NOTE THAT THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE RELATES TO THE USA - NOT TO NEW ZEALAND

The Washington Post - Coronavirus Updates

today

 

President Trump and members of Congress failed to heed repeated early warnings from U.S. intelligence agencies about the outbreak's potential severity, according to a blockbuster story in The Washington Post. 

 

Despite CIA and national intelligence reports from January and February that the coronavirus had the potential to sweep the globe, Trump continued to trust (and tweet) the Chinese government's false claims that its spread was being controlled. 

 

“The system was blinking red,” a U.S. official told The Post. “They just couldn’t get him to do anything about it.”

 

The crisis is now upon us, with more than 70 million Americans living under stay-at-home orders in California, New York and Illinois, and signs that other states may be preparing to follow suit. 

 

The U.S. has seen more than 260 deaths and 22,000 confirmed cases of the virus - climbing fast - but the true number of infections is almost certainly much higher due to a shortage of tests. 

 

Health officials in New York, California and other hard-hit parts of the country are restricting coronavirus testing to health-care workers and people who are hospitalized, signaling “the battle to contain the virus is lost.”

 

In frustration, some people have started buying fraudulent “home-test kits,” prompting warnings from the FDA.

 

The virus has infected Americans from every walk of life - most severely the immunocompromised and elderly, but also athletes, entertainers, lawmakers and, as of Friday, an employee in the office of Vice President Pence, who leads the White House coronavirus task force and will be tested for the disease. 

 

The combination of mass infections and mass quarantines are threatening an economic crisis unprecedented in modern history. 

 

Some financial analysts predict the economy will shrink at an annual rate of 14 percent to 30 percent in the next few months. Bank of America Merrill Lynch expects the government to report about 3 million newly unemployed Americans next week - “more than four times the record high set in the depths of the 1982 recession.”

 

Civic life is being shuttered across the United States. Hospitals are warning of shortages or closures without emergency aid. At least 73 senior care centers in 22 states have reported infections. Many local court systems have effectively shut down, firefighters are calling in sick, and the mayor of Dayton is worried the city will soon lack funds to pick up the trash.

 

Trump's hotel and resort business has been hit hard in the chaos. His prized Mar-a-Lago Club has been effectively shuttered by order of Florida's governor. The president has touted a gargantuan $1 trillion-plus stimulus bill being hammered out in Congress, even as he resists pleas for the federal government to send medical supplies and other aid directly to the states. The U.S. government is “not a shipping clerk,” Trump told reporters this week.

 

Experts worry that the twin medical and economic crises could last far longer than we are prepared for, even into November's national election, forcing officials to contemplate the hugely difficult and expensive possibility of an entire nation voting by mail.

 

As he was during the outbreak's early spread in January, Trump remains upbeat despite most evidence. At a news conference late this week he promised: “We’re going to be a rocket ship as soon as this thing gets solved.” ...

 

EDIT   The purpose of this post is not political - rather it is to emphasise that incompetent meddling with a health system can have devastating medical, social, and economic consequences during epidemics or similar national emergencies.