravaged Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. Under fire from both sides of the aisle, President Donald Trump dropped the proposal to eliminate Ebola funds a month later. But other White House efforts included reducing $15 billion in national health spending and cutting the global disease-fighting operational budgets of the CDC, NSC, DHS, and HHS. And the governments $30 million Complex Crises Fund was eliminated.
lark
(23,097 posts)First they want to take every bit of our money, deny us ability to get healthcare for afforable prices, then let us die. Impotus3 has cut regulations for nursing homes and made them far more dangerous and he intends to cut Social Security and Medicaid and Medicare - once Russia steals another election for him.
certainot
(9,090 posts)with democrats ignoring talk radio it enables them to try a national emergency to stop the election or aat least add havoc and fear to the elections along with accusing dems of stealing elections
they used ebola successfully in 2014 and dems must consider trumps overcrowding and lack of treatment at immigration centers and talk radio selling congo immigrants in 'caravans' storming the border
now coronavirus adds to their opportunities - all of it heavily dependent on democrats and the left ignoring talk radio
G_j
(40,367 posts)of course
RicROC
(1,204 posts)halestorm is coming in November.
Turbineguy
(37,322 posts)librechik
(30,674 posts)I'll show them! Fire em all"
On Trump's tombstone
Wounded Bear
(58,648 posts)They love to defund shit like CDC and NIH and deny people health care.
A for profit health care industry cannot handle a real pandemic.
paleotn
(17,912 posts)And it doesn't matter whether a government function is crucial, effective, ineffective or indifferent. They weren't shitting us about shrink to the size they can drown in a bathtub. We're headed for government run by Weyland / Yutani.
dlk
(11,561 posts)Glorfindel
(9,729 posts)free to die. "Lando the free, Homer the brave!"
dlk
(11,561 posts)Unfortunately, propaganda works.
wnylib
(21,438 posts)They don't give a damn about finances, titles, or political parties. This one in particular spreads easily in droplets through the air, like the common cold does. By breathing the same air as an infected person who might not be showing symptoms yet, you can get it. Or by touching a surface an infected person has touched.
Trump party members will have access to better medical care if they become sick, but if they are not in good general health, or are in a vulnerable category, e.g. a senior citizen, better health care might not help them much. Even if they have had a flu shot, it might not be effective against this specific virus and its mutations.
Think of Trump's general health, the age of Moscow Mitch, etc. Our own Senators and House members also would be as vulnerable to catching it as the rest of us.
Think what a pandemic could do to political demographics, too. Besides the physical risks that this corona virus presents, there would be political and economic consequences if it becomes widespread
malaise
(268,966 posts)There is nothing he won't sabotage. ALl attention must be on him 24/7
If only he'd go on the front line, pick up the fucking virus and spare our planet.
PHEW!!
usaf-vet
(6,181 posts)matt819
(10,749 posts)Then the buffoon will claim credit and say, hey, what was the fuss all about.
Traildogbob
(8,726 posts)That will pay for all his golf to date and just might be enough to cover the next year. And.....God sent him. MAGA! No worries, rapture is near, locust in Somolia, new superbugs, countries on fire. Pompeo and GOP evilgelicals are dancing in the streets. Just kill the world, what The loving Jesus would do. Everything he touches dies. Now humanity, as he smirks. 72 Ivanka virgians await him on a golden chair next to God.
NCjack
(10,279 posts)by Trumper scientists now, always. Can't trust them.)
Texin
(2,596 posts)Sit back and just let nature take its course, and if it kills millions, so be it. "More resources for me!", say they. There fervent hope is that the "great unwashed" will all die out from disease, mudslides (and that especially is intended "infidels" living on the west coast from Los Angeles to Seattle and Eastern seaboard, along with the god hating brown and "slant-eyed" people in all those "Oriental" places.
Martin Eden
(12,864 posts)Literally.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,852 posts)Which means that the defunding of various institutions won't really matter this time around.
But if something really deadly happens -- if an ebola-like virus mutates to become airborne -- then we all may actually die.
Takket
(21,563 posts)the relentless revenue cuts handed out to the 1% coupled with literally giving the pentagon more money then they even ask for has lead us down this path. we invest in basically nothing now on discretionary funds other than the military.
Maru Kitteh
(28,339 posts)do believe me.