The U.S. is the “Most Prepared in the World” for COVID-19
Know the truth behind the lies; our response to this novel coronavirus is a deadly joke.
Trump has already failed his first real test.
Between the President’s nonsensical “hunches” and his assertions that the United States is mysteriously making “tremendous progress” with combating the virus, it’s hard to know where to begin to dismantle his propaganda machine regarding COVID-19.
The Militant shall not be deterred in our mission to unveil the truth behind the smoke and mirrors.
“Mr. Trump’s virulent combination of ignorance, emotional instability, demagogy, solipsism and vindictiveness would do more than result in a failed presidency; it could very well lead to national catastrophe. The prospect of Donald Trump as commander in chief should send a chill down the spine of every American.” — Peter Wehner
“Virulent combination” how poetic, little did Peter know of his prophecy.
I agree with Peter Wehner’s eloquent dissection of Trump from 2016, long before we could have ever predicted a catastrophe such as a viral outbreak. Trump isn’t responsible for the coronavirus. It was most likely going to spread across the globe no matter what the world did to try to contain it.
However, it is becoming clear that the United States has completely dropped the ball on mitigating this event, and people will die unnecessarily over his administration’s incompetence. Peter Wehner’s most recent article in the Atlantic regarding the current circumstances is riveting.
“That said, the President and his administration are responsible for grave, costly errors, most especially the epic manufacturing failures in diagnostic testing, the decision to test too few people, the delay in expanding testing to labs outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and problems in the supply chain.
These mistakes have left us blind and badly behind the curve, and, for a few crucial weeks, they created a false sense of security. What we now know is that the coronavirus silently spread for several weeks, without us being aware of it and while we were doing nothing to stop it. Containment and mitigation efforts could have significantly slowed its spread at an early, critical point, but we frittered away that opportunity.” — Peter Wehner
The mixed messages coming from the white house are astounding. While Trump is characterizing testing in the U.S. as going great, simultaneously, Anthony Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, tells congress under oath that our testing practices are failing, “let’s admit it.”
Not only are we failing. We’re dead last.
Our level of testing is pathetic and beyond negligent.
Despite being listed third from the bottom on this chart, for all intents and purposes, our population size places us in last place. Mind you, these are estimates, and this site can only update when they receive information from each countries government. Our numbers are surely far worse then this.
How could we know? The U.S. has only tested around 15,000 people out of a population of 331 Million, according to the most recent report.
Which begs the question, why haven’t we been testing people like other countries? China and South Korea are capable of testing more people in a day than we have tested in total as a country. Yet, Trump keeps touting that we are the most prepared, of any other country on Earth?
“On Saturday Jan. 11 — a month and a half before the first Covid-19 case not linked to travel was diagnosed in the United States — Chinese scientists posted the genome of the mysterious new virus, and within a week virologists in Berlin had produced the first diagnostic test for the disease. Soon after, researchers in other nations rolled out their own tests, too, sometimes with different genetic targets. By the end of February, the World Health Organization had shipped tests to nearly 60 countries. The United States was not among them.” — Joanne Kenen
Why was the United States not among them? Olga Khazan, a staff writer for the Atlantic, did an excellent job in her reporting of the reasons the U.S. is so behind on COVID-19 testing.
“The issues began with onerous requirements for the labs that make the tests, continued because of arcane hurdles that prevented researchers from getting the right supplies, and extended to a White House that seemed to lack cohesion in the pandemic’s early days. Getting out lots of tests for a new disease is a major logistical and scientific challenge, but it can be pulled off with the help of highly efficient, effective government leadership. In this case, such leadership didn’t appear to exist.” — Olga Khazan
The leadership didn’t exist because Trump dismantled the NSC Pandemic response department in 2018. Also, why on Earth would we refuse the help of the World Health Organization when offered tests?
Trump said it himself, “I like the numbers. I want the numbers to stay where they’re at…” He doesn’t want to see them any higher because he knows it would scare the stock market, and that’s all he cares about.
He thought and hoped that the coronavirus “could disappear” after all.
Trump gets away with referring to the coronavirus as a “hoax” put on by the democrats, and then has the gall to attempt to speak about the viral outbreak to the country in his disastrous televised oval office address, as if he gives a damn. What the hell do Trump supporters think after hearing him call COVID-19 a “hoax,” in one breath and the next day see him warning the public of its seriousness from the oval office?
I’m not sure if I should be more terrified of this pandemic’s ramifications, or the unfortunate reality that half of my country is stupid enough to believe everything he says no matter how many times he’s caught contradicting himself. If not willfully ignorant, then they are selfish enough to overlook the well being of our democracy to do whatever it takes to push conservative policies.
I haven’t been able to let go of a loose end. It doesn’t matter anymore because the virus is out there now in our community, and we have no other choice than to ride this out together until a treatment or vaccine may become available. But, I think it’s important to be informed, even if the information is futile.
Why is there such little writing and information regarding the first reported cases of COVID-19 in the United States?
I keep wondering why there is almost no reporting of any significant detail about the outbreak of this novel coronavirus at the nursing home (a 25-minute drive from my residence) in the Seattle area. Sure, there were a couple of cases reported first in California, but somehow the Life Care Center in Kirkland, Washington became the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States?
If it was a college dorm room, I could see how attempting to trace who brought the infection to the building might be near impossible. But this is a nursing home for Christ’s sake, the residents rarely leave, there must be a visitors log. Did they not contact every single person that visited to interview them? Find out if they had a “cold” recently?
Not only did they not do that, the truth of how it was handled is shocking.
Several reporters for NPR put together a chilling article, “The ominous days leading up to the coronavirus outbreak at Life Care Center in Kirkland.” Which describes in detail the mismanagement and gross negligence of their initial response to the discovery.
“In January, firefighters responded seven times to the Life Care facility. In February, and the first five days of March, they responded 33 times. Firefighters are now grappling with the idea that coronavirus may have already been circulating at Life Care for weeks and that they, and Life Care workers, residents and visitors, had not been warned to take precautions, And that they may have inadvertently helped spread the virus farther.
In the days leading up to last Friday, Life Care staff and first responders were using nebulizers and CPAP machines to treat patients. ‘We essentially aerosolized it,’ one first responder said, because before last Friday, that was standard protocol to treat patients. We made it worse…” — National Public Radio
What stands out to be most to me is the lack of federal oversight. There is none. After reading the most in-depth reporting I could find on this topic, it’s still unclear to me when or how the federal government ever stepped in to take control of the situation.
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room.
Looking back, we all thought the Chinese iron fist handling of the outbreak in Wuhan was initially shocking. They corralled the sick into large wards to quarantine and treat those that tested positive for COVID-19. Don’t forget this is not China’s first rodeo, they have a system.
If you leave your apartment, you get your temperature taken. If you get on public transportation, you get your temperature taken. You enter a building, and you get your temperature taken.
If you have a fever, you are immediately taken to a facility to test you for COVID-19. This facility is separate from the main hospital so that in case you are positive, you’re not putting the patients and staff there at risk.
You receive your test results within four hours, while you wait. If for some reason, those results are delayed, they take you to a quarantined hotel for the night to ensure you don’t leave there to go home to infect friends and family.
It took that kind of tedious effort to contain this in China. We have nothing even remotely resembling this organized process in the United States.
China built a facility with 1,000 beds specifically to treat COVID-19 patients in 10 days.
Trump stated during his national emergency declaration, “We’re rated number one in the world and are helping other countries.” I’m sorry, am I missing something? Rated number one at what? As you recall, we are dead last in the world with our ability to test for this virus.
Could the United States build and staff a facility in 10 days to house 1,000 sick coronavirus patients? I don’t fucking think so.
Countries such as South Korea have also been incredibly effective in their testing procedures, and containment without adopting the draconian Chinese methods. For example, Bahrain has a population of 1.7M and has the ability to test nearly 5,000 out of every million of its citizens. The United States, with a population exceeding 331M, is currently only able to test 26 people out of every million.
Bahrain, within a matter of weeks, has 200 times the capacity to test for this coronavirus, and a third of the U.S. population.
Meanwhile, Governor Inslee of WA reported that when the Trump administration was initially called for assistance regarding the coronavirus outbreak in Seattle, no one returned their call for days. We would be lucky to be following in China or Korea’s footprints right now. Instead, we are headed on the path to the situation in Italy.
There has not been enough action and testing taken in the beginning to mitigate the outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States. The Italian health care system is severely overburdened right now. They do not have the capacity to take in the mass of people infected with this coronavirus.
Neither do we, and on a much greater scale than Italy. The United States is over five times the size of Italy. Yet, at this moment despite all of their problems combating the virus, Italy can test just over 1,000 people per million.
Remember our number… we can test 26 individuals per million? Let that sink in. We should be extremely concerned about our hospitals across the nation being able to handle the storm of severely ill people that will need medical attention for COVID-19.
America is not set up for this. How is that being coordinated? I haven’t heard our “Coronavirus Czar,” Mike Pence, say a damn thing about it. Will we have separate facilities across the nation to house and treat every suspected COVID-19 case? They need to be quarantined away from the rest of the hospital patients and workers.
The health minister of Italy passed away last week. A healthy man in his 60’s, was overcome by the virus after exposing himself selflessly on the front lines.
Which brings me to my next point. Yes, this virus can be mild and similar to a bad cold or flu for many people. However, it seems to overtake certain people and not others, for no rhyme or reason. Not just the elderly with underlying health conditions die from COVID-19.
Our healthcare and service workers are at the greatest risk of exposure right now.
The New York Times highlighted an article about two women in China on the front lines.
Only one survived. I’m most disturbed that the woman that did not survive was feeling better, and thought she would be returning home to her husband soon. They show her heartbreaking and hopeful text message exchanges with her family before she suddenly died the next day.
Anthony Fauci warned this virus is 10x deadlier than the flu, as far as we can ascertain with the limited data available to us.
Our healthcare workers are in extreme danger. An article was published in the New York Times Sunday night by Karen Weise, “Two Emergency Room Doctors Are in Critical Condition With Coronavirus.”
“Emergency rooms represent a busy intake point for hospitals, where patients come in with symptoms but no diagnosis. As the coronavirus spreads during the typical flu season, emergency physicians are triaging large numbers of patients around the country with symptoms that could be the virus.” — Karen Weise
Two doctors that were the first to treat patients with COVID-19 have both fallen ill, and are in intensive care. How are we going to protect our Doctors and Nurses? It will be a catastrophic disaster if too many of them fall ill.
There are so many unanswered questions. Why are some countries reporting such disproportionately higher death rates than others? Why aren’t children affected generally, there are only a few reported cases and one death? What do I do if I feel sick? Where can I get tested in my city?
Right about now you’re probably asking yourself where does this leave us?
The Trump administration has offered almost no guidance whatsoever on how to handle much less contain this new virus. Every state Governor is essentially flying blind. We’re fortunate here in Seattle to have the University of Washington, its team of scientists and a competent state government.
All politicians are not created equal. You put a reality TV star in the office and then wonder why he’s not handling the first Pandemic in 100 years adequately? Of course Trump “takes no responsibility” for the lack of testing. You’re not surprised, are you?
We need competent leadership in the White House, a fully staffed administration, and a fucking pandemic unit. You know, just in case?
This is our new normal. As of writing this, we have 61 deaths and over 3,000 confirmed infections in the United States.
Airports around the world are in complete chaos with large crowds of people trying to make it home after the idiotic European travel ban was mandated last week. As of today, the CDC has asked that all gatherings over 50 be abstained from for the next eight weeks. Schools have been closed for 25 Million American students. Please stay informed and home whenever possible; for all of us.
The viral outbreak of this novel coronavirus is going to force America and the rest of the world to take a hard look inward. I believe COVID-19 will lift the curtain. The hoax of a President that is Donald Trump, his inadequate administration and the faults of our broken health care system will finally be unveiled. If this is what it is going to take, so be it.
“The worst is yet to come.” — Anthony Fauci the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease 3/13/20
*This is a follow up to “The Coronavirus ‘Could Disappear’.”
*Links were used in this article to cite sources of information; all are non-affiliated independent sources from major news outlets, and non-political public health organizations.
➡️ Jezebel Feast is the editor of “Jezebel’s Feast,” a personal blog focused on the vast topic of living a sustainable lifestyle. Visit her new home jezebelsfeast.com. Want to keep in touch? Catch Jeze on Instagram 📸 or Pinterest 📌…🔗…🚀
Jezebel stands in solidarity with “The Militant” and is currently taking a sabbatical to focus on writing about what matters in 2020 …
