President Donald Trump reportedly cancelled a CDC proposal to move forward with mitigation efforts in late February, weeks before Americans were told they would have to shelter ini their homes due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In a column for Rolling Stone, Tim Dickinson names four men who he says are most to blame for a multitude of testing failures in the United States.
Dickinson writes:
The government leaders who failed to safeguard the nation are CDC Director Redfield; FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn; Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar; and of course, President Trump. Together, these men had the power to change the direction of this pandemic, to lessen its impact on the economy, and constrain the death toll from COVID-19. Each failed, in a series of errors and mismanagement that grew into a singular catastrophe — or as Jared Kushner described it on Fox & Friends, “a great success story.”
The column goes on to reveal how Trump had thwarted mitigation efforts early on.
"The Coronavirus Task Force had resolved to present the president with a plan for mitigation efforts, like school and business closures, on February 24th, but reportedly reversed course after Trump exploded about the economic fallout," Dickinson reveals.
Two days later, Vice President Mike Pence was named as leader of the White House coronavirus task force.
It wasn't until two weeks later that the White House issued "15 days to slow the spread" social distancing guidelines that limited gatherings to 10 or fewer people.
Read the entire Rolling Stone piece here.
