The Obama White House Warned Trump In 2017 About A Potential Global Pandemic

[TomCADem]

7. Before Trump's inauguration, a warning: 'The worst influenza pandemic since 1918'

It is amazing. The Obama administration pretty much provided an outline of what might happen and what to do, and the Trump administration decided to do the opposite it seems.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/16/trump-inauguration-warning-scenario-pandemic-132797

Seven days before Donald Trump took office, his aides faced a major test: the rapid, global spread of a dangerous virus in cities like London and Seoul, one serious enough that some countries were imposing travel bans.

In a sober briefing, Trump’s incoming team learned that the disease was an emerging pandemic — a strain of novel influenza known as H9N2 — and that health systems were crashing in Asia, overwhelmed by the demand.

* * *
Obama aides, in op-eds and essays ripping the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus, officially called COVID-19, have pointed to the Jan. 13, 2017, session as a key example of their effort to press the importance of pandemic preparedness to their successors.

In a Friday op-ed, Susan Rice, Obama’s national security adviser, blasted Trump for comments such as “you can never really think” that a pandemic like the coronavirus “is going to happen.” She mentioned the 2017 session as one of many instances of the Obama administration’s efforts to help their successor be ready for such a challenge. She also slammed the Trump team for dismantling the National Security Council section that would play a lead role in organizing the U.S. response to a global pandemic.