Washington – For when the president Donald trump I speak publicly for the first time about the coronavirusMaybe it was too late.
In an interview on January 22 at the Davos World Economic Forum, a gathering of the world elite in the Swiss Alps, the president downplayed the threat of the respiratory virus from China, which had just arrived in the United States in a lone patient in the Washington state.
“We have it fully under control,” Trump told CNBC. “This is a person who comes from China, and we have him under control. We will be fine.”
Eleven weeks later, the coronavirus has reached all corners of the world. It has infected more than 500,000 Americans and killed at least 20,000. It has forced to reformulate the norms of the society, to that the population is isolated in their homes and that the schools close; It has devastated the economy and left millions of people without jobs.
When Trump spoke in Switzerland, there had already been warning signs for weeks that it was worth considering. In the following month, before the president addressed the crisis for the first time since the White House, crucial steps were not taken to prepare the nation for the approaching pandemic.
Vital medical equipment was not stored. In general, the trips continued without limitations. Crucial public health data from China had not been provided or was not considered reliable. A White House divided by rivalries and staff turnover acted slowly.
The urgent warnings were ignored by a president consumed by his impeachment and focused on protecting a robust economy that he considered fundamental to his chances for reelection.
Twenty government officials, including some who are no longer in it, and Republicans close to the White House were interviewed to give this version of the crucial weeks that were lost before the president offered his message to the nation on February 26. Most asked to remain anonymous because they did not have authorization to speak publicly about private conversations.
“Mysterious pneumonia”
On New Year’s Eve, China reported to the World Health Organization about a “mysterious pneumonia outbreak” that was spreading through Wuhan, an industrial city of 11 million people.
The government closed a seafood market in the center of the outbreak, moved all patients with the virus to a hospital specifically designated to care for the disease, and took samples to send to government laboratories. Doctors were ordered not to speak about it; one of them, who launched an internet alert, was sanctioned. He later died of the coronavirus.
The Pentagon learned of what was happening for the first time in December through public access reports from China. In the first days of January, warnings about the virus had reached intelligence reports circulating in the government. On January 3, the director of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Robert Redfield, received a call from his Chinese namesake with an official warning.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s leading expert on infectious diseases, was alerted to the coronavirus around the same time, and two weeks later he was already fearful that it could lead to a global catastrophe.
On January 11, China shared the genetic sequence of the virus. That same day, the National Institutes of Health began working on a vaccine.
The United States eventually obtained authorization from Beijing to send two people on the WHO team that traveled to China later that month. But by then precious weeks had been lost, the virus had spread throughout Asia and was beginning to escape the continent.
Balancing act
For much of January, Washington officials performed a delicate balancing act.
Internally, alarms sounded about the need to send American experts to China. They publicly gave words of encouragement and praise in the hope that Beijing would provide access to the experts.
Matthew Pottinger, Trump’s deputy national security adviser, persistently urged him to act more firmly in confronting China to allow US experts to enter, and to send them to that country.
But although the issue of the virus was included in several of the intelligence reports that the president received, Trump was not fully informed about the threat until when the secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, called him on January 18 to update it. on the situation while the president was at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
Trump spent much of the conversation wanting to broach the topic of vaping; was weighing a new policy to restrict its use. White House officials now believe that the president did not fully grasp the magnitude of the threat to the United States in part because Azar, who had friction with several members of the circle close to Trump, did not do a good job updating it.
“Very, very smart”
On February 10, Trump stood before thousands of supporters at a campaign rally in New Hampshire and stated, “By April, you know, in theory, when the weather gets a little warmer, (the virus) will it will have miraculously gone. “
The crowd roared their approval of that phrase by Trump, whose veracity had not been proven. The Senate had exonerated the president from impeachment charges and the president shifted his focus to reelection, despite others in the government being vigilant about the virus.
By the time Trump picked up the lectern in the White House press room to talk about the coronavirus, the United States already had 15 patients with COVID-19, the disease it causes.
“We are at a very low level, and we want to keep it that way,” Trump said. “We are very, very ready for this.”
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