Trump finally makes move on outbreak
United States President Donald Trump surprised many yesterday when he closed air travel from the European Union to the US. He hasn’t made the running on many of his previous moves, starting when he picked Vice President Mike Pence to head the government’s coronavirus task force.
Pence has a chequered history with responding to viral outbreaks.
As Governor of Indiana, Pence initially refused to allow a clean-needle exchange programme, which experts argued was necessary to prevent further outbreaks of HIV.
In the 2021 budget announced last month, the Trump administration proposed cuts that would reduce funding to the Centres of Disease Control and Prevention by 16 per cent, as well as cut $3 billion from global health programmes.
Trump also suggested, in a roundabout way, on February 26, the coronavirus outbreak was declining in the US.
“As most of you know, the level that we’ve had in our country is very low, and those people are getting better, or we think that in almost all cases they’re better, or getting.”
And further: “If you can count on the reports coming out of China, that spread has gone down quite a bit. The infection seems to have gone down over the past two days.
“As opposed to getting larger, it’s actually gotten smaller. In one instance where we think we can be — it’s somewhat reliable, it seems to have gotten quite a bit smaller.”
The rollout of testing for coronavirus was also bungled in the US.
While South Korea carried out 35,000 tests, the US conducted 426.
Until recently, only about a dozen state and local laboratories could run tests outside the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta because the CDC kits sent out nationwide included a faulty component.
Several commentators have speculated Trump was willing to gamble on the virus being overstated and warm weather would head it off from totally blowing up in the US.
Describing the botched response to the pandemic as “a fantastic job” might appear tantamount to delusional but is understandable when put into the context of an impending election.
Far from finding his hoped-for “miracle”, and cases dropping to zero, Trump was yesterday forced to accept the realisation the rest of the world had already acknowledged.
By his own admission, Trump is an expert on the novel coronavirus.
“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. I understand that whole world. I love that world. I really do.”
By closing flights from the EU, it appears he has indeed proven he has learned something.
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