Throughout the many disasters that have befallen the Trump administration, one theme has remained a constant: malevolence tempered by incompetence.
The successful negotiation of everyday life would seem to require that people to possess insight about deficiencies in their intellectual and social skills, and act accordingly. The current administration, fueled by an excessive opinion of its expertise, has become blind and blissfully unaware of its own incompetence.
The sad truth is that the current COVID-19 pandemic was not preventable, but it was predictable, and thus no surprise. Because the success of the 9/11 attacks were attributed to a “lack of imagination,” new thinking and planning methods had to be developed. In 2004, a national planning effort began to formulate a response to the “unimaginable.” The parameters of these plans would be along the lines of preparing for any events that were:
1. Beyond the realm of expectation (but not of possibility).
2. Impacts are not computable using any existing methods (no modeling or data exists to make accurate predictions).
3. Understandable only in hindsight because biases from current experiences blind us to the possibility of it (No recent similar occurrences).
In 2006, a plan, A National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza, was published, that described more than 300 critical actions, designed to create a coordinated response to the threat of a global pandemic. The plan detailed the specific and coordinated actions to be taken by the federal, state and local governments, as well as capabilities and limitations in responding to the sustained and distributed burden of a pandemic and the central importance of comprehensive preparation.
The goals of a national response to a pandemic are to: (1) stop, slow or otherwise limit the spread of a pandemic to the U.S.; (2) limit the domestic spread of a pandemic and mitigate disease, suffering and death; and (3) sustain infrastructure and mitigate impact to the economy and the functioning of society.
Any pandemic is a global threat requiring an international response. An outbreak of a pandemic anywhere, poses a risk to populations everywhere. Thus, an international effort to contain and mitigate the effects of an outbreak of a pandemic anywhere is a central component of our strategy to stop, slow or limit the spread of infection to the U.S.
For containment to be effective, the U.S. and the international community must develop a comprehensive containment strategy that involves commitments of funding, supplies, equipment, training, expertise, personnel, countermeasures, manufacturing (the Defense Production Act), hospital equipment and personal protective equipment (PPE) in a coordinated, global approach. The success of such an effort, however, will be highly dependent on early notification of any outbreak.
The thinking and planning to combat a potential world-wide pandemic already existed. The Trump administration ignored this and seriously mismanaged the response to the current COVID-19 pandemic. President Trump claims that President Obama’s administration left broken, unusable tests and his feuding with the WHO are only his attempts to deflect justified criticism of this failure.
Trump’s claims that we had tests that were “broken” are patently false. The COVID-19 virus did not emerge until nearly three years after Obama left office. This is a new virus, so how could the tests be “broken.”
Second, while initially praising their response to the COVID-19 outbreak, it is also clear that the Chinese covered up the real danger. Though the Chinese refused to allow U.S. experts to help investigate the outbreak it the source, concerted presidential pressure could have possibly changed this. The threats to leave the WHO and eliminate any further funding only muddy the water and seriously hamper a needed coordinated response.
On, Feb. 29, the day of the first reported U.S. death from the coronavirus, President Trump was asked, “How should Americans prepare for this virus? Should they go on with their daily lives? Change their routine? What should they do?" Trump responded “Well, I hope they don’t change their routine.”
A recent study estimated that if the U.S. had moved to shut down on March 2, up 90% of the deaths from COVID-19 could have been prevented. The failure to act and prevent unnecessary deaths and suffering can be laid at the front door of the White House.
William E. Hewitt Jr, Ed.D., is a retired educator, living in Salt Lake City.
from The Salt Lake Tribune https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2020/06/09/william-e-hewitt-failure/
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