Trump Doubled Double On China's COVID-19 Mistakes
The first case of COVID-19 appeared in December 2019, though it was not identified as new virus until December 27th. On December 31st China notifies the WHO of the new disease.
China then denies that the COVID-19 is spreading or that there are new cases. On January 11, China records its first death. On January 13th, the first COVID-19 case is reported outside of China in Thailand. It is not until January 20 that China confirms human-to-human transmission of the virus, rather than the virus being transmitted from livestock.
On January 21, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirms the first COVID-19 case in the United States and China newspapers report on the coronavirus epidemic. On January 23, about three weeks after the discovery of the first case of COVID-19, Wuhan and three other Chinese cities are put on lockdown. So, it took about three weeks from initial discovery and denial for China to begin steps to quarantine and stop the spread of the virus.
https://www.axios.com/timeline-the-early-days-of-chinas-coronavirus-outbreak-and-cover-up-ee65211a-afb6-4641-97b8-353718a5faab.html
Axios has compiled a timeline of the earliest weeks of the coronavirus outbreak in China, highlighting when the cover-up started and ended — and showing how, during that time, the virus already started spreading around the world, including to the United States.
Why it matters: A study published in March indicated that if Chinese authorities had acted three weeks earlier than they did, the number of coronavirus cases could have been reduced by 95% and its geographic spread limited.
This timeline, compiled from information reported by the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the South China Morning Post and other sources, shows that China's cover-up and the delay in serious measures to contain the virus lasted about three weeks.
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The bottom line: China is now trying to create a narrative that it's an example of how to handle this crisis when in fact its early actions led to the virus spreading around the globe.
So, China should be faulted for its denial of the problem for about three weeks. You would think that the Trump administration would learn from China's mistakes. It didn't. Instead, despite having a head start since the U.S. knew from the beginning that COVID-19 was a new disease, Trump doubled down on China's denials.
Again, on January 21, the U.S. confirmed its first COVID-19 case. However, rather than take aggressive steps to try to stop the spread disease internationally, or prepare the U.S. domestically, Trump simply banned travel and emulated China's early steps of denying any risk to the U.S. as seen below. Worse, there reports are that the Trump administration was reluctant to begin widespread testing for fear of increasing the number of affected U.S. citizens. Publicly, Trump repeatedly minimized the potential impact of the COVID-19 from January 22nd until March 10th when he was still insisting that COVID-19 would just "go away."
Three days later, on March 13th, after the DOW began to tank, Trump made his National Emergency Declaration, over ten weeks after the COVID-19 was reported to the WHO on December 31st and over seven weeks after the first U.S. case. To put this into further perspective, South Korea discovered its first case at about the same time as the U.S.
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