The main reason that the U.S. was unprepared to respond promptly to the coronavirus was that Trump repeatedly told the public that it was not a problem, that it would disappear spontaneously, and that it was under control. None of this was true. Even now, almost half of Republicans do not believe that the virus is a genuine public health problem. Now, we are learning that there are real life-and-death consequences attached to electing a vain and ignorant narcissist the the presidency.
New York Times columnist David Leonhardt catalogued the evolution of Trump’s views and statements to the public.
He wrote:
President Trump made his first public comments about the coronavirus on Jan. 22, in a television interview from Davos with CNBC’s Joe Kernen. The first American case had been announced the day before, and Kernen asked Trump, “Are there worries about a pandemic at this point?”
The president responded: “No. Not at all. And we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”
By this point, the seriousness of the virus was becoming clearer. It had spread from China to four other countries. China was starting to take drastic measures and was on the verge of closing off the city of Wuhan.
In the weeks that followed, Trump faced a series of choices. He could have taken aggressive measures to slow the spread of the virus. He could have insisted that the United States ramp up efforts to produce test kits. He could have emphasized the risks that the virus presented and urged Americans to take precautions if they had reason to believe they were sick. He could have used the powers of the presidency to reduce the number of people who would ultimately get sick.
He did none of those things.
I’ve reviewed all of his public statements and actions on coronavirus over the last two months, and they show a president who put almost no priority on public health. Trump’s priorities were different: Making the virus sound like a minor nuisance. Exaggerating his administration’s response. Blaming foreigners and, anachronistically, the Obama administration. Claiming incorrectly that the situation was improving. Trying to cheer up stock market investors. (It was fitting that his first public comments were from Davos and on CNBC.)
Now that the severity of the virus is undeniable, Trump is already trying to present an alternate history of the last two months. Below are the facts — a timeline of what the president was saying, alongside statements from public-health experts as well as data on the virus.
Late January
On the same day that Trump was dismissing the risks on CNBC, Tom Frieden, who ran the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for eight years, wrote an op-ed for the health care publication Stat. In it, Frieden warned that the virus would continue spreading. “We need to learn — and fast — about how it spreads,” he wrote.
It was one of many such warnings from prominent experts in late January. Many focused on the need to expand the capacity to test for the virus. In a Wall Street Journal article titled, “Act Now to Prevent an American Epidemic,” Luciana Borio and Scott Gottlieb — both former Trump administration officials — wrote:
If public-health authorities don’t interrupt the spread soon, the virus could infect many thousands more around the globe, disrupt air travel, overwhelm health care systems, and, worst of all, claim more lives. The good news: There’s still an opening to prevent a grim outcome. … But authorities can’t act quickly without a test that can diagnose the condition rapidly.
Trump, however, repeatedly told Americans that there was no reason to worry. On Jan. 24, he tweeted, “It will all work out well.” On Jan. 28, he retweeted a headline from One America News, an outlet with a history of spreading false conspiracy theories: “Johnson & Johnson to create coronavirus vaccine.” On Jan. 30, during a speech in Michigan, he said: “We have it very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this moment — five. And those people are all recuperating successfully.”
That same day, the World Health Organization declared coronavirus to be a “public-health emergency of international concern.” It announced 7,818 confirmed cases around the world.
Jan. 31
Trump took his only early, aggressive action against the virus on Jan. 31: He barred most foreigners who had recently visited China from entering the United States. It was a good move.
But it was only one modest move, not the sweeping solution that Trump portrayed it to be. It didn’t apply to Americans who had been traveling in China, for example. And while it generated some criticism from Democrats, it wasn’t nearly as unpopular as Trump has since suggested. Two days after announcing the policy, Trump went on Fox News and exaggerated the impact in an interview with Sean Hannity.
“Coronavirus,” Hannity said. “How concerned are you?”
Trump replied: “Well, we pretty much shut it down coming in from China. We have a tremendous relationship with China, which is a very positive thing. Getting along with China, getting along with Russia, getting along with these countries.”
By the time of that interview, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases around the world had surged to 14,557, a near doubling over the previous three days.
Early February
On Feb. 5, the C.D.C. began shipping coronavirus test kits to laboratories around the country. But the tests suffered from a technical flaw and didn’t produce reliable results, labs discovered.
The technical problems were understandable: Creating a new virus test is not easy. What’s less understandable, experts say, is why the Trump administration officials were so lax about finding a work-around, even as other countries were creating reliable tests.
The Trump administration could have begun to use a functioning test from the World Health Organization, but didn’t. It could have removed regulations that prevented private hospitals and labs from quickly developing their own tests, but didn’t. The inaction meant that the United States fell behind South Korea, Singapore and China in fighting the virus. “We just twiddled our thumbs as the coronavirus waltzed in,” William Hanage, a Harvard epidemiologist, wrote.
Trump, for his part, spent these first weeks of February telling Americans that the problem was going away. On Feb. 10, he repeatedly said — in a speech to governors, at a campaign rally and in an interview with Trish Regan of Fox Business — that warm spring weather could kill the virus. “Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away,” he told the rally.
On Feb. 19, he told a Phoenix television station, “I think the numbers are going to get progressively better as we go along.” Four days later, he pronounced the situation “very much under control,” and added: “We had 12, at one point. And now they’ve gotten very much better. Many of them are fully recovered.”
His message was clear: Coronavirus is a small problem, and it is getting smaller. In truth, the shortage of testing meant that the country didn’t know how bad the problem was. All of the available indicators suggested it was getting worse, rapidly.
On Feb. 23, the World Health Organization announced that the virus was in 30 countries, with 78,811 confirmed cases, a more than fivefold increase over the previous three weeks.
Late February
Trump seemed largely uninterested in the global virus statistics during this period, but there were other indicators — stock-market indexes — that mattered a lot to him. And by the last week of February, those market indexes were falling.
The president reacted by adding a new element to his public remarks. He began blaming others.
He criticized CNN and MSNBC for “panicking markets.” He said at a South Carolina rally — falsely — that “the Democrat policy of open borders” had brought the virus into the country. He lashed out at “Do Nothing Democrat comrades.” He tweeted about “Cryin’ Chuck Schumer,” mocking Schumer for arguing that Trump should be more aggressive in fighting the virus. The next week, Trump would blame an Obama administration regulation for slowing the production of test kits. There was no truth to the charge.
Throughout late February, Trump also continued to claim the situation was improving. On Feb. 26, he said: “We’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up.” On Feb. 27, he predicted: “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.” On Feb. 29, he said a vaccine would be available “very quickly” and “very rapidly” and praised his administration’s actions as “the most aggressive taken by any country.” None of these claims were true.
By the end of February, there were 85,403 confirmed cases, in 55 countries around the world.
Early March
Almost two decades ago, during George W. Bush’s presidency, the federal government developed guidelines for communicating during a public-health crisis. Among the core principles are “be first,” “be right,” “be credible,” “show respect” and “promote action.”
But the Trump administration’s response to coronavirus, as a Washington Post news story put it, is “breaking almost every rule in the book.”
The inconsistent and sometimes outright incorrect information coming from the White House has left Americans unsure of what, if anything, to do. By early March, experts already were arguing for aggressive measures to slow the virus’s spread and avoid overwhelming the medical system. The presidential bully pulpit could have focused people on the need to change their behavior in a way that no private citizen could have. Trump could have specifically encouraged older people — at most risk from the virus — to be careful. Once again, he chose not to take action.
Instead, he suggested on multiple occasions that the virus was less serious than the flu. “We’re talking about a much smaller range” of deaths than from the flu, he said on March 2. “It’s very mild,” he told Hannity on March 4. On March 7, he said, “I’m not concerned at all.” On March 10, he promised: “It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”
The first part of March was also when more people began to understand that the United States had fallen behind on testing, and Trump administration officials responded with untruths.
Alex Azar, the secretary of health and human services, told ABC, “There is no testing kit shortage, nor has there ever been.” Trump, while touring the C.D.C. on March 6, said, “Anybody that wants a test can get a test.”
That C.D.C. tour was a microcosm of Trump’s entire approach to the crisis. While speaking on camera, he made statements that were outright wrong, like the testing claim. He brought up issues that had nothing to do with the virus, like his impeachment. He made clear that he cared more about his image than about people’s well-being, by explaining that he favored leaving infected passengers on a cruise ship so they wouldn’t increase the official number of American cases. He also suggested that he knew as much as any scientist:
I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.
On March 10, the World Health Organization reported 113,702 cases of the virus in more than 100 countries.
Mid-March and beyond
On the night of March 11, Trump gave an Oval Office address meant to convey seriousness. It included some valuable advice, like the importance of hand-washing. But it also continued many of the old patterns of self-congratulation, blame-shifting and misinformation. Afterward, Trump aides corrected three different misstatements.
This pattern has continued in the days since the Oval Office address. Trump now seems to understand that coronavirus isn’t going away anytime soon. But he also seems to view it mostly as a public-relations emergency for himself rather than a public-health emergency for the country. On Sunday, he used his Twitter feed to lash out at Schumer and Joe Biden and to praise Michael Flynn, the former Trump aide who pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I.
Around the world, the official virus count has climbed above 142,000. In the United States, scientists expect that between tens of millions and 215 million Americans will ultimately be infected, and the death toll could range from the tens of thousands to 1.7 million.
At every point, experts have emphasized that the country could reduce those terrible numbers by taking action. And at almost every point, the president has ignored their advice and insisted, “It’s going to be just fine.”
[Susan Beachy and Ian Prasad Philbrick contributed research.]
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Diane.
I have many names for that dump and his gang of dumpsters and none of them are good.
Thanks for being a great curator of news worth reading.
Bob Shepherd also has a remarkable inventory of the public displays of incompetence and pathological lying by Trump. This whole morning has been filled with televised reports of serious shortages of medical supplies and facilities.
I’m worried for the number of people who are losing their jobs. A friend of mine in Florida let me know that this morning she saw a woman arranging things inside her car. This was a homeless woman.
The estimate of 241,000 Hoosiers losing their jobs in three months is horrific. How are people going to exist?
Republicans still maintain that they don’t have the money to help people. I agree that the government is out of money. Giving a $1.5 trillion dollar tax break to the wealthy and corporations is now proving to destroy this country.
The White House response to the pandemic is an example of too little, too late. It also didn’t help that the president had already cut budgets for medical supplies, research and the pandemic response team in order to give a tax cut to the already wealthy.
Stuart Stevens, a republican with sense, traces in a WAPO article, the failure of government to the radical right wing ideologues leading the party today. He writes:
“The failures of the government’s response to the coronavirus crisis can be traced directly to some of the toxic fantasies now dear to the Republican Party. Here are a few: Government is bad. Establishment experts are overrated or just plain wrong. Science is suspect. And we can go it alone, the world be damned.”
We are at war with an invisible enemy, we should be on a war footing and the whole medical industrial complex should be going full tilt towards containing the c-virus. During WWII, the automotive industry stopped manufacturing cars and switched to tanks, jeeps, all types of military vehicles and planes, etc. Where are all the big billionaires like Gates, Bezos and Koch? They should be setting up free testing facilities and free clinics just for openers.
Well Bill is taking a step down from the business side and has decided to work on the fauxlanthropy side of things…..aren’t we lucky!
Oh wait, one billionaire is helping out (from cos news): Chinese billionaire Jack Ma recently joined Twitter and used the platform to make a major announcement about his response to the coronavirus. The co-founder of the online retail giant Alibaba said he is sending a shipment of coronavirus test kits and masks to the United States.
“The first shipment of masks and coronavirus test kits to the US is taking off from Shanghai. All the best to our friends in America,” Ma’s first tweet ever read. He included photos of pallets of cargo ready to be loaded onto a flight to the U.S.
from cbs news, damn spell check.
Mark Cuban is one billionaire that is doing it right. He is making sure the employee that work his games at the American Airlines Center get paid during this time.
Leonhardt, David Brooks, and CAP staff should atone.
Brooks encouraged voting for the Republican Party which built income inequality leading to the election of Trump. Limousine liberals, Leonhardt and CAP staff, carry freight for big money in the privatizing of the common good- public education. “Government schools” is part of the PR to undermine a rule of the people, by the people and for the people.
Bemoaning the animal unleashed, Trump, by those who knocked down the fence holding him at bay, is little and too late.
Salon, 3-9-2020, “Is the Christian right now in charge of public health…?”, in states and Trump’s admin.
While Ohio Gov. Dewine (reportedly signed his oath of office on 9 Bibles) has shown advanced policy in his COVID 19 response, there should be concern about Ohio media making a star out of Dewine’s appointee as health director. Sinclair Broadcasting is right wing. When T.V. news describes the popularity of and literal “fan club” for the health director who closed polling places after Dewine’s edict was found illegal, should make Ohioans wary. Positioning a person for greater authority and influence is not media’s job.
Team Trumplestiltskin’s failures in dealing with Covid-19 began before the inauguration.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/16/trump-inauguration-warning-scenario-pandemic-132797
I sent this article to one of my Trump loving friends. Here is her response:
“I am not a Trump basher. I think he has done a good job. I do not listen to all the negative feedback from the press!”
Here is what I said back:
“This is not Trump bashing. It is quotes from Trump and shows a timeline of exactly what he said and how he acted.”
I knew I’d tick her off. How bad do things have to get before people begin to realize that Trump has caused the government to not respond in time to prevent many deaths and loses of jobs?
Two-months, too little, too-late.
So here we are with Captain Queeg, John Galt, and Chauncey Gardiner all wrapped into one. And not one senator willing state the obvious.
This 4 minute video timeline of president statements followed by a government official’s factual statements says it all.
Thanks for the reference to Chauncy Gardnier. More than once during the Trump presidency have I thought of that character, even though I never read that or saw that in complete.
Jerzy Kosiński. Being There. It’s a short and superb read. Highly recommended.
One of the things that makes this particularly insidious is that people are afraid to tell the truth for fear of being canned. That’s what Trump has done from Day 1. His maladministration has had more entrances and exits than the most slapstick farce. And most of the exits were because IQ45, King Con fired or was going to fire someone who accidentally slipped a bit of the truth about something.
People elected this disaster in the hopes that he would shrink the Fed Gov’t. Well, he (and his administration) did just that! He eliminated every position or agency that was designed to help the American people…..but he did help his millionaire/billionaire free market buddies in the process (for a short time). How is this working out for those heavily invested in the stock market right now? How is this working out for the stupid and ignorant ones who believed in smaller government? I know this sounds terrible, but my hope is that those who have supported this idiotic man and his administration will be the ones most affected by this virus…..and that includes the brain dead politicians that still believe that trump is doing a wonderful job. We need a little Karma.
Here’s the list I kept to track the progress of Monoavirus trumpinski orangii
https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2020/03/18/tracking-the-progress-of-the-moronavirus/
Great job tracking the idiocy!
Obviously we should take one thing at a time and the virus problem is THE big problem now. The comments above are right on.
My problem with this though is this. With ALL the coverage that this is getting, rightfully so, WHERE is, was the concern expressed as it is now with the media on this immediate problem with the virus concerning climate change?
For the young it seems that about 80% of the young will survive. With climate change homo sapiens world wide may well not survive, in its ENTIRETY.
This unpreparedness with this virus should give us a clue as to what is ESSENTIAL in fighting an even bigger problem that is already with us.
I have followed t his for decades and it is pretty well known that there is a point of no return, when nothing can stop the cataclysm which the people who have studied this in depth have told us and is being vindicated almost daily is certain. They say there is yet time to address the problem. Personally, I am more than a bit skeptical when I see what is already transpiring but hopefully it is not too late to do something to at least slow it down.
With Trump in the White House who has done everything in his power to undo even the modest things which Obama and others have put in place;
GOD HELP US.
At my age I will not see the worst of it but if one looks at the LONG lines of people trying to migrate from conditions beyond belief, it is but a preamble to what is to come; not just my view alone but FAR more importantly, of the best scientific minds on the planet.
Sorry to be a wet blanket at this crucial point in a VERY real problem which is and has been exacerbated by ignorance, and so many other adjectives spoken by better people than myself but I just cannot remain silent when I do care very much for my own and for our children in the future.
Hi Gordon. I know you’ll see what I think.
I am overwhelmed by the thought of the disaster of climate change on top of coronavirus. People are going to be dying and many will get sick. Possibly millions will lose their jobs and have no way to survive.
The planet is dying from pollution and the lack of care that people put upon it. Climate change is a reality and nothing is being done.
How will this country survive with a totally loose nut case in charge and a whole party that doesn’t even recognize the problems? From what I read there are still some Republicans who don’t accept either climate change nor the vast problems of coronavirus.
We are phucked.
this virus should give us a clue as to what is ESSENTIAL in fighting an even bigger problem that is already with us
Yes, in many ways, this pandemic is a wake-up call.
It’s showing us the dangers of being anti-science.
It’s showing us the dangers of having a healthcare system for the few.
It’s showing us the stupidity of electing an ignorant, uneducated, pathological liar to the Presidency.
It’s showing us that we have to be prepared for predictable risks and the failure of our past ostrich-head-in-the stand approach.
Since 1975, somewhere between 70 and 85 percent of flying insects have disappeared. Why? Poisoning of the environment, mostly.
In the same time period, populations of wild vertebrates, worldwide, have decreased, on average, across species, by 58 percent. Among some species–amphibians, corals–the numbers are much higher. Why? Poisoning of the environment with pesticides. Loss of habitat. Hypoxia from algae blooms due to nitrogen run-off from agricultural operations. Warming of water and air.
Canaries in the coal mine. Our response: same as IQ45’s.
Bob, I do believe we have been getting WAKE UP calls, but few have been really listening.
And here we are with that dump and a worldwide pandemic.
I really do blame in part the DEFORMERS of education and of course, the big culprit … GREED.
Thanks for letting me get this off my chest.
Spot on Yvonne.
I think “some” might be a better term than “few” as we have no way to determine how many people are actually ignoring the safety protocols to avoid contracting or spreading COVID-19.
I’ve read comments on Quora and other forums from people outside of the U.S. that think that all Americans are idiots because Trump won the 2016 election until I inform them that Trump lost the popular vote by 2.7 million votes and became president as the loser because of this thing called the Electoral College that no other democracy on the planet has.
What is the “real” reason for the Electoral College?
If our nation were a company and Trump the CEO, the Board would remove him because Of his gross errors and behavior. It’s time to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove him from office. While he lies to protect his ego, lives are being lost.
It is so, so time to do this. Even Brother Pence the Dense is starting to look brilliant and capable next to this guy.
Rump first did what his handlers wanted. He read a speech, prepared by Kushner and Miller, from his Offal Office. If you watched that speech, you saw what everyone else did: he clearly didn’t want to do this or to say what he was saying, which involved acknowledging that the virus might be a problem. The next day, the markets tanked. So, Trump did a do-over–a stand-up from the press briefing room. In this, he didn’t stick to a script but, rather, spoke largely off the cuff, in something like his Trump rally style. The market improved a tiny bit the next day (before tanking again). He said something to the effect of, “Hmm. That worked. People need to see a lot more of ME.” (I don’t remember the exact words.) Since then, he’s been doing a daily thing.
He thinks that he has discovered what his own initial reaction was right–that this is a PR problem. Example: No need actually to USE the Defense Production Act to order businesses to produce needed supplies. Simply tell people that you invoked it and do nothing else.
An utter moron in charge.
Politics 101: How to Manage a National Crisis
Deny it until you can’t anymore.
Tell everyone that it will just go away.
Then. . .
Tell everyone how on top of it you were from the beginning.
Blame it on Obama.
Blame it on China.
Blame it on Democrats.
Blame it on the Fake News Media.
Blame it on immigrants.
Ignore the science.
Ignore the math.
Pass the buck to governors.
Treat it as a photo opportunity.
Treat it as a PR problem.
Treat it as an opportunity to enrich your cronies.
Require absolute slavishness and continual praise from subordinates.
Threaten to fire anyone who utters a word of truth.
Apply more orange tan in a can and blonde hairspray for the next briefing.
BEAUTIFUL!!!
Right on!!!
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. —Martin Luther King Jr.
To date, the damnation of (fill-in) is in full swing. Problem is, damnation doesn’t
mend or restore the broken spirit, behind the darkness and hate.
Yes, I know,
“The triumph of evil occurs when good men do nothing.”…
BUT If the actions taken by the “good” don’t mend the broken heart or spirit,
behind the darkness and evil, how could they be “good”?
NoBrick: “BUT If the actions taken by the “good” don’t mend the broken heart or spirit,
behind the darkness and evil, how could they be “good”?”
Are you saying that we should not be upset or write the truth about our president who has wasted precious time trying to placate everyone over his quick response to coronavirus?
We are concerned for the whole country’s future. Without massive government help, there will be people with no way to exist.
Good should be done, but the government is the major resource for helping others. Our nut job president is the reason the US didn’t respond adequately to this crisis. He is being backed up by sycophants who look ridiculous.
It’s easy to speak of ‘mending the broken heart or spirit’ but it is much more difficult to put food on the table or keep a home with no money.
Reblogged this on Lloyd Lofthouse and commented:
Did you know that since Trump’s lies have changed about COVID-19 from HOAX to “I’m doing a great job protecting the United States from the pandemic”, his popularity rating in the polls has actually improved?
Let’s never forget how Trump lied repeatedly for weeks about COVID-19 being a HOAC, not being a threat, and having it totally under control.
In the spirit of the Church Lady, has anyone else noticed how virtually every effective and popular measure in response to this crisis is…SOCIALIST!?! Interesting how we, especially reactionaries, invoke socialist policies in troubled times yet demonize or are scared of them when they are part of the strategic plan. Remind your cult member neighbors that when they cash their government (be sure to put emphasis on the “government” or “gubment” part) checks that this is an example of socialism in its purist form. Just giving money away!
I keep track of the average of all the polls through FiveThirtyEight and RealClearPolitics and this morning since Trump’s lies have changed from HOAX to “I have it under control” his popularity rating has improved even if it is still underwater like it has been from day one when he told he first lie as President of the United States just by taking the Oath of Office.
This comment written by a person who has often praised and apologized for the communist government of China. You know, the government that suppressed knowledge about this virus and that did not notify the World Health Organization about this problem for many weeks, which has resulted in the worldwide spread of this infection, causing massive health and economic problems.
John Webster: “You know, the government that suppressed knowledge about this virus..”
Sounds like Trump and the US government. The only difference is that Trump suppressed, and continues to obfuscate knowledge after the virus had come into this country from China.
Same result…nothing getting done.
Like Donald Trump, the Chinese government is certainly capable of such perfidy at cost to the lives of its own citizens. For example, before the Olympics, the government suppressed information about tainted baby formula. They were willing to trade the lives of babies for a little better PR.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/2961262/Chinese-authorities-covered-up-baby-milk-scandal-because-of-Olympics.html
Just like Trump.
John, you are wrong. It wasn’t weeks. It was days. Do some fact-checking, if you know-how. Compared to Trump, China, regardless of the attempt to silence that doctor by officials in the city of Wuhan, an attempt that failed, China has become a role model in how to deal with this disease.
While it is true that China got off to a bad start when local officials in the city of Wuhan attempted to silence and punish Dr. Li Wenliang for sending out a warning about the COVID-19 virus, it didn’t take long before China’s central government to act aggressively to contain the spread of the epidemic.
On Dec 30, 2019, Li Wenliang sent a message to a group of fellow doctors warning them about a possible outbreak of an illness that resembled severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, where he worked. Meant to be a private message, he encouraged them to protect themselves from infection. Days later, he was summoned to the Public Security Bureau in Wuhan and made to sign a statement in which he was accused of making false statements that disturbed the public order.
Wuhan health officials learned that a new coronavirus was making people sick on Dec 27. Four days later, China informed the World Health Organization’s office in China.
Then on January 7, China’s President Xi Jinping became involved. Eleven days later Beijing sends epidemiologists to Wuhan to determine what was happening.
On January 21st, the CDC in the United States confirmed the first COVID-19 case. Two days later, China, locked down Wuhan and three other nearby cities, days before Dr. Li Wenliang died on February 7 from COVID-19/
And now that there hasn’t been any new cases found in Wuhan, there is a chance that the lock-down in that city will be lifted early in April.
Meanwhile, in the United States on January 22, President Donald Trump, the liar-in-chief, a hard-core individualist, because almost every word out of his mouth or from his Twitter account is about “how great he is” or an attack on someone else or another country, said, “We have it totally under control.”
That was the same day it was confirmed that the first American had COVID-19.
February 2, Trump said, “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China. It’s going to be fine.”
The number of confirmed victims in the U.S. had climbed to 8.
February 24, Trump said, “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA … Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”
But the number of confirmed infected individuals was increased by 27, and CNBC reported, “Stocks plunge for a second day as the DOW lost more than 800 points on Tuesday.”
February 25, Trump said, “CDC and my administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus.”
Eighteen more victims of COVID-19 were confirmed in the United States.
February 26: Trump said, “The 15 cases within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.” He also said, “We’re going very substantially down, not up.”
Six more cases were reported by February 27.
On March 4 (Source: The White House), Trump said. “If we have thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work – some of them go to work, but they get better.” Trump made this comment during an interview on Fox News. At the time, the CDC was urging employers to have workers stay home. Later that day, Trump defended himself, “I never said people that are feeling sick should go to work.” Source: CBS News
By the end of March 4, another 51 confirmed cases had been added to the list.
Meanwhile, many of Donald Trump supporters, individuals that seem to think like him, refused to self-quarantine. “Trump supporters have been warned incessantly not to trust mainstream journalistic coverage of the issue.” – The Atlantic.com
Between March 4 and March 18, another 7,078 confirmed cases had been added to the list. — Statista.com.
Lloyd, stop digging – your pro-Chinese government sycophancy is further making a fool of yourself. Trump’s initial responses to the virus were appallingly superficial and ridiculously optimistic. And Biden’s opposition to the travel ban on China as racist and xenophobic puts him in the same intellectual level as Trump. No credible health authority supports your version of events. The government that you so admire – China’s – is by far the most responsible party for this medical and financial calamity.
John, I have never said I admire China’s government. But I have written thousands of fact-based, heavily-researched posts on my iLook China blog. In some of those posts, I have pointed out what the CCP did wrong under Mao and what it has done right since Mao died. When biased western writers say something about China that I know is wrong, I point that out, too. That happens often since you are not alone in your biased hate of that country and its government.
Most of the posts on my blog are about the history of China, its culture, and its people.
Your hateful bias is so strong through your insulting words that I doubt you would ever ask me why I was so interested in China.
I don’t care if you never ask. I’m going to tell you anyway. Back in 1999 when I met Anchee Min, I didn’t know much about China. Anchee grew up in China and lived through Mao’s Cultural Revolution. She also wrote and published a memoir about those years. It’s called “Red Azalea,” a book that was a New York Times Notable Book of the year back in the early 1990s and it went on to win the Carl Sandburg Award.
“Red Azalea” is still in print and the university Asian Studies Departments in the U.S. often use that memoir in their classes.
Anchee wrote seven more books about China, and I helped edit five or six of them. They are all about China, its history and a couple about the horrors of Mao’s Cultural Revolution. The last book, “The Cooked Seed” is the sequel to “Red Azalea.”
After “Red Azalea” was published, Anchee received death threats from some Chinese in the U.S. and the FBI assigned a detail to guard her during the book tour.
All of Anchee’s books are blacklisted in China because three of them reveal the horrors of a time period that the CCP of Deng Xiaoping, not Mao, wants to put behind them. The CCP also managed to stop Hollywood from turning “Red Azalea” into a film by threatening to stop Disneyland from building a park in Shanghai if the film was produced.
When Mao died in 1976, Deng Xiaoping organized a swift coup with support from the PLA and had the Gang of Four arrested. The Gang of Four included Mao’s wife who wanted to rule China and continue the insanity of the Cultural Revolution.
Deng Xiaoping changed direction for China and opened the country to the world, and China eventually joined the World Trade Organization. To join the WTO, A country can’t just sign up. It is not an automatic process. China had to meet certain minimum criteria to be accepted and did just enough to make it. After that, China started to build its factories until it now has the largest manufacturing sector in the world. The U.S. was in first place up until about 2012 or 2013, but is only the 2nd largest now. During the 2016 Presidential debates Trump said the U.S. doesn’t make anything anymore. That was another one of his thousands of lies. How can the U.S. not manufacture anything when it has the second-largest manufacturing sector in the world?
My interest in China came from marrying Anchee. I wanted to know more about the world she grew up in and survived. Then she suggested I might be interested in writing a book about an Irishman who went to China in 1854 when he was 19. I spent a decade visiting and learning about China before I finished the story of Robert Hart’s first decade there. The book is historical fiction and it is called “My Splendid Concubine” based on a real story. Hart stayed in China until 1908. To this day, he is considered the most powerful westerner to have ever lived and worked there.
John: Way beyond the problem of blaming someone for the present problem is the simple historic truth. Diseases are often arising I China. From Bubonic Plague to Sars, China seems to sit in a place where disease begins. Why attack the Chinese for this when there is so much else wrong about their behavior? Think Tibet, adventurism in the south Pacific, and piracy of technological ideas. All of these things are much less the function of Communism than of any totalitarian government. Now is not the time to try to fix the blame.
If you have ever seen an open air meat and fish market in China, with flies buzzing around the food, blood and feces everywhere, you can guess how diseases spread. I saw the same in Vietnam two years ago.
But the flies, blood and feces are the whole reason to go in the first place! That’s why you can’t get the recipe right at home! Hard to replicate that mingling of “ingredients.” Now I’m hungry.
Lloyd, as always with those of your political bent you lazily accuse others of “hateful bias” in order to deflect from the shortcomings of the totalitarian regime you have long defended. Linked below are two articles from liberal media outlets that prove China’s culpability for this crisis.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/china-hid-the-severity-of-its-coronavirus-outbreak-and-muzzled-whistleblowers-because-it-can/ar-BBZQL8Q
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/china-trolling-world-and-avoiding-blame/608332/
John Webster: I am protesting this part of the article in The Atlantic:
“Too many also seem comfortable drawing moral equivalencies between the Chinese regime and Donald Trump. This attitude is hard to take seriously. Trump didn’t block the media from reporting on the coronavirus; he did not disappear his critics. The nature of a regime matters. ”
Trump didn’t “disappear the critics” but he tries to discredit all of his critics. Everything Media that tells the truth about him is ‘fake news’. Every person who criticizes him is called some vile or crass name.
Trump doesn’t have the power to totally get rid of the media, but he tries as hard as possible to make people believe he is ‘the chosen one who will do everything to MAGA”.
BS on that thought.
You prove my point once again by branding me with insults like “you lazily accuse others of ‘hateful bias’ in order to deflect from the shortcomings of the totalitarian regime.”
China’s CCP is an authoritarian government but in no way comes anywhere close to being similar to North Koreans totalitarianism. In fact, China’s one-party system rules China similar to how Singapore is ruled by its government. In fact, Deng Xiaoping went out of his way to learn how Singapore’s government worked and then copied it.
I think you are a holdover of McCarythsm’s Red Scare era. When you see or hear the word “Communist” or “socialist”, fire explodes from your eyes, ears, and nostrils because long ago you were programmed to hate anything with those terms.
I have news for you, that I’m sure you will ignore because of your bias and the hate programmed by the media sources you choose to follow: the Chinese Communist Party is not Communist in any way anymore. That all changed after Mao died. China is now a hybrid socialist-capitalist state that is responsible for reducing global poverty by 90 percent just in China. Since the 1980s, China went from no middle class to one that has between 300 and 600 million people today.
A totalitarian state does not educate its people to be critical thinkers, problem solvers and to think logically. In fact, China doesn’t stop Chinese citizens from going to college in the United States or other countries like Canada, the UK and in the EU. Chinese citizens have made up the largest ratio of foreign college students for decades now. Millions of Chinese came to the US for college educa6toins and then went home with what they learned. Even Xi Jinping’s daughter went to Harvard where she graduated before returning home.
A totalitarian state does not allow its people to freely leave and visit any country on the planet. More than 110 million Chinese leave China every year to visit other countries and then return home after their vacations. They return voluntarily because the standard of living had improved dramatically since Mao’s death.
The CCP is the largest political party in the world with more than 80 million voting members. A form of limited democracy exists at the rural village level where all villagers, not just CCP members, are allowed to vote for their village government and non-party members are allowed to run for election About 600 million rural Chinese elect their local village governments.
Since there are 1.4 billion Chinese, being Chinese does not mean you are a member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), but to stay in power, the CCP must make sure they do not antagonize and anger the majority of the country’s citizens. The CCP knows it can get away with being tougher with minorities that shake the boat like Tibetans or Ughers in Northwest China have, as long as that will not bother the majority of Chinese who are more concerned that the quality of their improved lifestyles is not threatened.
Of course, the “lazy” effort I put into this comment will not move your thinking at all. I wrote this for open minds, not cement block walls that cannot think independently.
Lloyd, I am easily your intellectual equal and very likely your superior, as are many other people across the political spectrum who don’t share your fondness for the Chinese government. Unlike you, I don’t use extreme left-wing politics as a substitute religion, and I am deeply read in serious history. I support a welfare state that prevents hardship without fostering long-term dependency, and unlike you, I am a committed civil libertarian who doesn’t make apologies for authoritarian/totalitarian regimes. You have proven many times on this blog that you are at the very least a fellow traveling fool akin to those who traveled to the Stalin-era Soviet Union and found utopia. Most likely you are anti-democratic, an outright communist.
John Webster, the more comments you make and attempt to denigrate me, the more I think your ego makes you sound like another Trump. More than once, you have alleged that you are superior to me. Since I do not compete with others to see who can piss the farthest, I will not respond in kind.
Your giveaway: you ignore all the points I make without providing proof that I’m wrong.
Stating the fact that in the last few decades, China has been responsible for 90 percent of the world’s reduction in poverty is not me admiring China. It is me stating a fact.
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/speech/2017/12/07/from-local-to-global-china-role-global-poverty-reduction-future-of-development
When I pointed out that more Chinese travel as tourists outside of their home country, that was another fact.
https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Industries/Travel%20Transport%20and%20Logistics/Our%20Insights/Huanying%20to%20the%20new%20Chinese%20traveler/Chinese-tourists-Dispelling-the-myths.ashx
When I pointed out that Chinese in the United States make up the largest ratio of foreign college students, that was a fact.
“Chinese Students Lead Foreign Surge at U.S. Colleges”
When I said that China’s President Xi Jinping’s daughter graduated from Harvard, that was another fact.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-did-chinas-first-daughter-find-in-america
You never say that what you think about me as an individual is your opinion. You do not say “I think Lloyd admires China’s government.” Instead, your statements are absolute as if they are a fact the entire world would agree with.
That is a Trump tactic. That is a Hannity tactic. That is a Limbaugh tactic, et al.
Your lack of a response to my comments have no substance. They are only empty attacks.
Ok, I think Lloyd admires China’s government. You have made that clear dozens of times over the last few years. That puts you on the loony Left fringe of the political spectrum and identifies you as anti-democratic. You have this absurd pretension that you are an expert on modern China whose expertise must be deferred to by everyone else. Your mindset is akin to a religious fundamentalist who finds the answer to all the complexities of life in some form of idolatry. This quote well describes you and your thinking about China:
‘It is the true believer’s ability to “shut his eyes and stop his ears” to facts that do not deserve to be either seen or heard which is the source of his unequaled fortitude and constancy. He cannot be frightened by danger nor disheartened by obstacle not baffled by contradictions because he denies their existence.’ Eric Hoffer, The True Believer
John, you are wrong. I do not expect you to read this comment to find out why you are wrong. In “my opinion”, you are ruled by your biases and turn to sources that offer alternative facts (not based on known facts but on theories and conspiracies) to feed your biases, and you are too lazy to find out the truth on your own.
China’s history and culture is different than the United States. The U.S. Constitution would not work in China and our form of government would not work for China either, any more than Amazon, Google and Facebook did when they opened up for business there but failed because they did not understand the Chinese people and their culture.
The opposite is also true. China’s form of government would not work in the United States, because our culture is too different.
China and the United States are different cultures because the US government is based on a foundation of Western Judeo-Christian values. China is based on a foundation of Confucian, Buddhist, and Daoist values.
The United States is based on individualism where the individual is more important than the whole explaining why so many Americans are still ignoring all the warning for COVID-19 to stay home and not gather in large crowds.
China is based on collectivism where the individual is not as important as the whole explaining why about 40 million Chinese did exactly as they were told and stayed home once Wuhan and its neighboring cities were locked down. And if they had not done as they were told, China would have used force and declared martial law to make it happen but the CCP didn’t have to because the people complied, not out of fear of their government but because they are a collective culture.
The only reason I started a blog about China was to promote my first book, and it worked. I’d spend a decade researching and writing my first historical fiction novel that was set in China in the middle of the 19th century, so I knew a little bit about the country but not nearly enough, as I would soon discover.
If authors want to find readers for their work, we have to have a social media platform on the internet. A perfect example of that is Diane’s blog, here.
I belonged to the California Writers Club back in 2009 and took an all-day workshop from the Southbay Branch of the club that taught us what we had to do to find readers interested in our books. My first book was historical fiction about China. We were told not to write about writing but about something our story was a small part of. For me that topic was China because the book I wrote was set in 19th century China.
The instructor of that blogging workshop said publishing a blog wasn’t enough by itself. To end up on the first page of a Google search we had to publish 1,000 posts in the first year. I ran out of stuff to write before I had reached 100 posts. The only thing I knew about China was what I had learned while writing my novel set in the middle of 19th century China.
So, I started to study more about China. I studied China’s history going back thousands of years and read everything I could. I wrote about the Great Wall, the Grand Canal, the first emperor, the different dynasties, the best emperors, the worst emperors, the inventions that came out of China, Chinese medicine, food, et al.
I learned about China’s revolution that was started in the early 20th century by Dr. Sun Yat Sen who had been sent by his family to go to school in Hawaii as a boy where he learned about the U.S. Constitutional Republic. He returned to China as a young man and started a revolution to replace the Qing Dynasty with a Republic modeled on the United States but adapted to fit Chinese culture. The Chinese Communist Party, the Nationalist Party, and other smaller parties all joined together to help build Dr. Sun Yat Sen’s Republic. When Dr. Sun Yat Sen died unexpectedly in his early 50s, that alliance fell apart and the Civil War started.
The Communists did not start that Civil War. Chiang Kai Shek did when he formed a secret alliance with the triad gangs in Shanghai to break the newly forming labor unions and the young Chinese Communist Party that was organizing the labor unions. Without warning, Chiang Kai Shek had his troops, with help from the ruthless triads, execute, without trials, every member of the Communist Party they could find and all the leaders of the labor unions and the members of the labor unions. They did not get them all or there would have never been a Civil War.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg. To keep publishing posts and attracting readers interested in learning about the real China so some of them would buy my book and read it, I had to learn about the real China. Not the misleading propaganda and hate that often gets published or broadcast in the U.S. media,
For instance, Tibet. In the early 1950s, China invaded Tibet and was crucified in the western media for doing so without any mention of China’s long history with Tibet.
Digging deeper into that history, reading original material from the 19th century and early 20th century (including an issue of National Geographic Magazine all about Tibet before 1911), before there was a Chinese Communist Party in China, I discovered the reasons China invaded Tibet.
Tibetans were not always Buddhists with a Dalai Lama. That did not happen until the 11th century when the Mongols invaded Tibet, conquered it, and introduced Buddhism to the kingdom. Before then, Tibet was a warlike country that raided into China for centuries taking slaves and anything else they could get. More than a thousand years ago, a Tang Dynasty Emperor married his favorite daughter to the king of Tibet to forge an alliance and stop the raids. It worked.
China’s military occupation of Tibet started in the Yuan Dynasty after the Mongols conquered China and Tibet. When Kublai Khan’s Yuan Dynasty was driven out by the Ming Dynasty rebellion less than a century later, China continued to occupy and govern Tibet. The Ming Emperors appointed political governors in Tibet that were supported by Imperial troops and selected the new Dalai Lama when the old one died. When the Ming Dynasty was overthrown by the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the last dynasty of China, the Qing emperors also continued to rule Tibet using the same method.
During Dr. Sun Yat Sen’s rebellion to end thousands of years of Imperial rule in China and replace it with a Chinese style republic, The British Empire convinced the Daly Lama back then to declared freedom from China and rule Tibet as its leader. A few decades later, after World War II and the end of China’s long Civil War between the Chinese Communist Party and Chiang Kai Shek’s Nationalist Party, Mao sent the People’s Liberation Army to take Tibet back.
But taking back a territory that was considered part of China for almost a thousand years wasn’t the only reason. Water was the main reason for strategic purposes.
Tibet is a major source of water for China, Southeast Asia, and India, and China wanted to control that water source so no one else could use it to threaten China.
Forty-six percent of the world’s population depends upon rivers originating in Tibet.
In 1950, Mao Zedong annexed Tibet, largely due to its strategic position and its water resources. China is, overall, an arid country and water security is regarded as an important national security issue. Building dams, irrigation systems and diversion projects is considered vital not just for providing water to its 1.3 billion people, but also for ensuring internal political stability. Any alteration to China’s control of Tibet and its water could alter the distribution of power between China and the countries downstream as well as cause heightened internal tensions, a notion that Beijing will not tolerate.
John Webster,
Stop ridiculing Lloyd Lofthouse, whom we have known on this blog for many years. He is indeed a China expert.
Is the United States next? We have been loaded with missteps due to Trump’s ignorance.
……………………………….
BREAKING NEWS
Italy reported 793 virus deaths, the most in one day.
The country’s missteps have underscored the importance of early, strict isolation measures.
Saturday, March 21, 2020 2:00 PM EST
Italy now has more than 53,000 recorded infections and more than 4,800 dead.The rate of increase keeps growing, with more than half the cases and fatalities coming in the past week. Italy has surpassed China as the country with thehighest death toll, becoming the epicenter of a shifting pandemic.
Pence and his wife are getting tested while people who are sick can’t be because of not having the chemicals necessary for usage of the testing kits. “..he has no reason to believe that I was exposed and no need to be tested,”
…………………..
Pence says he will be tested for coronavirus
Vice President Pence said Saturday that he and second lady Karen Pence will be tested for the coronavirus after a member of the vice president’s staff tested positive for COVID-19.
“While the White House doctor has indicated that he has no reason to believe that I was exposed and no need to be tested, given the unique position that I have as vice president and as the leader of the White House coronavirus task force, both I and my wife will be tested for the coronavirus later this afternoon,” Pence told reporters at the White House.
It didn’t take politicians in Ohio long to exploit the crisis – two abortion clinics received notice from the Attorney General to stop procedures. Vote Smart reports AG Dave Yost belongs to the Northgate Community Church whose site proclaims the church is “making a kingdom impact in Central Ohio… undoing works of His (God’s) enemies”. Northgate originated from a “Jesus People movement” in the 70’s.
The warning letter from Yost referenced a COVID 19 edict about protective equipment and non-essential surgery. The edict was from the Catholic Governor’s appointed state health director who has 6 kids.
In 2019, Yost “joined the DOJ argument against civil rights protections for LGBTQ”.
On 3-2-2020, the Columbus Dispatch reported on a story about the AG’s lack of investigation into priest abuse. Unlike 11 of the 22 states investigating priest sexual abuse of children, which have similar laws to Ohio’s, Yost, according to critics, uses legal technicality as defense for inaction.
Ohio is a theocratic colony. The legislature passed an abortion bill that prevents abortion after 5-6 weeks and has no exception for incest or rape. Now, Ohio will have no clinics performing abortions unless the ACLU and courts act. Democracy be damned.
Is that Fauci standing next to Trump and blinking “It’s all lies” in Morse Code as the President speaks?
Mr. Trump said that his inclination was not to interfere with market forces. We have a lame-brained idiot running this country.
……………………….
Governments and Companies Race to Make Masks Vital to Virus Fight
President Trump resists using emergency powers to compel production, saying companies will voluntarily provide much-needed protective gear.
Updated March 22, 2020,
Doctors and hospital administrators have been warning for weeks that they face acute shortages of masks and lifesaving equipment such as ventilators. State and local officials in New York and elsewhere have been pleading for help from Washington and industry.
Mr. Trump on Saturday continued to resist calls to use the Defense Production Act, a Korean War era law that empowers the federal government to exert control over the private sector to meet national defense needs and ensure that supplies get to where they are most needed, regardless of the business plans of the companies involved.
Mr. Trump said that his inclination was not to interfere with market forces. And because companies were voluntarily heeding his calls to action, he said it was unnecessary to invoke the act…
But executives in the medical supply industry said that while they are rushing to accelerate their output of face masks, it could take months to ramp up.
Traditional surgical masks can prevent sick people from spreading the virus, but they are believed to be of limited use in keeping healthy people from getting infected. Doctors treating infected patients need the special N-95 masks, which can filter out the virus…
Call both of your Senators today at 202-224-3121 and demand that any bailout protect workers and require:
No blank checks for big corporations. Bailed out corporations must agree to:
Keep all workers, including airline workers, on payroll for the duration of the crisis
Independent oversight on the Department of Treasury’s bailout fund
Increased funding for hospitals
A permanent ban on stock buybacks
Funding for states to conduct November’s election entirely by mail
No cuts to Social Security’s dedicated funding
Here, in Memphis, many people say “what a stupid overreaction”, and they make you feel that you are such a sissy if you remind them of keeping the social distance. Walmart, Target just keep their doors open, with no apparent precautions.
Costco is much better: people stand in line outside and in such a way that you can keep the 6 foot distance, and Costco lets a group in every 5 minutes or so. They even wipe your cart’s handle. Inside there is no crowd, and workers wipe all the refrigerators, and other equipment.
dBest Buy is best: you cannot go into their stores. Workers are outside, and the tell you that you should order whatever you want online and all you can do is pick your oder up at the store.
Barnes and Noble keeps their doors open so that you do not have to tuch them to come in, and the workers have gloves on.