Handling the coronavirus crisis

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New memos have revealed that Donald Trump was warned by a White House adviser in late January about the enormous potential toll of a coronavirus outbreak, as Japan declared a state of emergency and Europe passed a grim milestone. The two memos, first reported by the New York Times and Axios, were written by the US president’s economic adviser, Peter Navarro, and circulated widely around the White House and federal agencies.

The first, from 29 January, gave a worst-case scenario of more than half a million US deaths. The second, from 23 February, predicted an unchecked Covid-19 pandemic could kill 1.2 million Americans and infect 100 million. Trump has frequently said nobody could predict the severity of the disease, which has so far killed nearly 11,000 people in the US.

Covid-19: Trump adviser memos emerge as Japan takes emergency measures | World news | The Guardian

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In terms of palace intrigue on Tuesday, CNN reported that the Trump campaign spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany was a contender to succeed Grisham as press secretary. With the Trump administration under fire for its inconsistent messaging around the coronavirus outbreak and its attempts to play down the threat of Covid-19, McEnany recently found herself in the spotlight. On 25 February, McEnany told Fox News: “We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here, we will not see terrorism come here and isn’t it refreshing when contrasting it with the awful presidency of President Obama.” In response to a reporter from CNN – a favourite target for Trump’s complaints about “fake news” – McEnany said she had been referring to travel restrictions Trump placed on China and added: “President Trump works to defeat the invisible enemy while you mislead the nation!”

Stephanie Grisham out as Trump press secretary after never briefing press | US news | The Guardian

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The World Health Organization warned the US and other countries about the risk of human-to-human transmission of Covid-19 as early as 10 January, and urged precautions even though initial Chinese studies at that point had found no clear evidence of that route of infection.

Technical guidance notes seen by the Guardian and briefings by top WHO officials warned of potential human-to-human transmission and made clear that there was a threat of catching the disease through water droplets and contaminated surfaces, based on the experience of earlier coronavirus outbreaks, such as Sars and Mers.

In recent days, Donald Trump has attempted to blame the WHO for the pandemic, pointing to a tweet from the group on 14 January saying there was no human-to-human transmission. “In many ways, they were wrong. They also minimised the threat very strongly,” the US president said, before threatening to cut funding to the organisation..

WHO warned of transmission risk in January, despite Trump claims | World news | The Guardian

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As far back as late November, U.S. intelligence officials were warning that a contagion was sweeping  through China’s Wuhan region, changing the patterns of life and business and posing a threat to the population, according to four sources briefed on the secret reporting. Concerns about what is now known to be the novel  coronavirus pandemic were detailed in a November intelligence report by the military's National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI), according to two officials familiar with the document’s contents.

The report was the result of analysis of wire and computer intercepts, coupled with satellite images. It raised alarms because an out-of-control disease would pose a serious threat to U.S. forces in Asia -- forces that depend on the NCMI’s work. And it paints a picture of an American government that could have ramped up mitigation and containment efforts far earlier to prepare for a crisis poised to come home..

From that warning in November, the sources described repeated briefings through December for policy-makers and decision-makers across the federal government as well as the National Security Council at the White House. All of that culminated with a detailed explanation of the problem that appeared in the President’s Daily Brief of intelligence matters in early January, the sources said. For something to have appeared in the PDB, it would have had to go through weeks of vetting and analysis, according to people who have worked on presidential briefings in both Republican and Democratic administrations.

Intelligence report warned of coronavirus crisis as early as November: Sources - ABC News

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United States intelligence agencies were warning President Donald Trump about an impending pandemic as early as January, The Washington Post reported. Officials were giving Trump classified briefings on the matter at the same time that the president was publicly downplaying the risk of the novel coronavirus and insisting the US was well prepared to handle the outbreak. The Post reported that intelligence documents closely tracked the virus’ spread in Wuhan, China, where it originated and as it later progressed through mainland China, but they did not specify when the disease would make it to the US..

Intelligence officials were warning Trump about a pandemic as early as January, but they 'couldn't get him to do anything about it'

In late January, President Trump's economic adviser Peter Navarro warned his White House colleagues the novel coronavirus could take more than half a million American lives and cost close to $6 trillion, according to memos obtained by Axios. The state of play: By late February, Navarro was even more alarmed, and he warned his colleagues, in another memo, that up to 2 million Americans could die of the virus.

Peter Navarro memos warning of mass coronavirus death circulated West Wing in January - Axios

• President Donald Trump dismissed warnings from Health Secretary Alex Azar about the threat posed by the coronavirus in January as “alarmist,” reported The Washington Post Saturday.
  
• Azar was reportedly concerned that the president was not taking his warnings seriously enough, but officials told the Post Azar could’ve stressed the urgency of the problem more strongly.
  

Trump reportedly dismissed January coronavirus warnings from Health Secretary Alex Azar as 'alarmist'

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Footage has emerged of Barack Obama giving a clear and concise way for the United States to effectively combat a pandemic – back in 2014.  As Donald Trump continues to deflect blame for the spread of coronavirus in the US, it would appear that his predecessor already had a plan in place to fight highly contagious diseases. During a speech in December 2014, not long after the Ebola crisis threatened to sweep across the globe, Obama spoke at the National Institutes of Health and praised their work in preventing that particular health crisis. In his address, which was also a plea for the senate to pass through a funding bill, the then-president laid out the importance of having an infrastructure in place for the entire world, in case a new type of flu should ever materialise.

Coronavirus: Footage resurfaces of Obama in 2014 laying out how to prepare for a pandemic | indy100

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Fox News is continuing its effort to declare victory in the country’s struggle to get through the coronavirus pandemic, pointing to continued downward revisions in the projected death count to argue that the regular economy should be reopened. In fact, those downward revisions are happening precisely because of the social distancing measures that Fox commentators want to start peeling back.

The initial, nightmarish figure of a potential 2.2 million deaths in the U.S. due to the coronavirus was based on a hypothetical projection in which no great preventative measures were taken. With actions put in place, that number plummeted to a still horrific 100,000 to 240,000 deaths. Now, as a CNN report from Wednesday explained, “the model [has] predicted the virus will kill 60,000 people in the United States over the next four months”:

Fox’s prime-time lineup is now turning this into an opportunity to not only urge a relaxation of the stay-at-home orders and other economic controls, but to question the models themselves. On the Wednesday night edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, the eponymous host — who has bemoaned the whole notion of relying on scientific expertise for policy guidance in the pandemic — used these downward revisions to declare that the models had “got it wrong.”

Over at Fox News and other right-wing media outlets, however, there has been a concerted effort to claim that the numbers are being inflated. According to them, the numbers are inflated because the COVID-19 death tally includes people who tested positive but also had some other underlying health condition that the virus could have simply exacerbated.

Coronavirus death projections are down because of social distancing — which Fox hosts now want to roll back | Media Matters for America

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Over the past month, he's made many optimistic statements about hydroxychloroquine. CNN has fact-checked the president multiple times -- such as here, here, and here -- and found that he's being unrealistically enthusiastic..

Question #1: How soon until we know if hydroxychloroquine works against coronavirus?
Trump says "days."
Doctors say weeks or months.

Question #2: French researchers have already done a clinical study showing hydroxychloroquine works as a treatment for coronavirus. Doesn't that tell us something?
Trump says yes.
Doctors say the study was terrible, so no.

Question #3: Have some people tried to delay hydroxychloroquine clinical trials?
Trump says yes, and he came to the rescue.
Doctors say they have no idea what he's talking about.

Question #4: Is hydroxychloroquine safe for coronavirus patients?
Trump says yes.
Doctors say the drug can have serious side effects.

President Trump is wrong in so many ways about hydroxychloroquine studies. Here are the facts - CNN

• For extensive details and substantiation, see the linked article
  

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But the Swedish government is confident its policy can work. Foreign Minister Ann Linde told Swedish TV on Wednesday that Trump was "factually wrong" to suggest that Sweden was following the "herd immunity" theory -- of letting enough people catch the virus while protecting the vulnerable, meaning a country's population builds up immunity against the disease. Sweden's strategy, she said, was: "No lockdown and we rely very much on people taking responsibility themselves."

Sweden challenges Trump and scientific mainstream by refusing coronavirus lockdown - CNN

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It’s also a presidential election year. Trump can no longer hold campaign rallies with big crowds. He has turned the daily briefings into a substitute, still airing grievances, spinning untruths, bullying reporters and narcissistically promoting his favourite brand: himself. “I have, you know, hundreds of millions of people,” he mused on April Fools’ Day. “Number one on Facebook. Did you know I was number one on Facebook? I mean, I just found out I’m number one on Facebook. I thought that was very nice, for whatever it means.”

The wartime president Harry Truman kept a sign on his desk that said: “The buck stops here.” Trump adheres to the opposite view. Having downplayed the virus for so long – “When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done,” he said on 26 February – and failed to prepare resources, he is now, extraordinarily, trying to sell a potential death toll of 100,000 Americans as a success. Even for this master of razzle-dazzle, it would be quite a magic trick.

Covid-19 from the West Wing: 'History's verdict will be unforgiving' | Membership | The Guardian