Trump administration incompetence with regards to coronavirus -- need more examples!

His speech last night was scattered and full of errors, among them:
[ul]
[li]Erroneous claims about what insurance companies would cover[/li][li]A ban on all travel and cargo from Europe, except not really cargo and not from the UK, oh, and not US citizens either[/li][li]No actionable advice except “wash your hands”[/li][/ul]
I’m sure this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the incompetence these guys have exhibited so far. We’ve been saying since 2015 that Trump was unfit to lead this country, and now he’s proving it.

I’m canvassing in Wisconsin the next few weekends and I’m sure this will be a common topic. I’d love to have talking points about what a competent administration would have done and said differently, and how that would have changed what’s happening.

Bring it on, Dopers!

As it happens, I was recently composing a list of such things to send to my parents, who are Trump supporters and refuse to hear anything negative about him. But now they’re endangering their lives with their willful ignorance, so I wanted to point out the following to them:

• As a nation, we were aware of the outbreak in China 3 months ago, yet the administration did almost nothing until about 3 weeks ago. Sure, they suspended travel for China – but that was much too late. The virus was already here. Still, that didn’t stop Republicans from mocking the epidemic by wearing gas masks on the floor of the House and deriding concerns about the virus at CPAC as a “Democrat(ic) hoax.”

• There were perfectly good test kits being manufactured in Germany and available to us through WHO, but instead of importing those, the administration insisted on making their own.

• Their first attempt at making test kits failed. The kits had to be recalled due to giving many false positive results.

• Private industry/research facilities finally ramped up manufacture of test kits. But the administration insists that all approval for testing must go through the CDC. It takes weeks to get results, even for the very few that have been tested so far.

• Trump said anyone who wants to be tested can be tested because there are enough kits. That is a lie. To date, there are 75,000 kits (they claim without evidence) with a promise to increase to 2 million by next week. (NEXT WEEK!!) Go ahead. Try and get tested. You won’t be able to, yet.

• The administration currently plans to charge for both test kits and any vaccine that is developed. Can you think of a single other epidemic where individual citizens were charged for these things? Hint: You can’t, because no administration has ever allowed that to happen. Disgusting.

• The administration removed any reference to how many people have been/are being tested from the CDC website, saying only that the number “keeps changing.” Umm, duh.

• The CDC concluded that older Americans shouldn’t fly. Trump’s White House BLOCKED CDC officials from making that recommendation.

• As best can be determined, fewer than 5,000 people have actually been tested to date. This is a huge problem, since no one, including medical personnel and/or business people can get a handle on the vectors where the disease is most active to make the best plans for dealing with it.

• Trump tried to keep the Grand Princess cruise ship from docking, because he worried it would affect “his numbers.” I’m kidding, right? No.

• As of this morning, the administration still could not articulate a clear plan via Ben Carson for how to handle the passengers disembarking from the cruise ship. They will disburse them to various military installations around the country for quarantine. That’s pretty much all we know at this point.

• Trump continues to push the lie that COVID-19 is “just like the flu.” It’s not just like the flu. No one has any immunity to it. There is no vaccine for it. We don’t even yet know how long the virus can survive on a surface.

• Trump continues to push the lie that a vaccine will be available in “a month or two.” There will not be a vaccine for at least a year, and more likely 18 months. That’s if we get lucky.

• The administration deactivated the White House pandemic task force that President Obama had put in place to proactively deal with upcoming new diseases in the wake of H1-N1 and Ebola epidemics. Oops.

I listed these about a week ago so they are obviously already much out of date. I did not remove my own editorial comments. But at least it will give you a starting place.

Go watch the last few days/weeks of “A Closer Look” with Seth Meyers and clips from Trevor Noah. I’m sure the other hosts do plenty of it as well, but those are the two that I happen to watch and they’ve spent a lot of time on exactly what you’re looking for. IIRC, one of them pointed to Trump saying (paraphrased) “there’s 15 cases right now, I think we should have close to zero cases within a week” as the single worst presidential prediction ever.

Something else to look into is the way Trump, his kids and Fox News have been trying to spin coronavirus into either a hoax or suggesting that democrats want people to bring it here and want thousands/millions to die from it specifically so we can crucify Trump for it.
At the same time, while at the CDC he said he’d prefer if we left the people stuck on cruise ships out at sea. Screw the people that might still be healthy, he said he didn’t want the number of sick people in the states to increase just because the ship disembarked here.

So, while they’re accusing democrats of attempting to politicize this, they’re also blatantly ignoring actual heath officials, seemingly more concerned about statistics and money.
Remember, this is the same person that tore apart the NOAA for daring to have a weather report that was different than the one he made up.

Trump himself might be infected.

We may get a President Pelosi yet!

After encountering a flu (I quarantined myself) that could have been corona (in a few days there will be no way to know since there is no testing and the state told me I made just too much to qualify for health care this year) I would not want him to die from it, but suffering a bit will be ok. But, it is likely that in this case the Germaphobia of Trump will save him, reportedly he already washes hands maniacally and uses a lot of disinfectant.

If an official spokesman for the administration had screwed up a public statement that badly, they would justifiably be fired for incompetence.

But this is far worse. Trump isn’t just the purpose who’s supposed to be delivering the speech. He’s the guy who’s supposed to be making decisions and setting policies. Yet we just saw that he isn’t even capable of reading the policy off a teleprompter.

So who’s in charge if Trump can’t do the job? Is Pence calling the shots behind the scenes? Do they treat Trump like Henry Blake and have Radar put papers in front of him and tell him to sign them?

Although that’s an unfair comparison to Henry Blake. He was a poor leader but a competent doctor. Trump was a failure as a businessman before becoming a failure as a President.

Holy smokes, great list. Thank you!

Not even the hardest-core MAGAts can still dismiss this pandemic as a Democratic hoax, so it seems they will finally experience the impact of Trump’s incompetence while it’s on full display. And while this administration was able to buy off farmers hurt by tariffs, they’ll never be able to compensate the millions of businesses and workers hurt by the pandemic. They’re gonna wear this one.

Here’s another: As of today, CDC reported it had tested just over 11,000 specimens for the virus so far. Meanwhile, South Korea is testing nearly 20,000 patients per day.

From a couple of days ago:

Feds to immigration courts: remove coronavirus info posters - Immigration court staff nationwide were ordered by the Trump administration to take down all coronavirus posters from courtrooms and waiting areas.

Because we can’t have healthy immigrants and refugees, can we?

Additionally, Trump’s current budget includes a 16% cut to CDC. Altho, it has not been passed yet. That is not likely to help our readiness.

Most welcome. I’m super pissed about all this.

The depths of the Trump Cabal’s depravity and cruelty knows no bottom.

I just got an email from my (Republican) congressman that claimed that he had voted in 2018 to raise the CDC appropriation. Maybe he even did, but it didn’t go through, did it.

My daughter who was chief copy editor for the NY office of Nature tells me that, even after considerable effort, they never succeeded in finding a vaccine against SARS. Covid-19 is in the same family as SARS. So I am not holding my breath on getting a vaccine in a year, let alone a month.

Don’t forget muzzling the CDC by requiring all announcements to be cleared by Pence.

Don’t be so sure:

87% of Republicans approve of Trump’s handling of coronavirus.

6 in 10 Republicans express low levels of concern.

Completely empty stands at NASCAR events over at least the next couple of weeks might put a dent in that.

Let’s see what happens when plants start closing and relatives start dying.

(God that sounds ghoulish. Shit in my world is coming apart left and right, and here I sound like I’m rooting for the worst to happen. Fucking Trump.)

The ban on European travel is regarded as too-late and too-stupid, but one news site made a bizarre charge: The travel ban is carefully worded to allow travel to the U.K. and certain countries in Eastern Europe: countries where the Trump Organization has hotels or golf clubs!

To imagine even this President stooping so low as to worry about his resort income in the midst of this crisis seems far-fetched. But this President is bizarrely petty.

There, there. We need our federal agencies to make profits. How else can we afford more tax cuts for the rich?

Septimus, not far fetched at all. This is the guy that raises the prices on his hotel rooms when he drags his entourage to them.

The House passed a bill that provides for:

  • free coronavirus testing
  • paid emergency medical leave
  • extended unemployment insurance
  • food assistance
  • help for health care workers.

The Senate is about to go on recess until March 23. According to McConnell ally Lamar Alexander, “The Senate will act when we come back and we have a clearer idea of what extra steps we need to take.” Not like there’s any urgency or anything.