Posted on 02/28/2020 5:03:12 AM PST by Kaslin
Not until well into the Democratic debate Tuesday night did the COVID-19 coronavirus come up, and it was Mike Bloomberg, not a CBS moderator, who raised it:
"The president fired the pandemic specialist in this country two years ago," the former New York mayor said. "There's nobody here to figure out what the hell we should be doing. And he's defunded the CDC."
Not 24 hours later, President Donald Trump, home from India, was in the White House briefing room, flanked by the nation's foremost health experts, deputizing Vice President Mike Pence to head the task force to lead America's battle against the spreading disease.
Yet, by Thursday noon, the Dow Jones average was down 3,000 points on the week, a 10% plunge from its recent all-time high.
Trillions of dollars in equity value had been wiped out. The great bull market of the Trump presidency may be history.
Though only 60 Americans are known to have been infected, and none has yet died, fear has begun to grip the nation as well as the world. Yet, as of now, the numbers don't justify the emotion.
The death toll as of Thursday was 2,800, out of 82,000 cases of coronavirus worldwide. The great majority of these are in China, where the virus originated, though the disease has spread to every continent, with Italy and South Korea the hardest hit outside of China.
Whatever happens medically -- the mortality rate of the virus is between 2 and 3% -- it's hard to see how the world averts a recession if COVID-19 is not soon contained and controlled.
Already, Democrats are piling on Trump for cutting funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and failing to reflect the seriousness of the threat. And the issue does present a challenge to Trump's presidency. His handling of it may determine his stature as chief executive.
Yet the issue is also tailor-made for Trump.
First, the disease comes out of Xi Jinping's China, not Trump's USA.
Second, the president occupies what Theodore Roosevelt called the "bully pulpit," the White House. He can use that pulpit daily to command the airwaves and inform, lead, unite and direct the nation during what could be a months-long crisis. And Trump alone has the power to declare a national emergency, should that be needed.
If Trump acts as a leader, urging unity in the struggle to contain the virus and discover a vaccine, the hectoring from the Democratic left, already begun, can come to be seen as unpatriotic.
Also, Trump's probable opponent this fall, who would be in charge of preventing the coronavirus from spreading like the Spanish Flu of 1918-19, is Bernie Sanders. And what are Sanders' credentials and plans?
Under "Medicare for All," Sanders intends to nationalize the entire U.S. heath care system and abolish the private health insurance plans of 140 million Americans who now depend on them.
As for the pharmaceutical industry, uniquely situated to assist in the crash effort to find a cure for the coronavirus, Sanders will confiscate its profits and put those profiteers out of business.
Still, given the alarming news coming from counties all over the globe, there is a risk that by November, the U.S. and the world may have tumbled into a recession. Airlines are already canceling flights to and from Asia. Cruise ships are pulling into ports and off-loading passengers. Travel and tourism are suffering terribly. Schools are closing.
Chinese factories that produce essential parts for factories and finished products in the U.S., Europe and Asia are shutting down. Supply chains are being severed. Shortages are cropping up.
The Japanese are talking of canceling the Olympics. If the virus spreads here, the question arises: Will our two parties still hold their nominating conventions this summer in Milwaukee and Charlotte?
The chickens of globalization are coming home to roost.
In recent decades, America's economic and political elites of both parties surrendered America's economic independence for globalism, a new interdependence of nations, where we Americans no longer rely on ourselves alone for the vital necessities of our national life.
That decision is now being exposed as the folly against which Hamilton and economic nationalists always warned.
According to The Washington Post, critical ingredients of medicines and drugs, upon which many American lives depend, are made in Chinese factories now in danger of being shut down.
In the ongoing struggle between nationalism and globalism, the globalists are taking a beating. Like the Chinese and Japanese and Koreans, Americans are not going to be looking to the WHO or U.N. to ensure their health, but to their own nation-states. And if a pandemic threatens, transnationalism's "open borders" ideology is not a policy that will bring universal acclamation.
Like Trump's America, all nations, in this crisis, are going to put their own people first. As they should.
Nice balanced piece. Trump had better get farther out in front and quick. They’re already calling it the Trump Virus — so unfair and so unhelpful. The country needs to pull together ...and we truly need to re-think globalism — it will be the end to civilization at some point.
As they said, globalism is great, until you’re here with an uncurable virus ...no global system is going to take care of you on the ground. You’re going to have to rely on your own system, and it better be strong.
In the US, more people have died from a vending machine falling on them, than the coronavirus.
Yep. The Chinese Americans brought this to us. Now all those global items we get may stop coming to the United States. Good time to reve up manufacturing. This could be our world war 2 where we increased manufacturing of war items. Now it can be corno items that we are not getting. Trump putting us as America first three years ago might have saved the country overall.
I love President Trump.
I was boosting him here before the escalator reached the bottom. I voted for him and I plan to vote for him again.
And it is the nature of politicians and the political life, shown over and over again in pandemic wargames,(Dark Winter, Atlantic Storm, Clade X) that the right decisions always get made and they always, always get made one or two replication cycles too late.
The time to lead was the day Wuhan City was closed, January 23, 2020. The flights should have stopped that day. We had perhaps another ten days to put up quarantine stations to hold tens of thousands on Midway and other Pacific islands.
But no leader who holds his post because of voting could have done that, not even Donald Trump.
But it is a fact that Donald Trump is the one who has the means and the opportunity to do that, and he didn’t.
There are STILL, right here, every day, people advocating complicated theories about how an integrated, globalized economy can and will survive.
You don’t need “liberals” or “Dems” to explain what has happened in the 36 days since the last chance to stop this passed by. There are plenty of commenters here who make the case that business as usual should be protected.
So, business as usual is what we did, it’s what every leader of every country that elects politicians did.
And here we are.
Excellent post. I agree 100%
Let’s not forget who is responsible for cleaning house at the CDC— Josh Bolton.
If your voters are concern you should be concern if you are running for office. Reason for so many concern voters:
- Coronavirus is a type of flu
- There is no standard treatment for Coronavirus, there is for the flu
- There are no vaccine for the Coronavirus, there is for the flu
- CDC does have a tracking system for the flu, it does not for Coronavirus
- Coronavirus and the flu can kill seniors and people with heath conditions
- A lot of Americans are concern Coronavirus: does not matter how they are getting their news
- The CDC has only tested 445 people while countries like South Korea has tested over 30,000 people. The CDC sent out faulty test kits early Feb. CDC has dropped the ball on testing by testing on certain people and refusing to test others
- We have first case of unknown origin in Ca, the doctor requested testing CDC did not test at first. How long did this person expose other people before being tested
- Coronavirus is not just in China, community spread outbreaks in South Korea, Japan, Italy, and other parts of Europe now. First World Nations, not just third world outbreaks
Before you respond yes I know the medical data on the number of people who die from the flu and etc…. I do know the concerns are drum up by the Media.
I think Vice President Pence needs to address testing, monitoring, and communicating to the public. This one address the panic and concern in the general public.
Orange Man Bad is not as effective as “Tricky Dick”. Plus there is an alt media out here. There is EVIL in the republic and it IS NOT POTUS.
HOORAY Chief
Pence and Trump are doing just fine, this will blow over in a few months. Wash your hands regularly and stay home if you are sick.
Could we please stop this utter idiotic nonsense. Sometimes a quick google search for fact checking can show how wrong the panic spreaders are: See: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html
Coronavirius is in the cold virus family, not the flu
Korea tested thousands yesterday. Your tracking page indicates 441 YTD in the US.
The problem? Debating on who pays for it.
Our country is so dysfunctional we deserve everything coming at us. The ONLY people you can count on is YOU. We need to stop looking to our government to solve this problem.
“And here we are.”
No kidding, same here regarding Trump. By my estimate, over 1 million people have de-boarded from aircraft from Asia, yet we still only have 15 cases (other than the Love Boat)...I think things will move pretty fast here, once we start testing.
A test that has even a small percentage of false positives and false negative employed against an unexposed population is worse than useless. 2% false positive widely deployed will overwhelm our health care system with folks who are not in fact exposed taking up critical resources to deal not only with this but other problems.
Likewise falsely categorize 2% of infected patients as just having flu or colds and release them and you might as well not have a quarantine system, because you have told them it is ok to go on spreading around whatever cold or flu you think they have.
It's basic statistics that professionals know. The problem is the folks who are spreading lies and misinformation to try to bolster the Orange Man bad meme.
Nice balanced piece. Trump had better get farther out in front and quick. They’re already calling it the Trump Virus — so unfair and so unhelpful. The country needs to pull together ...and we truly need to re-think globalism — it will be the end to civilization at some point.
As they said, globalism is great, until you’re here with an uncurable virus ...no global system is going to take care of you on the ground. You’re going to have to rely on your own system, and it better be strong.
...
I agree was well-written. I look on CNBC and they grab onto a 400 point pre-market opening even though it is toggled between 100 and 200 points for the past 2 hours. It is as if they have advanced knowledge that the shorters will be pushing it for - 400 at opening so they’re keeping it there cuz they know they’re going to be right. This is the kind of crap that President Trump needs to call out. The shorters and the Bilderberg people are the ones trying to use yes the Chinese and United States and anybody else to keep their hold on their globalist rule. I am sure they have offered China various leadership positions in this so they’re willing to sacrifice thousands of people with no problem just like they did when they built the Three Gorges Dam. I think close to a million people died and were buried in villages that refused to move. President Trump should use between 12 noon and 4 p.m. today to beat down the shorters and the globalist who are trying to end the week on a sour note going into the weekend. They will be shorting and shorting and shorting up to 4 p.m. to make sure the market ends in the red today.
Yeah, ive already had meeting with some that are off of “self quarantine “ from traveling. It’s out in the general public. But, my guess is that its not going be huge problem. Simply a reminder of mortality .
The mainstream media is doing a poor job educating the American people about this virus.
First, “Coronavirus” is a family of virus, there are many members. It was first identified in the 1960s. The virus that causes the common cold and the flu are members of this family.
If the virus has been around a long time why the government panic at this time?
My guess is because of the source of this version of the virus. A military Bio Lab (within walking distance to the market where the virus was first known to appear).
It does not appear that this virus is more lethal then other version of the virus, so what were the Chinese trying to create?
There are several (reported) odd things about this version. One the long incubation period and that someone could be a carrier but they themselves do not show any symptoms (not getting sick).
To me (tin foil hat time) this would make for a good biological weapon. Infect a person and then send them into a targeted area. The carrier not getting sick and the symptoms don’t appear until after your agent left the area.
Is this what they were doing? Don’t know.
However I do believe the release of the virus in China was an accident. I also think that the Chinese government has provided secret information to various world leaders so they could get ahead of the virus.
In the end, I think the virus is going to spread like the flu and a small percentage of people will die from it.
One important thing you touched on - messaging. There are news articles here and there about the test situation being worked out, and local health departments being able to test as of yesterday.
They also changed the screening protocol for testing to include all countries that are endemic, as well as severe pneumonia without another cause.
Other big things happened too, like Pence naming Debbie Birx as coordinator.
Travel advisories ramped up.
The administration should be talking to the American public daily about this. Trump needs tweet specific improvements like those I mentioned, not generalized statements that our team is doing great.
My theory is:
SOMEONE was majorly dropping the ball at the CDC or HHS or both, but since Pence got involved, things were set right immediately.
It may be too late at this point, but I wonder if we will ever know if this display of CDC incompetence was the result of a few moles who want to take down this administration. Testing aside, there were all kinds of verbiage and protocols that made zero sense watching what was going on overseas. I know it has only been 6 weeks, but you err on the side of caution.
At the same time, the President is the captain of the ship. He should have been listening to doctors and experts rather than bureaucrats. He is outstanding in what he does, but a scientist he is not. That’s when you surround yourself with the best. Maybe he thought he had.
I do know that the WHO and CDC said for over a month it was no big deal (because they believed China maybe) then literally, overnight it became a huge deal. Rather than the CDC and HHS coming out and honestly telling Americans what had happened, they stayed with a ruse until they couldn’t any longer.
And of course, now of course everyone is screaming it is POTUS and VP’s fault. Some suggested he is lying, I think he is sharing the info he was given and they are lying. The other night looked like a pure setup - while he was giving an update all is ok, the big news was ready to break in CA, and hit the press immediately after the press conference. I believe it was timed that way on purpose. They desperately want this to be his “Katrina”
He’s got to get in front of it now. I do wish he’d be more forthcoming with facts. The market is going to do what it’s going to do, now or later.
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