Senator Susan Collins’ assertion that President Trump “did a lot that was right in the beginning” of the administration’s response to coronavirus has been exposed as completely false by a new report from the Associated Press detailing how the Trump administration “wasted months” before preparing for the coronavirus. This comes after the Washington Post uncovered that it took the Trump administration 70 days to begin to treat coronavirus as a serious threat.

 

Despite warnings from U.S. officials as far back as the beginning of January, the Trump administration waited until mid-March to begin stocking up on medical equipment for front line health care workers. Due to the inadequate and fractured federal response, governors have been forced to bid against each other and federal agencies for desperately needed supplies, causing prices to surge.

 

In last week’s interview with the Bangor Daily News, the only thing Senator Collins pointed to as an example of something the Trump administration did right was the China travel ban, but a new investigation has uncovered that even that ban was far too ineffective. Since the ban went into effect, more than 40,000 people have flown to the U.S. from China, many of whom have faced only “spotty” screening procedures upon entry.

 

“Senator Collins is defending Trump’s coronavirus response despite overwhelming evidence that his inaction is going to cost lives,” said Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Lisa Roberts. “Trump wasted more than two months of precious time downplaying the threat of this crisis but instead of holding him accountable, Senator Collins has chosen to ignore the facts. It’s clear she’s more interested in having Trump’s back than doing what’s right.”

 

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Associated Press: U.S. ‘wasted’ months before preparing for virus pandemic

 

By Michael Biesecker

April 5, 2020

 

Key Points:

 

  • After the first alarms sounded in early January that an outbreak of a novel coronavirus in China might ignite a global pandemic, the Trump administration squandered nearly two months that could have been used to bolster the federal stockpile of critically needed medical supplies and equipment.

 

  • A review of federal purchasing contracts by The Associated Press shows federal agencies largely waited until mid-March to begin placing bulk orders of N95 respirator masks, mechanical ventilators and other equipment needed by front-line health care workers.

 

  • Now, three months into the crisis, that stockpile is nearly drained just as the numbers of patients needing critical care is surging. Some state and local officials report receiving broken ventilators and decade-old dry-rotted masks.

 

  • “We basically wasted two months,” Kathleen Sebelius, health and human services secretary during the Obama administration, told AP.

 

  • As early as mid-January, U.S. officials could see that hospitals in China’s Hubei province were overwhelmed with infected patients, with many left dependent on ventilator machines to breathe. Italy soon followed, with hospitals scrambling for doctors, beds and equipment.

 

  • Trump and his appointees have urged state and local governments, and hospitals, to buy their own masks and breathing machines, saying requests to the dwindling national stockpile should be a last resort. “The notion of the federal stockpile was it’s supposed to be our stockpile,” Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and adviser, said at a White House briefing Thursday. “It’s not supposed to be state stockpiles that they then use.”

 

  • Experts in emergency preparedness and response have expressed dismay at such statements, saying the federal government must take the lead in ensuring medical supplies are available and distributed where they are needed most.

 

The Washington Post: The U.S. was beset by denial and dysfunction as the coronavirus raged

 

By Yasmeen Abutaleb, Josh Dawsey, Ellen Nakashima. Greg Miller

April 4, 2020

 

Key Points:

 

  • The United States will likely go down as the country that was supposedly best prepared to fight a pandemic but ended up catastrophically overmatched by the novel coronavirus, sustaining heavier casualties than any other nation.

 

  • The Trump administration received its first formal notification of the outbreak of the coronavirus in China on Jan. 3. Within days, U.S. spy agencies were signaling the seriousness of the threat to Trump by including a warning about the coronavirus — the first of many — in the President’s Daily Brief.

 

  • And yet, it took 70 days from that initial notification for Trump to treat the coronavirus not as a distant threat or harmless flu strain well under control, but as a lethal force that had outflanked America’s defenses and was poised to kill tens of thousands of citizens. That more-than-two-month stretch now stands as critical time that was squandered.

 

  • Trump’s baseless assertions in those weeks, including his claim that it would all just “miraculously” go away, sowed significant public confusion and contradicted the urgent messages of public health experts.

 

  • The most consequential failure involved a breakdown in efforts to develop a diagnostic test that could be mass produced and distributed across the United States,

 

  • Other failures cascaded through the system. The administration often seemed weeks behind the curve in reacting to the viral spread, closing doors that were already contaminated. Protracted arguments between the White House and public health agencies over funding, combined with a meager existing stockpile of emergency supplies, left vast stretches of the country’s health-care system without protective gear until the outbreak had become a pandemic. Infighting, turf wars and abrupt leadership changes hobbled the work of the coronavirus task force.

 

  • It may never be known how many thousands of deaths, or millions of infections, might have been prevented with a response that was more coherent, urgent and effective. But even now, there are many indications that the administration’s handling of the crisis had potentially devastating consequences.

 

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