Coronavirus
Out of context: Reply #1181
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- yuekit2
Intelligence officials' early alarms about possible pandemic went unheeded
https://www.thehour.com/news/art…
The warnings from U.S. intelligence agencies increased in volume toward the end of January and into early February, said officials familiar with the reports. By then, a majority of the intelligence reporting included in daily briefing papers and digests from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA was about covid-19, said officials who have read the reports.
The surge in warnings coincided with a move by Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., to sell dozens of stocks worth between $628,033 and $1.72 million. As chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Burr was privy to virtually all of the highly classified reporting on the coronavirus.
Inside the White House, Trump's advisers struggled to get him to take the virus seriously, according to multiple officials with knowledge of meetings among those advisers and with the president.
On Jan. 27, White House aides huddled with then-acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney in his office, trying to get senior officials to pay more attention to the virus, according to people briefed on the meeting. Joe Grogan, the head of the White House Domestic Policy Council, argued that the administration needed to take the virus seriously or it could cost the president his reelection, and that dealing with the virus was likely to dominate life in the United States for many months.
Mulvaney then began convening more regular meetings. In early briefings, however, officials said Trump was dismissive because he did not believe that the virus had spread widely throughout the United States.
By early February, Grogan and others worried that there weren't enough tests to determine the rate of infection, according to people who spoke directly to Grogan. Other officials, including Matthew Pottinger, the president's deputy national security adviser, began calling for a more forceful response, according to people briefed on White House meetings.
But Trump resisted and continued to assure Americans that the coronavirus would never run rampant as it had in other countries.
"I think it's going to work out fine," Trump said on Feb. 19. "I think when we get into April, in the warmer weather, that has a very negative effect on that and that type of a virus."
As the first cases of infection were confirmed in the United States, Trump continued to insist that the risk to Americans was small.
"I think the virus is going to be - it's going to be fine," he said on Feb. 10.
"We have a very small number of people in the country, right now, with it," he said four days later. "It's like around 12. Many of them are getting better. Some are fully recovered already. So we're in very good shape."
On Feb. 25, Nancy Messonnier, a senior CDC official, sounded perhaps the most significant public alarm to that point, when she told reporters that the coronavirus was likely to spread within communities in the United States and that disruptions to daily life could be "severe." Trump called Azar on his way back from a trip to India and complained that Messonnier was scaring the stock markets, according to two senior administration officials.
Trump eventually changed his tone after being shown statistical models about the spread of the virus from other countries and hearing directly from Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, as well as from chief executives last week rattled by a plunge in the stock market, said people familiar with Trump's conversations.
But by then, the signs pointing to a major outbreak in the United States were everywhere.
- First QBN post on the virus back in mid January
https://www.qbn.com/…yuekit - So apparently we were better informed about what was going on than the actual president of the USAyuekit
- Imagine we're better informed than the actual president of the USA about lots of things.webazoot
- Who downvoted this and why?Bennn
- lol @ downvotes. This is relevant info guys. Even on this site the Trump fanboys can't stand any criticism of their hero, so pathetic.yuekit
- He's informed, just chooses to ignore. The man's a fucking idiot.monoboy
- He's proved beyond doubt, that ability and intelligence are no barrier to high office if you're conservative, white, male and wealthy.monoboy
- First QBN post on the virus back in mid January