Truth about Obama's handling & Trump's non-handling of epidemic / pandemic

a repost from a friend's home page, very thorough, clear, conclusive:

“Here’s a little history lesson for everyone on both sides of the political divide. It’s important that we understand the truth, especially come November when it’s time to vote.

In December 2013, an 18-month-old boy in Guinea was bitten by a bat. Then there were five more fatal cases. When Ebola spread out of the Guinea borders into neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone in July 2014, President Obama activated the Emergency Operations Center at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. The CDC immediately deployed personnel to West Africa to coordinate a response that included vector tracing, testing, education, logistics and communication.

Altogether, the CDC, under President Obama, trained 24,655 medical workers in West Africa, educating them on how to prevent and control the disease before a single case left Africa or reached the U.S.

Working with the U.N. and the World Health Organization President Obama ordered the re-routing of travelers heading to the U.S. through certain specific airports equipped to handle mass testing.

Back home in America, more than 6,500 people were trained through mock outbreaks and practice scenarios. That was done before a single case hit America.

Three months after President Obama activated this unprecedented response, on September 30, 2014, we got our first case in the U.S. That man had traveled from West Africa to Dallas, Texas and had somehow slipped through the testing protocol. He was immediately detected and isolated. He died a week later. Two nurses who tended to him contracted Ebola and later recovered. All the protocols had worked. It was contained.

The Ebola epidemic could have easily become a pandemic. But thanks to the actions of our government under Obama, it never did. Those three cases were the ONLY cases of ebola in our country because Obama did what needed to be done.

Like Covid-19, Ebola is highly contagious. If Obama had not taken those preemptive measures, millions of Americans would have died awful, painful deaths like something out of a horror movie (if you’ve ever seen how Ebola kills, it’s horrific).

It’s ironic that BECAUSE President Obama did these things - we forget that he did them, because the disease never really reached our shores.

Now here’s the story of Covid-19 and Trump’s response so far:

Before anyone even knew about the disease (even in China) Trump disbanded the pandemic response team that Obama had put in place. He cut funding to the CDC. And he cut our contribution to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Trump fired Rear Admiral Timothy Ziemer, the person on the National Security Council in charge of stopping the spread of infectious diseases before they reach our country - a position created by the Obama administration.
When the outbreak started in China, Trump assumed it was China’s problem and sent no assistance, supplies, nor research. We were in a self inflicted trade war, so why should he help?

In January, Trump received a briefing from our intelligence organizations that the outbreak was much worse than China was admitting and that it would definitely hit our country if something wasn’t done to prevent it.
He ignored the report, not trusting our own intelligence.

When the disease spread to Europe, the World Health Organization offered a boatload of tests to the United States. Trump turned them down, saying private companies here would make the tests “better” if we needed them. But he never ordered U.S. companies to make tests and they had no profit motive to do so on their own.

According to scientists at Yale and several public university medical schools, when they asked for permission to start working on our own testing protocol and potential treatments or vaccines, they were denied by Trump’s FDA.

When Trump knew about the first case in the United States he did nothing. It was just one case and the patient was isolated. When doctors and scientists started imploring that this was a mistake via the media, Trump claimed it was a “liberal hoax” conjured up to try to make him “look bad after impeachment failed.”

The next time Trump spoke of Covid-19, we had 64 confirmed cases but Trump went before microphones and told the American public that we only had 15 cases “and pretty soon that number will be close to zero.” All while the disease was spreading. He took no action to get more tests.

What Trump did do is stop flights from China from coming here. This was too late and accomplished nothing according to scientists and doctors. By then the disease was worldwide and was already spreading exponentially in the U.S. by Americans, not Chinese people (as Trump insisted).

As a nation we are heading in to a very tormented couple of weeks, before the shelter in place mandates start to flatten out the curve. Death tolls will continue to sky rocket in many parts of the country. And we still don’t have correct information on numbers of confirmed cases because we still don’t have enough tests.

Mr. Trump blames the previous administration for this mess we are in. And Republican pundits try to blame China. BUT THAT MISSES THE POINT. Obama didn’t blame Ebola on Guinea. He helped them stop it.

It was Trump who let the disease invade the U.S.

End of story.”

And sadly for hundreds of thousands of people, thanks to Trump, it will quite literally be the end of their story.

I worked in public health for the federal government during the Clinton, Bush, & Obama administrations (I'm now retired.) The ineptitude we've seen from this administration is astounding and shameful, and ongoing. And, as this post says, will cause the premature deaths of many, many people.

Let's hope that the inept performance of the current administration will be enough for voters to not return them to office. Many have and will die. He has ruined the economy. The culture? We'll see.

seems to me the sheltering in place has been the cause of the disruption of the economy.

a strong competent opponent to Trump is needed. i question, doubt if Biden is the one to accomplish this.

it is being said that epidemics may be the new normal, with SARS, Eboli, Flu's, AIDS, etc See list of 19th & 20th epidemics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...20th_centuries

there are benefits to crisis. people drop the little stuff that creates divides, enemies. Prioities rearrange. The frenzy and madhouse traffic, the hyper busy life, hustle & bustle. Likely more people are taking walks, paying attention to self care and care for others at home, garden, Nature. Slowing down, simplifying is the path to inner growth. Yes, "we'll see." Definitely living in the Unknown~

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Posted in reply to the post by tommy:

Let's hope that the inept performance of the current administration will be enough for voters to not return them to office. Many have and will die. He has ruined the economy. The culture? We'll see.

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Posted in reply to the post by santoshimatajaya:

...there are benefits to crisis. people drop the little stuff that creates divides, enemies.

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they do? boy, let's hope so. I'm afraid that also there's a tendency to exploit the the crisis. Isn't there a cliche about never letting one go to waste? Let's also hope the good guys prevail for once.

Very much appreciate this explanation. I would like to have your sources to present to family members who believe the opposite.

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Posted in reply to the post by santoshimatajaya:

a repost from a friend's home page, very thorough, clear, conclusive:

“Here’s a little history lesson for everyone on both sides of the political divide. It’s important that we understand the truth, especially come November when it’s time to vote....

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You can help prevent those deaths despite what happens ( or doesn't happen) in wash. dc

you can speak in first person( testify) what else needs to happen, now, to continue to try to save lives.

i like the print media, : sfchronicle, ny times,(they're a little busy right now).

npr has a good reputation for sharing ,real news .

I have no experience w/ the on-line folks, huffington, politico.

You have " cred" . A been there, done that. ( this is an aside, did you hear trump talk about mail-in voting?
I really want to go "no,no,no")

I'm sure we would all like to hear more of your observations. Thx.

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Posted in reply to the post by SCT:

I worked in public health for the federal government during the Clinton, Bush, & Obama administrations (I'm now retired.) The ineptitude we've seen from this administration is astounding and shameful, and ongoing. And, as this post says, will cause the premature deaths of many, many people.

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The rapidity of the Obama administration's response to the H1N1 flu in 2009 is impressive, especially so when contrasted to the #TrumpAdministration's abject failure regarding #COVID19. Check out the timelines below in the link from Daily Kos.

COVID-19 has taken just 43 days to blow past the deaths that the H1N1 pandemic generated in a year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-zvJPxJ8Hk

Watch this video from PBS.
What you posted is part of a campaign strategy this video will explain, after you watch go back to google post your thread title narrow your search to 24 hours under tools all you will see is a slew of websites you will never have heard or seen posting this. It's insidious and described in the video below.

Fauci is being targeted because he contradicts trump, trump wants him out of the picture but it would be too obvious until he can malign him just enough to have a plausible sounding excuse to get rid of him.

Why does it not surprise me that Wacoobb is being overrun by inane conspiracy theories?

First- I'll point out that "The Daily Mail" is a tabloid not unlike the "national Enquirer" . To people that live in the UK it is commonly referred to as "The Daily Fail".

Second, I'll point out that there is zero evidence to support the conspiracy theories that this escaped from a lab. Everyone from top disease experts to biological warfare experts have said this looks like a natural evolution of SARS and other diseases, and lacks all the hallmarks of a strain that would have been chosen for biological warfare.

But of course- many of us want a boogeyman and someone to blame. I guess many people Neve watch the nature shows enough to realize that nature is brutal... or that we humans are *just* another animal in the grand scheme of things...

Well- it should be noted- that as much as I despised him on oh so many levels- it was actually Bush who put in place much of Americas pandemic response and cooperation with foreign nations- policies that Obama largely carried forward. And that Trump largely dismantled.

It should also be noted Ebola, while arguably scarier because of the manner of death- was NOT a pandemic and did not spread in any meaningful way out of certain regions of Africa. Comparing Covid-19 and Ebola simply does not work...

As to pandemics moving forward... it is only logical. Viruses will continue to evolve. And in a world of increasingly dense urban areas coupled with the reality of contestant world travel - the simple reality is there will be diseases that escape their origin zones *and* are highly transmittable.

NIH has been doing this for quite some time.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., has spoken out against the U.S. funding of the Chinese institute, including in an appearance on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” this week.
“I’m against funding Chinese research in our country, but I’m sure against funding it in China,” Gaetz said, calling for an end to such grants. “The NIH [National Institutes of Health] gives a $3.7 million grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology [and] they then advertise that they need coronavirus researchers and following that, coronavirus erupts in Wuhan.”

https://foxwilmington.com/politics/u...irus-outbreak/

^^^ well, there you go. The key words *against* *funding* *China*. Look at who is saying this.

This has little to do with the current crisis- and everything to do with the ignorance and partisan politics..which...circle back- has a lot to to do with current crisis.

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Posted in reply to the post by SonomaPatientsCoop:

... I'll point out that there is zero evidence to support the conspiracy theories that this escaped from a lab. Everyone from top disease experts to biological warfare experts have said this looks like a natural evolution of SARS and other diseases, and lacks all the hallmarks of a strain that would have been chosen for biological warfare....

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actually, I did see a plausible account as to why it might indeed have escaped from a lab. However, "lab" doesn't imply bio-weapons. Hell, I worked in what we called a lab for a while; it was the room where our equipment was, as opposed to the office spaces with desks. I just noticed it with a "huh, that's interesting" but I bet if you find it compelling I'm sure you can find the reference.

The news story was that some Americans, either scientists or involved with medical research in some way, sent a report back to the US pointing out that the safety standards at a "lab" where virii were being studied in China were unsettlingly lax. They recommended some kind of effort be made to help them improve their practices.

Now, there's a germ of plausible fact that can be turned, with a little editorial color, into all kinds of interesting spins!!