@CalBears96
Random tweets and interview snips are not policy. They are expressions and nothing more. I'll have one to review in a moment.
Examples?
May 2018: The Trump Administration disbands the White House pandemic response team.
Fact Checked by the hyper MAGA news outlet USAToday:
https://www.kff.org/news-summary/us...im-trump-fired-entire-nsc-global-health-unit/
July 2019: The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) epidemiologist embedded in China’s disease control agency left the post, and the Trump Administration eliminated the role.
Article by the Far Right news outlet Reuters:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...a-prior-to-coronavirus-outbreak-idUSKBN21C3N5
Money Quote:
Some health experts were skeptical that more CDC employees operating inside China would have made a difference in stemming the outbreak. Beijing has been widely criticized for silencing its own public health officials who warned of a deadly new respiratory disease emanating from the Chinese city of Wuhan and surrounding Hubei province.
“The problem was China, not that we didn’t have CDC people in China,” said Scott McNabb,
a former CDC epidemiologist who is now a research professor with Emory University. He pointed to China’s censorship as the main culprit in the spread of the pandemic, which has infected at least 435,470 people worldwide, killed 19,598 and upended the global economy.
Here's a random quote that could easily be spun out of context- "Trump downplaying the COVID-19 severity"
March 4: “Well, I think the 3.4% is really a false number.” — Trump in an interview on Fox News, referring to the percentage of diagnosed COVID-19 patients worldwide who had died, as reported by the World Health Organization. (See our item “
Trump and the Coronavirus Death Rate.”)
Just by doing the math alone, assuming a very low testing percentage of 15% of the global population - 7.5B x 15% = 1.13b x 3.4% death rate is 38M. Total Deaths Pandemic to present is 6.8m. My math seems to indicate that the real death rate (in this testing scenario) is about .06% not 3.4%. Source: Our World In Data, google "Global COVID Deaths" 02/28/2023
This is in no way to minimize the severity or death rate for COVID-19, but to demonstrate the hyperbolic response to quotes, tweets, statements, versus actions taken during the Pandemic
Leaders are supposed to inform, but also calm their constituents in times of what was then an unknown, unclear disease. Had any President said what was being pushed out by "medical experts" - mostly paid talking heads on cable news outlets - far, far greater reactions could have taken place - mass firings for being unvaccinated which by no means is a conspiracy theory but actual fact. Many displaced unvaccinated workers are finally regaining their pay, benefits, and employment now through the legal process, but at what cost to them? Should we continue to mask toddlers because of a disease impacting so few relative to other diseases? Some in the extreme would insist. Cooler heads will look at the facts.
Was the response 100% perfect? I've said earlier, there were mistakes during the previous administration. People make them all the time. Here on Planet Reality, we have to allow for them, and contextualize. If there was genuine malfeasance or intent to harm, then justice must be served. For example: as verified data shows, Fauchi's is complicit in gain of function research done overseas using United States funding. When I see The Fauch perp walked, then of course we must take the blame further up the food chain and get everyone involved in an orange jump suit.
My .02c
