When In Worry, When In Doubt

For decades the @CDCgov looked at, and studied, its testing system, but did nothing about it. It would always be inadequate and slow for a large scale pandemic, but a pandemic would never happen, they hoped. President Obama made changes that only complicated things further.....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 13, 2020

.... Their response to H1N1 Swine Flu was a full scale disaster, with thousands dying, and nothing meaningful done to fix the testing problem, until now. The changes have been made and testing will soon happen on a very large scale basis. All Red Tape has been cut, ready to go!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 13, 2020

Run in circles, scream and shout!

“Things really are a mess, and the problem is, we have 1,500 cases, 1,600 cases — that’s who we have identified,” [Dr. Ashish] Jha [Director, Harvard Global Health Initiative] said. “My best guess — and this is a guess because I don’t know, we’re not doing testing — but my best guess is maybe 10,000 or more Americans are infected. We can’t identify who they are, we can’t take care of them and we can’t, you know, use a testing-based strategy to get ahead of this virus.”

“If Americans, if your viewers are wondering why are schools shutting down, why are sport events canceled, it is basically because the federal response has been so poor that we’re now stuck with these very extraordinary measures, which we hope will help,” Jha added. “I think they will help. Boy, are we behind the eight ball on this, and I can’t believe we’re here.”

“The CDC is the best public health agency in the world, period,” Jha said. “We all, around the world, we look to the CDC. This is not the CDC’s fault. The problem here is that the administration has been trying to downplay it, has not taken this disease seriously. A week ago, the president was saying this is nothing, not much worse than the flu. The rest of us were screaming that we are headed for a world of hurt. The public health people have been ignored. Dr. (Anthony) Fauci has been ignored until recently. We’ve got a real problem ahead of us.”

“We have the most innovative, most dynamic scientific community in the world,” he said. “We have a phenomenal health system, but our government has been an impedance to that, not been helpful. The FDA has been stopping labs from producing the tests until very, very recently.”

“I am baffled by this,” he said. “I’ve been talking to my friends at the CDC, at the FDA. They don’t understand the decision-making that’s happening at the senior-most levels. It is really baffling why it is that the administration — you know, there are, of course, theories like, well, the president doesn’t want to know how many cases there are. Well, you don’t want to know doesn’t stop the virus from spreading. The virus has continued to spread across communities in America. Deciding we want to close our eyes and pray that, like, this will go away isn’t a strategy. It’s not going to work.”

We are so seriously fucked.