Operation reopen America: are we about to witness a second historic failure of leadership from Trump

[babylonsister]

Operation reopen America: are we about to witness a second historic failure of leadership from Trump?
Without mass testing, contact tracing, and protective equipment for health workers – all in critically short supply – the president’s plan could be disastrous
by Ed Pilkington and Dominic Rushe in New York
Sat 18 Apr 2020 06.00 EDT

snip//

Unveiling new guidelines for the loosening of the lockdown, he committed his administration to a “science-based reopening”. He added: “We are starting our life again, we are starting rejuvenation of our economy again, in a safe and structured and very responsible fashion.”

Beyond the cloistered confines of the White House an alternative interpretation of events was gathering force. On a day in which the US suffered its highest death toll from Covid-19, with a total of more than 680,000 confirmed cases and 34,000 deaths, public health experts were scrutinising the president’s new guidelines and coming to rather different conclusions.

“This isn’t a plan, it’s barely a PowerPoint,” spluttered Ron Klain on Twitter. Klain, the US government’s Ebola tsar during the last health crisis to test the White House, in 2014, said the proposals contained “no provision to ramp up testing, no standard on levels of disease before opening, no protections for workers or customers”.

•••

On 28 March the Guardian exposed the missing six weeks lost as a result of Trump’s dithering and downplaying of the crisis when the virus first struck. Jeremy Konyndyk, another central figure in the US battle against Ebola, told the Guardian that the Trump administration’s initial response was “one of the greatest failures of basic governance and leadership in modern times”.

Now that the US is contemplating a shift into the second phase of the crisis – a tentative reopening of the economy – scientists and public health officials are agreed that three pillars need to be put into place to manage the transition safely. They are: mass testing to identify those who are infected, contact tracing to isolate other people who may have caught Covid-19 from them, and personal protective equipment (PPE) to shield frontline healthcare workers from any flare-up.

A chorus of expert voices has also begun to be heard warning that those three essential pillars remain in critically short supply throughout the US. Less than a month after the Guardian’s exploration of the missing six weeks, the chilling recognition is dawning that the country is heading for a second massive failure of governance under Trump, this time on an even bigger scale.

more...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/18/operation-reopen-america-are-we-about-to-witness-a-second-historic-failure-of-leadership-from-trump?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR2FzDJPts5c9a4h5f8ikfNY6jqpWhw_9eWRUKFqPcztxfZvooV17I1ZOUk

[dem4decades]

1. Maybe the second reblaming of the Governor's?

[Baclava]

2. His failures have never stopped! He is closing in the death totals from the entire Vietnam War!

In a MONTH!

Him and all his enablers should be brought up on war crimes!

[dalton99a]

9. +1

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. It's a good article. . . . nt

[paleotn]

4. Governors in the NE aren't playing along....

nor on the west coast. Or parts of the midwest. They're going to do it right and there's nothing shit stain can do about that. If they go through with this ill conceived and unprepared it will burn down red America, not blue. Part of me is heartbroken about this...the other part of me says fuck them. They asked for this, let them reap it.

[wryter2000]

6. It'll totally blow up in states with Republicans in charge

In an election year

[ALBliberal]

5. I think our governor in N.M. will be guided by science and facts thank God.

[Nitram]

7. Hopefully the governors' better common sense will prevail, and any order by Trump

to resume business was usual will be ignored.Then stand back and watch his head explode. Again.

[dalton99a]

8. The monster is hell bent on killing more Americans

which is his everyday goal

[SunSeeker]

10. It really is horrific. All of the pain of this lockdown will be for naught.

Covid-19 will just explode.

[Mc Mike]

11. It's the repug way. When your 'policy' is proven a disastrous failure, double down on it.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

12. Absolutely

[Blue Owl]

13. Deathblow II: Donnie's Double Down

n/t

[uponit7771]

14. K&R, Puntin's Whore feels he wins either way; Stay close blame the 30% UE rate on states if they ...

... open up for a small spike then he'll take credit for most states complying.

There's a time decay in all of this though, looks like IMHE irresponsibly is saying May 18 with tons of ifs in the model.