Presenting:
The Trump pandemic response plan
A historically massive fuck-up
Explained in 19 sentences
1. In 2016, the Obama administration commissioned a detailed pandemic response manual called the Playbook for Early Response to High Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents.
2. The playbook stresses that the White House is responsible for coordinating pandemic responses.
3. With the first sign of human-to-human transmission in China appearing on New Year’s Eve, the playbook convenes a task force to deploy scientists, build models, study transmission, measure medical stockpiles and much more.
4. The next day, Trump didn’t take any of these actions, but instead tweeted about 2019’S BEST UFC KNOCKOUTS!
Just for a little change of pace! https://t.co/ZQ7xCIiJru
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2019
5. The playbook’s response to a pandemic arriving on American soil is extremely well-detailed; it even discusses arranging solutions for secondary effects like food shortages and orphaned children.
6. No action took place when the virus first arrived as Trump was enjoying a fabulous two-day, two-night stay at the luxurious Grand Resort Bad Ragaz in Davos, Switzerland!
7. Trump announces the formation of a pandemic task force led by Mike Pence on January 29, 30 days behind the playbook’s instruction.
8. Have a look at the pandemic playbook yourself.
10. Therefore, armed with the knowledge that Covid-19 is a Coronavirus originating from bats, Trump and his administration literally ignored a step-by-step manual on how to best respond to a Coronavirus originating from bats.
11. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) projects a final US death toll between 38,000 and 162,000.
12. China’s death toll is 5-10% of what the US will experience.
13. Let’s agree that the current economic meltdown is near-perfectly correlated with the duration and severity of the pandemic.
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14. Did you know the top-five, all-time, largest-daily-percent-losses in Dow Jones history now includes two days from the great depression and two days from March 2020?
15. The US Treasury 1-month, 2-month, 3-month, 6-month, 1-year, 2-year, 3-year, 5-year, 10-year, 20-year and 30-year yields all dropped below 1 percent in March, many of these for the first time in US history signaling inflation may be on the horizon.
16. What’s that about record-smashing unemployment?
17. On a positive note, Taiwanese children are already back to school despite the fact the country’s first documented case was January 20, the same day as the US.
18. China took about 45-50 days from its first case to the highest peak of new cases; the US is projected to take five months.
19. Conclusion: The Trump pandemic response plan is a historic fuck-up.
