Posted on 03/22/2020 8:09:36 PM PDT by yesthatjallen
Several months before the coronavirus pandemic began, the Trump administration eliminated a key American public health position in Beijing intended to help detect disease outbreaks in China, Reuters has learned.
The American disease expert, a medical epidemiologist embedded in China’s disease control agency, left her post in July, according to four sources with knowledge of the issue. The first cases of the new coronavirus may have emerged as early as November, and as cases exploded, the Trump administration in February chastised China for censoring information about the outbreak and keeping U.S. experts from entering the country to help.
“It was heartbreaking to watch,” said Bao-Ping Zhu, a Chinese American who served in that role, which was funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, between 2007 and 2011. “If someone had been there, public health officials and governments across the world could have moved much faster.”
Zhu and the other sources said the American expert, Dr. Linda Quick, was a trainer of Chinese field epidemiologists who were deployed to the epicenter of outbreaks to help track, investigate and contain diseases. As an American CDC employee, they said, Quick was in an ideal position to be the eyes and ears on the ground for the United States and other countries on the coronavirus outbreak, and might have alerted them to the growing threat weeks earlier.
No other foreign disease experts were embedded to lead the program after Quick left in July, according to the sources. Zhu said an embedded expert can often get word of outbreaks early, after forming close relationships with Chinese counterparts.
SNIP
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Transparent Barbara Streisand
Here we go. One employee could have saved the world.
Rumor mongering by another butt-hurt completely unhinged never Trumper.
CDC head denied this, saying they have boosted CDC work in China.
It’s delusional. The Who organization couldn’t stop this
That is if the Chinese allowed that information out. This is not that problematic for me. As crazy as it is the original country of the, outbreak is responsible for what is reported to the WHO. You know what happened to Chinese doctors who raised the alarm, he ended up dead. This is more Deep State games being played.
BFD!
This among many other hit jobs are simply trying to push the “blame Trump” narrative.
Fortunately, most Americans are wise to what these pigs are attempting to push. Only the true believers on the left hype this nonsense.
This narrative will also fail for the left, IMO.
The real test will be getting our economy up to speed again in several weeks and getting the millions of unemployed new jobs and entrepreneurs funded.
The left wants to look back and judge from 20/20 hindsight. Most Americans are much more concerned about the future and how they are going to recover. Pushing blame over a virus is likely not a winning strategy, IMO.
If I recall correctly, some leaks a few years ago led to the executions of a bunch of U. S. intelligence assets in China.
Yes. The Chinese would have told that CDC doctor everything, or she would have cracked the case solo, while the rest of the US CDC contingent in China remained in the dark and Chinese whistleblowers were being thrown in jail.
The gloves come off against the next Democrat president. I’m tired of our side being civil to these idiots who will ruin this country if they’re allowed to fully implement their socialist agenda.
Some of the Chinese whistleblowers ended up dead.
There must never be another DemocRat president.
What nonsense.
The CDC Functionary was stationed in Beijing. So tell me how was she to know what was happening in Wuhan, 655 hundred miles away?
Do they seriously think the Chinese Communist Government is going to call her and tell her “Hey, we’ve got a serious viral outbreak going on over in Wuhan we think you should know all about!”
WHO was saying WHAT? WHERE? WHEN? WHY?” just as much as we were because they found out in mid-January just like the rest of the world when it got started being reported on Social Media, not before...
Exactly.
Another 'dedicated' woman working to protect America when she's unceremoniously told she's no longer needed.
A woman scorned calls Reuters reporter Marisa Taylor to cry on her shoulder.
“It was heartbreaking to watch,” said Bao-Ping Zhu, a Chinese American who served in that role, which was funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, between 2007 and 2011. “If someone had been there, public health officials and governments across the world could have moved much faster.” ( insert Emotional string-here)
Zhu and the other sources said the American expert, Dr. Linda Quick, was a trainer of Chinese field epidemiologists who were deployed to the epicenter of outbreaks to help track, investigate and contain diseases. As an American CDC employee, they said, Quick was in an ideal position to be the eyes and ears on the ground for the United States and other countries on the coronavirus outbreak, and might have alerted them to the growing threat weeks earlier. (Maybe, maybe not....)
No other foreign disease experts were embedded to lead the program after Quick left in July, according to the sources. Zhu said an embedded expert can often get word of outbreaks early, after forming close relationships with Chinese counterparts. (So, the rest of the world abandoned this place as well?)
Zhu and the other sources said Quick could have provided real-time information to U.S. and other officials around the world during the first weeks of the outbreak, when they said the Chinese government tamped down on the release of information and provided erroneous assessments. (Seems like China didn't want anyone to find At All)
Quick left amid a bitter U.S. trade dispute with China when she learned her federally funded post, officially known as resident adviser to the U.S. Field Epidemiology Training Program in China, would be discontinued as of September, the sources said. (She was a Protester? Don't think so – Continue reading)
In a statement to Reuters, the U.S. CDC said the elimination of the adviser position did not hinder Washington’s ability to get information and “had absolutely nothing to do with CDC not learning of cases in China earlier.”
The agency said its decision not to have a resident adviser “started well before last summer and was due to China’s excellent technical capability and maturity of the program.” (Well, I don't know that that is true)
“CDC has had a 30-year partnership with China CDC and close collaboration,” the statement said. “We had the right staff to engage China and ability to provide technical assistance were it requested.”
The CDC would not make Quick, who still works for the agency, available for comment. (What? No Way. She still works for the CDC? (Gosh, they opened the article making it sound like she quit)
One disease expert told Reuters he was skeptical that the U.S. resident adviser would have been able to get earlier or better information to the Trump administration, given the Chinese government’s suppression of information.
“In the end, based on circumstances in China, it probably wouldn’t have had made a big difference,” Scott McNabb, who was a CDC epidemiologist for 20 years and is now a research professor at Emory University. “The problem was how the Chinese handled it. What should have changed was the Chinese should have acknowledged it earlier and didn’t.”
ALERT FROM CHINA’S CDC
Alex Azar, secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS)said Friday that his agency learned of the coronavirus in early January, based on Redfield’s conversations with “Chinese colleagues.”
Redfield learned that “this looks to be a novel coronavirus” from Dr. Gao Fu, the head of the China CDC, according to an HHS administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Dr. Redfield always talked to Dr. Gao,” the official said.
HHS and CDC did not make Azar or Redfield available for comment.
Zhu and other sources said U.S. leaders should not have been relying on the China CDC director for alerts and updates. In general, they said, officials in China downplayed the severity of the outbreak in the early weeks and did not acknowledge evidence of person-to-person transmission until Jan. 20.
After the epidemic exploded and China had imposed strict quarantines, Trump administration officials complained that the Chinese had censored information about the outbreak and that the United States had been unable to get American disease experts into the country to help contain the spread.
On Feb. 25, the first day the CDC told the American public to prepare for an outbreak at home, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused China of mishandling the epidemic through its “censorship” of medical professionals and media.
Relations between the two countries have deteriorated since then, as Trump has labeled the coronavirus the “Chinese virus” - a description the Chinese have condemned as stigmatizing. (Yeah well, if you had been more honest and open then it would be a different matter. So, Fook Yew)
Last week, the Chinese government announced that Americans from three U.S. news organizations, The New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, would be expelled from China. (Seems like “Trust” is a disposable commodity for China)
ONCE ‘FRIENDS,’ NOW RIVALS (Friends? When?)
The decision to eliminate Quick’s job came as the CDC has scaled back the number of U.S. staffers in China over the last two years, the sources told Reuters. “We had already withdrawn many technical public health experts,” the same expert said.
The CDC, however, disputed that staffing was a problem or that its information had been limited by the move. “It was not the staffing shortage that limited our ability” it said.
The U.S. CDC team in Beijing now includes three American citizens in permanent roles, an additional American who is temporary and around 10 Chinese nationals, the agency said. Of the Americans, one is an influenza expert with expertise in respiratory disease. Coronavirus is not influenza, though it is a respiratory disease.
The CDC team, aside from Quick, was housed at U.S. Embassy facilities. No American CDC staffer besides Quick was embedded with China’s disease control agency, the sources said.
China in recent weeks has reported a dramatic slowdown in new cases, the result of drastic containment measures including the lockdown of Hubei province, home to 60 million people.
Nevertheless, the infectious disease experts who spoke with Reuters said, the United States could use people like Quick with contacts on the ground, especially if fears of a second wave of infections materializes.
Thomas R. Frieden, a former director of the CDC, said that if the U.S. resident adviser had still been in China, “it is possible that we would know more today about how this coronavirus is spreading and what works best to stop it.” (Sure, it's possible and it's also possible China wouldn't want the world to know about this....Oh, wait...)
Dr. George Conway, a medical epidemiologist who knows Quick and had served as resident advisor between 2012 and 2015, said funding for the position had been tenuous for years because of a perennial debate among U.S health officials over whether China should be paying for funding its own training program. (The position wasn't a stable one to begin with....okay and I don't like the guy for his name only)
It's all nonsense.
These bureaucrat peons believe they're important and know everything. When they're let go they call a reporter and the two create a narrative and it becomes an "EXCLUSIVE" news story.
It’s a text book narrative created by a disgruntled peon who drops a dime and calls a reporter. The two then write their ‘tell all’ script.
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