If Only The Trump Administration Was Competent Enough For This Crisis

By Susie Madrak — March 2, 2020

The Trump administration, as you might expect, was completely unprepared for the coronavirus, despite having weeks to get ready. After all, John Bolton fired all the experts and Trump cut the CDC's pandemic funding.

And the CDC refused to test people who don't meet a limited frame of symptoms. It's almost as if they thought keeping the numbers down would stabilize the stock market! Now they're permitting testing, but the number of tests being sent out are nowhere near enough:

The FDA announced Saturday that testing for the coronavirus would be greatly expanded in the U.S., giving laboratories and hospitals around the country the go-ahead to conduct tests that had until now been severely limited to those analyzed by the CDC https://t.co/HDZC4uwGct

— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 2, 2020

Meanwhile, in the civilized world, South Korea is offering drive-through testing:

South Korea launches 'drive-thru' coronavirus testing facilities as demand soars | The Japan Times https://t.co/4jhoMLDTFd

— ForJusticeNow (@now_justice) March 2, 2020

As it improvises its way through a public health crisis, the United States has never been less prepared for a pandemic. https://t.co/vxFBeKMNS5

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) March 2, 2020

South Korea is testing tens of thousands of people for Coronavirus. The US has only tested a few hundred (which may give us a false sense that only a few Americans have it).

Why are we so far behind? https://t.co/JoTBwYRHr5

— David Fahrenthold (@Fahrenthold) February 28, 2020

UK has tested 7000 , South Korea 12000 . https://t.co/3pURqZDtsA

— Hippiecrypt (@retrohippie861) March 2, 2020

Coronavirus testing by the numbers...

South Korea: 68,000
Italy: 9,462
UK: 7,132
Japan: 5,450
US: 445

Most states are reporting they do not have the coronavirus test kits on hand.@HHSGov needs to explain this discrepancy to the American people. Why are we so far behind?

— Rob Wagner 🆘 (@wagner_rob) March 2, 2020

A Florida man tested negative for coronavirus but was billed $3,270--so many will avoid testing. We need universal health coverage: It protects all of us. Same for paid sick leave: You want a sick person to stagger to work to prepare your food? My column https://t.co/x0ReCjqLLT pic.twitter.com/kPkauLNCz1

— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) March 1, 2020

The incompetence of the @realDonaldTrump Administration is staggering.

“When you miss cases, you can’t isolate them, test their families or get a hold on this before it keeps spreading,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiology expert ....”https://t.co/7ettGrQ6WQ

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) February 29, 2020

"I came in, I'm sick - I have symptoms like coronavirus, but I'm not tested, which means I don't have coronavirus. If you're not testing anybody, then no one's infected, right?." https://t.co/xm5Vrws19Y pic.twitter.com/2U6xTRk3GI

— Eyewitness News (@ABC7NY) March 1, 2020

And those assumptions set the frame for the testing failures.

The key question is not "why didn't CDC's test kits work?"

It's "why were flawed CDC test kits allowed to bottleneck all US testing capacity when alternatives were available?"https://t.co/cEb4P0wzAU

— Jeremy Konyndyk (@JeremyKonyndyk) March 1, 2020

Thread: #COVID19 #Coronavirus updates & data.

I will repeat this, but really important: cases coming out of the US WILL EXPLODE in the coming days. This is NOT a cause for panic. These EXISTING cases are finally being diagnosed, since testing is now more broadly available. 1/

— (((Howard Forman))) (@thehowie) March 1, 2020

This information bubbled up through a reddit post confirmed by local reporters... https://t.co/Fqxvel1kCR

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) February 29, 2020

Vice President Mike Pence says it is 'not necessary' for Americans to buy masks for coronavirus - CNNPolitics https://t.co/r090sCYq6Q

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) March 1, 2020