COVID-19 & TRUMP ADMINISTRATION - A TIMELINE

How did we get to this point in America with so many coronavirus cases and deaths?  (China’s response to this crisis had its own problems, but that’s for another time.)  Well, let’s take a look at the chronology of the Trump administration’s actions:

Note: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the leading national public health institute of the United States.  It is a United States federal agency under the department of Health and Human Services.  Every year the Trump administration has requested a cut in the CDC’s budget, only Congress has prevented that from happening.  (The Trump administration can truthfully say they never cut the CDC’s budget, they didn’t, they just tried repeatedly.)

2005, President George Bush: “If we wait for a pandemic to appear, it will be too late to prepare.”  “A pandemic is a lot like a forest fire," Bush said at the time. "If caught early it might be extinguished with limited damage. If allowed to smolder, undetected, it can grow to an inferno that can spread quickly beyond our ability to control it."

2016: The National Security Council created a color-coded 69-page instruction manual, known as the “pandemic playbook” for fighting pandemics.

January 2017: The Trump administration is briefed on the “pandemic playbook” by the outgoing administration.  Trump’s homeland security adviser, Tom Bossert, “expressed enthusiasm about its potential as part of the administration’s broader strategy to fight pandemics”.

In 2018, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cut 80% of its efforts to prevent global disease outbreaks because it was running out of money. Ultimately, the global health unit of the department went from working in 49 countries to just 10.

Trump shut down the entire global-health-security division of the National Security Council, eliminated the US government's $30 million Complex Crises Fund, and reduced national health spending by $15 billion.

February 2018: The Washington Post writes the “CDC to cut by 80 percent efforts to prevent global disease outbreak.” The meat of the story is “Countries where the CDC is planning to scale back include some of the world’s hot spots for emerging infectious disease, such as China, Pakistan, Haiti, Rwanda and Congo.”

April 10, 2018: John Bolton, Trump's national security adviser at the time, ousts Bossert and disbands the NSC's pandemic response directorate, where the “pandemic playbook” resided.

May 2018.

§  At an event marking the 100 year anniversary of the 1918 pandemic, Dr. Luciana Borio (Director for Medical and Biodefense Preparedness at the National Security Council ) says “pandemic flu” is the “number 1 health security issue” and that the U.S. is not ready to respond.

§  One day later her boss, Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer, who would have overseen the US's response to a pandemic, is pushed out of the administration and the global health security team is disbanded.

§  Rep. Ami Bera warns that “Admiral Ziemer’s departure is deeply alarming, especially when the administration is actively working to cut funds that addressed past pandemics like Ebola.”

§  Beth Cameron, former senior director for global health security on the National Security Council adds: “It is unclear in his absence who at the White House would be in charge of a pandemic,” Cameron said, calling it “a situation that should be immediately rectified.”

January 2019: The director of National Intelligence issues the U.S. Intelligence Community’s assessment of threats to national security. Among its findings:

§  Page 17: “The increase in frequency and diversity of reported disease outbreaks—such as dengue and Zika—probably will continue through 2018, including the potential for a severe global health emergency that could lead to major economic and societal disruptions, strain governmental and international resources, and increase calls on the United States for support. A novel strain of a virulent microbe that is easily transmissible between humans continues to be a major threat, with pathogens such as H5N1 and H7N9 influenza and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus having pandemic potential if they were to acquire efficient human-to-human transmissibility.”

§  Page 21: “We assess that the United States and the world will remain vulnerable to the next flu pandemic or large scale outbreak of a contagious disease that could lead to massive rates of death and disability, severely affect the world economy, strain international resources, and increase calls on the United States for support.”

Crimson Contagion was a simulation administered by the Department of Health and Human Services from January to August 2019 that tested the capacity of the U.S. federal government and twelve U.S. states to respond to a severe influenza pandemic originating in China. The exercise involves a scenario in which tourists returning from China spread a respiratory virus in the United States, beginning in Chicago. In less than two months the virus had infected 110 million Americans, killing more than half a million. The report issued at the conclusion of the exercise outlines the government's limited capacity to respond to a pandemic, with federal agencies lacking the funds, coordination, and resources to facilitate an effective response to the virus.

April 17, 2019: Biodefense summit, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Tim Morrison, then a special assistant to the President and senior director for weapons of mass destruction and biodefense on the National Security Council “Of course, the thing that people ask: ‘What keeps you most up at night in the biodefense world?’ Pandemic flu, of course. I think everyone in this room probably shares that concern,” Azar said, before listing off efforts to mitigate the impact of flu outbreaks.

July 2019: Dr. Linda Quick, American field epidemiologist embedded in China’s “CDC” is relieved of her duties.

September, 2019: The Trump administration decided to end a $200m early warning program designed to alert it to potential pandemics just three months before it is believed Covid-19 began infecting people in China.

The project, called Predict, had been run by the US Agency for International Development since 2009. It had identified more than 160 different coronaviruses that had the potential to develop into pandemics, including a virus that is considered the closest known relative to Covid-19.

A decision to wind down the program was made just three months before the first reports of people becoming infected with Covid-19 in Wuhan, China. The end of the program saw the departure of dozens of scientists and analysts working to identify potential pandemics in countries around the world, including China.

November, 2019: Per ABC News, The US military's National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI) compiled an intelligence report in which "analysts concluded it could be a cataclysmic event”.  The intelligence report was then briefed "multiple times" to the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon's Joint Staff and the White House.

December, 2019: Repeated briefings were held through December across the US government, including the National Security Council, culminating in a detailed outline of the threat in the President's Daily Brief in early January, according to ABC News, whose report cited four sources briefed on the matter.

December 31, 2019: China alerts the World Health Organization to several cases of an unusual type of pneumonia in Wuhan.  The Taiwan Centers for Disease Control sends an email regarding rumors of at least “seven cases of atypical pneumonia.” 

The WHO, a United Nations organization with all of its inherent bureaucracy, slow decision-making and dependence on member states is heavily reliant on information provided by countries and cannot fine countries that fail to provide accurate information. 

January 3, 2020: The CDC is first alerted to a public health event in Wuhan, China (This fact was revealed publicly later by HHS Secretary Alex Azar.)

Trump attends a campaign rally in Miami, Fl.

January 5, 2020 WHO news release: “On 31 December 2019, the WHO China Country Office was informed of cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology (unknown cause) detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China. … Based on the preliminary information from the Chinese investigation team, no evidence of significant human-to-human transmission and no health care worker infections have been reported.”

January 6, 2020: The CDC issues a travel notice for Wuhan due to the spreading coronavirus.

§  Note: The Trump campaign claims that this marks the beginning of the federal government disease control experts becoming aware of the virus. It was 10 weeks from this point until the week of March 16 when Trump began to change his tone on the threat.

January 8, 2020: The CDC issues an official health advisory about COVID-19. 

January 9, 2020 WHO statement: “Chinese authorities have made a preliminary determination of a novel (or new) coronavirus, identified in a hospitalized person with pneumonia in Wuhan. … Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses with some causing less-severe disease, such as the common cold, and others more severe disease such as MERS and SARS. Some transmit easily from person to person, while others do not. According to Chinese authorities, the virus in question can cause severe illness in some patients and does not transmit readily between people. … More comprehensive information is required to understand the current status and epidemiology of the outbreak, and the clinical picture.”

Trump attends a campaign rally in Toledo, OH.

January 10, 2020: Former Trump Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossert warns that we shouldn’t “jerk around with ego politics” because “we face a global health threat…Coordinate!”

January 12, 2020 WHO news release: “The evidence is highly suggestive that the outbreak is associated with exposures in one seafood market in Wuhan. The market was closed on 1 January 2020. At this stage, there is no infection among healthcare workers, and no clear evidence of human to human transmission.”

China shares the genetic sequence of the coronavirus.

January 13, 2020: Thailand announces it has the first imported case of the coronavirus. The individual, who lived in Wuhan, had arrived from China on Jan. 8.

WHO news release: “The way these patients became infected is not yet known. To date, there has been no suggestion of human to human transmission of this new coronavirus. There have been no infections reported among health care workers, which can be an early indicator of person to person spread.”

January 14, 2020: WHO news release: “Based on the available information there is no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission. No additional cases have been detected since 3 January 2020 in China.”

WHO tweet: “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China.”

WHO news briefing: “From the information that we have it is possible that there is limited human-to-human transmission, potentially among families, but it is very clear right now that we have no sustained human-to-human transmission,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, acting head of the WHO’s emerging diseases unit. “It is still early days, we don’t have a clear clinical picture.”

Trump attends a campaign rally in Milwaukee, WI.

January 18, 2020: After two weeks of attempts, HHS Secretary Alex Azar finally gets the chance to speak to Trump about the virus. The president redirects the conversation to vaping, according to the Washington Post.

January 19, 2020: WHO tweet “An animal source seems the most likely primary source of this novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak, with some limited human-to-human transmission occurring between close contacts.”

January 20, 2020: First U.S. case is reported in Washington state, a healthy 35-year-old nonsmoker who had just returned from Wuhan, China.

President Xi of China warns the public about the new virus.  In that 6 day lag the city of Wuhan hosted a mass banquet for tens of thousands of people and millions began traveling for Lunar New Year celebrations.

WHO tweet: “It is now very clear from the latest information that there is at least some human-to-human transmission of #nCoV2019. Infections among health care workers strengthen the evidence for this.” At the time, there were only 222 confirmed cases in the world, including four deaths.

WHO scientists arrive in Wuhan China.

January 21, 2020: Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says “… obviously you need to take it seriously. And do the kinds of things that the CDC and the Department of Homeland Security are doing, but this is not a major threat for the people of the United States and this is not something that the citizens of the United States right now should be worried about.”

Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Disease at the CDC, tells reporters, “We do expect additional cases in the United States.”

First case is identified in the US.

January 22, 2020: WHO news release “Data collected through detailed epidemiological investigation and through the deployment of the new test kit nationally suggests that human-to-human transmission is taking place in Wuhan. More analysis of the epidemiological data is needed to understand the full extent of human-to-human transmission.”

Trump: “We have it totally under control.  It’s one person coming from China.  We have it under control.  It’s going to be fine.

January 23, 2020: The WHO warns of a 4 percent death rate, human-to-human transmission and potential exporting of the virus to “any country”.

A Chicago area woman returns from Wuhan, China.  One week later her husband is infected becoming the first known case of person-to-person transmission in the US.

January 24, 2020: Trump praises China and President Xi Jinping for the country’s “efforts and transparency” in dealing with the Coronavirus.  “China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus.  The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency.  It will all work out well.  In particular, on behalf of the American people, I want to thank President Xi!”

CBS announces the second confirmed case of coronavirus in the US is a woman in the Chicago area.

The business of the Senate included an all-senators briefing on coronavirus with Trump health officials, including the CDC director and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Three Senators Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and James Inhofe (R-OK) dump millions’ worth of stocks, collectively.

January 27, 2020: Top White House aides meet with Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney to encourage greater focus on the threat from the virus. Joe Grogan, head of the White House Domestic Policy Council warns that “dealing with the virus was likely to dominate life in the United States for many months.”  Trump is dismissive “because he did not believe that the virus had spread widely throughout the United States”.

January 28, 2020: Two former Trump administration officials - Gottlieb (former head of Trump’s FDA) and Borio - publish an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal imploring the president to “Act Now to Prevent an American Epidemic.” They advocate a 4-point plan to address the coming crisis:

§  (1) Expand testing to identify and isolate cases.

§  Note: This did not happen for many weeks. The first time more than 2,000 tests were deployed in a single day was not until almost six weeks later, on March 11.

§  (2) Boost flu vaccination efforts to reduce the load on hospitals.

§  (3) Prepare hospital units for isolation with more gowns and masks.

• Note: In a normal year, the U.S. health care system uses about 25 million medical N95s, according to Premier Inc., an organization that helps hospitals purchase supplies. Many of the masks are disposable and meant to be used once.  HHS has estimated that the United States could need as many as 3.5 billion N95 masks during a pandemic.

There was no dramatic ramp-up in the production of critical supplies undertaken. As a result, many hospitals quickly experienced shortages of critical PPE materials.

§  (4) Vaccine development.

January 28, 2020: Trump attends a campaign rally in Wildwood, NJ.

“Any way you cut it, this is going to be bad,” a senior medical adviser at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Dr. Carter Mecher, wrote in an email to a group of public health experts scattered around the government and universities. “The projected size of the outbreak already seems hard to believe.”

January 29, 2020: The New York Times reports that “mask hoarders” may cause further shortages when the outbreak reaches America.

In a memo by Peter Navarro, President Trump’s trade adviser: “The lack of immune protection or an existing cure or vaccine would leave Americans defenseless in the case of a full-blown coronavirus outbreak on U.S. soil. This lack of protection elevates the risk of the coronavirus evolving into a full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans.”

January 30, 2020: Dr. James Hamblin publishes another warning about critical PPE materials in the Atlantic, titled “We Don’t Have Enough Masks.” At the time, it was clear that mask shortages would be a serious problem. Other countries coping with COVID-19 were already running short on masks and ordering them from America and, in addition, almost the entire CDC stockpile had been consumed during the 2009 flu season.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declares a global health emergency.

Trump attends a campaign rally in Des Moines, IA.

Trump: “We think we have it very well under control.  We have very little problem in this country at the moment – five – and those people are all recuperating successfully.  But we’re working very closely with China and other countries, and we think it’s going to have a good ending for us…that I can assure you.”

January 31, 2020: Trump imposes travel restrictions on China.

§  Trump’s Chinese travel restrictions only banned “foreign nationals who had been in China in the last 14 days.” This wording did not - at all - stop people from arriving in America from China. In fact, for much of the crisis, flights from China landed in America almost daily filled with people who had been in China, but did not fit the category as Trump’s “travel ban” defined it.

We now know the ban did not apply to some 40,000 people who came to the United States from China after it went into effect.

Foreign Policy reports that face masks and latex gloves are sold out on Amazon and at leading stores in New York City and suggests the surge in masks being sold to other country’s needs “refereeing” in the face of the coming crisis.

Wilbur Ross, Secretary of Commerce: “I think it (coronavirus) will help to accelerate the return of jobs to North America.”

By the end of January and beginning of February a majority of the intelligence in Trump’s daily briefings was about the coronavirus.

In January and February U.S. manufacturers sent millions of dollars of face masks and other protective medical equipment to China with encouragement from the federal government.

February 2, 2020 Trump: “We pretty much shut it down, coming in from China.”

February 3, 2020: An unclassified Army briefing on the coronavirus projected that “between 80,000 and 150,000 could die” in an extreme ‘Black Swan’ analysis.  (A ‘Black Swan’ event is an outlier event of extreme consequence but often understood as an unlikely one.)

February 4, 2020: On February 4, 2020, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) determined that there is a significant potential for a public health emergency that has a significant potential to affect national security or the health and security of United States citizens living abroad and that involves a novel (new) coronavirus (nCoV) first detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China in 2019 (2019-nCoV).

Gottlieb and Borio take to the WSJ again, this time to warn the president that “a pandemic seems inevitable” and call on the administration to dramatically expand testing, expand the number of labs for reviewing tests, and change the rules to allow for tests of people even if they don’t have a clear known risk factor.

§  Note: Some of these recommendations were eventually implemented - 25 days later.

The CDC is ready to send out hundreds of coronavirus test kits to state and local health labs.  Unfortunately, the version sent out failed to work for most.  (In January the CDC had developed a test for the coronavirus in their agency’s labs.)  By the time they started sending out new version the virus had already spread.

In his State of the Union address, Trump pledged to “take all necessary steps” to protect Americans from the coronavirus.

February 4 or 5, 2020: Robert Kadlec, the assistant secretary for preparedness and response, and other intelligence officials brief the Senate Intelligence Committee that the virus poses a “serious” threat and that “Americans would need to take actions that could disrupt their daily lives.”

February 5^th, 2020: The Senate votes not to remove Trump from office.  (Note: On March 24^th, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) says the president was distracted from public health issues because he had to defend himself in the impeachment hearings.  Now read the “warnings” that were evident in the days and weeks following.)

Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) tweets “Just left the Administration briefing on coronavirus.  Bottom Line: they aren’t taking this serious enough.  Notably, no request for ANY emergency funding, which is a big mistake. Local health systems need supplies, training, screening staff, etc. And they need it now.”

February 6^th, 2020: The CDC ships the first test kits, which turned out to be defective.

February 7^th, 2020: Michael R. Pompeo, Secretary of State: “This week the State Department has facilitated the transportation of nearly 17.8 tons of donated medical supplies to the Chinese people, including masks, gowns, gauze, respirators, and other vital materials.  These donations are a testament to the generosity of the American people.”

President Trump tells reporters that the CDC is working with China on the coronavirus.

February 9, 2020: The White House Coronavirus Task Force briefs governors from across the nation at the National Governors' Association Meeting in Washington.

February 10, 2020: Trump attends a campaign rally in Manchester, NH.  “I think the virus is going to be it’s going to be fine.”

February 12, 2020: Gottlieb testifies before Congress that actions must be taken to address medical supply chain issues and the possibility of shortages.

February 13, 2020: the Center for Global Development, a nonpartisan Washington think tank, warned in a report about the “urgent but closing window” for the U.S. government to prepare, including specifically recommending an immediate review of the P.P.E. supply chain; the creation of a plan for the distribution of supplies and the public communication of that plan; and the development of ‘options for addressing PPE shortfalls,’ which ranged from increasing manufacturing to coming up with new ‘parameters for reuse in crisis conditions’.

February 14, 2020 Trump: “We have a very small number of people in the country, right now, with it.  It’s like around 12.  Many of them are getting better.  Some are fully recovered already.  So we’re in very good shape.”

Trump predicts that the arrival of warmer weather could cause the coronavirus to slow down.

February 19, 2020 Trump: “I think it’s going to work out fine. I think when we get into April, in the warmer weather, that has a very negative effect on that and that type of virus.”

February 20, 2020: Borio and Gottlieb write in the Wall Street Journal that tests must be ramped up immediately “while we can intervene to stop spread.”

§  It’s important to understand that the Trump campaign brags about the fact that the administration lifted CDC restrictions on tests. This is a factually true statement.

§  But it elides that fact that they did so on March 3 - two critical weeks after the third Borio/Gottlieb op-ed on the topic, during which time the window for intervention had shrunk to a pinhole.

Trump attends a campaign rally in Colorado Springs, CO.

February 21, 2020: Trump attends a campaign rally in Las Vegas, NV.

Dr. Robert Kadlec, the Department of Health and Human Services' lead on disaster response, met with the White House's coronavirus task force and the group concluded that social distancing measures including school closures would need to take place soon.

February 22, 2020:  A WHO team of international experts arrives in Wuhan, China.

February 23, 2020: Harvard School of Public Health professor issues warning on lack of test capability: “As of today, the US remains extremely limited in COVID19 testing. Only 3 of ~100 public health labs have CDC test kits working and CDC is not sharing what went wrong with the kits. How to know if COVID19 is spreading here if we are not looking for it.

Peter Navarro urges immediate funding to “minimize economic and social disruption”.

February 24, 2020: The Trump administration sends a letter to Congress requesting a small dollar amount—between $1.8 billion and $2.5 billion - to help combat the spread of the coronavirus. This is, of course, a pittance compared to the massive recovery package being debated at the time. At the time the administration was widely criticized by members of Congress for not going big enough to deal with the problem.

Peter Navarro assures the press that the coronavirus was “nothing to worry about for the American people” under Trump’s leadership.

Dr. Duane Caneva, the chief medical officer at the Department of Homeland Security, sent an urgent email with the subject line “Red Dawn Breaking Bad” to a small group of doctors, epidemiologists, public-health officials, and pandemic experts. 

The DOW drops more than 1,000 points. Trump: “The coronavirus is very much under control in the USA.  We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries.  CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart.  Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”

February 25, 2020: Nancy Messonnier, a senior CDC official, 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. Mr. Azar sought to quell concerns, saying the virus was “contained.” Trump: “CDC and my administration are doing a GREAT job of handling coronavirus.”  “I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away.  They have studied it.  They know very much.  In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine.”

February 26, 2020: Congress, recognizing the coming threat, offers to give the administration $6 billion more than Trump asked for in order to prepare for the virus.

§  Trump mocks Congress in a White House briefing, saying “If Congress wants to give us the money so easy - it wasn’t very easy for the wall, but we got that one done. If they want to give us the money, we’ll take the money.”

Trump had a briefing where he replaced Dr. Alex Azar, the secretary of Health and Human Services, as the head of the coronavirus task force with Vice President Mike Pence, with a focus on controlling the message so as not to impact the economy.

Trump: “This is like a flu.  This is like a flu.  It’s a little like the regular flu that we have flu shots for.  And we’ll essentially have a flu shot for this in a fairly quick manner…Fifteen, within a couple of days, is going to be down to zero.”

In contrast the Cleveland Clinic alerted the public that it was prepared to quickly open 1,000 additional hospital beds should the need arise.

Trump discussed coronavirus containment efforts with Indian Prime Minister Modi and updated the press on his Administration's containment efforts in the U.S. during his state visit to India.

February 27, 2020: “We have the skills and resources as a community but we are collectively paralyzed by a bloated bureaucratic/administrative process,” Marc Couturier, medical director at academic laboratory ARUP in Utah, writes to other microbiologists after weeks of mounting frustration.

The administration embraced a new approach behind closed doors that very day, concluding that “a much broader” effort to testing was needed, according to an internal government memo spelling out the plan. Two days later, the administration announced a relaxation of the regulations that scientists said had hindered private laboratories from deploying their own tests.

By then, the virus had spread across the country. In less than a month, it would upend daily life, shuttering the world’s largest economy and killing thousands of Americans.

In a leaked audio recording Sen. Richard Burr, chairman of the Intelligence Committee and author of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA) and the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation Act (reauthorization of PAHPA), was telling people that COVID-19 “is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic.”

Trump: “One day it’s like a miracle it will disappear”.

February 28, 2020: Trump attends a campaign rally in North Charleston, NC.  He describes the coronavirus as a “new hoax” of his political rivals. “Now the Democrats are politicizing coronavirus.  And this is their new hoax.”

The CDC discovers the first (2) cases of community transmission.

Dr. Jerome Adams, the surgeon general and chief medical officer for the United States, was added to the Red Dawn email chain.

February 29, 2020, The first confirmed death from the coronavirus is reported in the United States.  Trump: “Everything is really under control.”

March 2, 2020: Trump attends a campaign rally in Charlotte, NC.  “You take a solid flu vaccine, you don’t think that could have an impact, on corona?”

March 3, 2020: Vice President Pence is asked about legislation encouraging companies to produce more masks. He says the Trump administration is “looking at it.”

§  Note: Recall that the concern about masks was raised publicly by high-profile former Trump appointees, on January 28.

By this time the US has 122 confirmed cases and 7 deaths.

March 4, 2020: HHS says they only have 1 percent of respirator masks needed if the virus became a “full-blown pandemic.” They announce their intent to purchase 500 million N95 masks with plans to distribute them over the next 18 months. 

Trump: “So we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that just get better, by, you know, sitting around and even going back to work.”

In contrast, Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, shut down a weekend fitness expo expected to draw 60,000 people a day to a Columbus convention center. There were no identified coronavirus cases in the state at the time.

March 5, 2020 Trump: “I NEVER said people that are feeling sick should go to work.”

March 6, 2020: Trump while touring the CDC in Atlanta says, “Anybody right now, and yesterday, right now that needs a test gets a test. They’re there. They have the test. The tests are beautiful. Anybody who needs a test gets a test.”

Later that same day, Trump says “What a problem.  Came out of nowhere.”

March 7, 2020: Fox News host Tucker Carlson, flies to Mar-a-Lago to implore Trump to take the virus seriously in private rather than embarrass him on TV. Even after the private meeting, Trump continued to downplay the crisis, forcing Carlson to obliquely criticize him publicly on his show two nights later.

§  Note: Carlson, after hearing from an expert with “access to intelligence” who was concerned about the virus began covering the issue on his show February 3rd, over a month prior to the private meeting.

March 8, 2020 Trump: “We have a perfectly coordinated and fine-tuned plan at the White House for our attack on coronaVirus.”

March 9, 2020: Tom Bossert, Trump’s former Homeland Security adviser, publishes an op-ed saying it is “now or never” to act. He advocates for social distancing and school closures to slow the spread of the contagion.

§  Trump says that developments are “good for the consumer” and compares COVID-19 favorably to the common flu.

§  Trump: “The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power (it used to be greater!) to inflame the CoronaVirus situation, far beyond what the facts would warrant.  Surgeon General, ‘The risk is low to the average American’.”

§  Trump: “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!”

The number of US coronavirus cases jumps from 423 to 647.

March 11, 2020 the WHO declares the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic. The NBA suspends their season. 

March 12, 2020 the NHL suspends their season.  MLB suspends operations indefinitely.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, instead of working through the weekend on an emergency aid package, recessed for a long weekend and returned to Kentucky.

March 13, 2020: Trump starts delivering his own daily coronavirus briefings.  He declares the outbreak a national emergency but says “I don’t take responsibility at all” when asked whether he takes responsibility for the lag in making test kits available.

Jerry Falwell, Jr. on Fox & Friends: “You know, impeachment didn’t work, and the Mueller report didn’t work, and Article 25 didn’t work, and so maybe now this is their next, ah, their next attempt to get Trump.”

March 16, 2020: British scientists publish forecasts of America’s trajectory: with no mitigation 2,200,000 dead; with some mitigation 1,100,000 dead.

Trump announces his support for a 15-day period of social distancing in order to slow the spread of coronavirus.  “Who knew?”

San Francisco issued the nation's first shelter in place order restricting all but essential activities.

Tim Morrison, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former senior director for counterproliferation and biodefense on the National Security Council, stated that the president and John Bolton did not “dissolve” the pandemic response office but they shrunk the NSC staff and consolidated it into the counterproliferation and biodefense directorate.

March 17, 2020: Facing continued shortages of the PPE (Personal Protection Equipment) needed to prevent healthcare providers from succumbing to the virus, Oregon Senators Jeff Merkeley and Ron Wyden call on Trump to use the Defense Production Act to expand supply of medical equipment.

US has 7,786 confirmed cases and 118 deaths. Trump: “This is a pandemic and I called it a pandemic long before anyone called it a pandemic.”

March 18, 2020: Trump signs the executive order to activate the Defense Production Act, but declines to use it. At the White House briefing he is asked about Senator Chuck Schumer’s call to urgently produce medical supplies and ventilators.

Trump responds: “Well we’re going to know whether or not it’s urgent.”

Note: At this point 118 Americans had died from COVID-19.

March 19, 2020: Governor Gavin Newsom of California enacts the first stay-at-home order in the US.

March 20, 2020: 2 months after the first reported case, the US has more than 26,000 cases with 340 deaths.

March 21, 2020: Trump says "We're going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately. And that's where the FDA has been so great. They've gone through the approval process - it's been approved."  The FDA attempted to quickly reverse the lie.

March 22, 2020: Six days after calling for a 15-day period of distancing, Trump tweets: “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF. AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!

New York issues their stay at home order.

March 23, 2020: S&P 500 falls to the point where it erases all gains made during Trump’s presidency.

March 24, 2020: Trump tells Fox News that he wants the country opened up by Easter Sunday (April 12).

§  Trump says, “You will have packed churches all over our country, I think it would be a beautiful time and it is just about the timeline that I think is right.”  “We’ve done more tests in eight days than South Korea has done in 8 weeks.”  (South Korea has tested 348,582 people.)

§  As Trump was speaking to Fox News, there were 52,145 confirmed cases in the United States and the doubling time for daily new cases was roughly four days.

§  The pace of the viral spread was increasing.

§  Testing was still in the process of ramping up, and unavailable in many areas.

§  Doctors were still “desperate” for masks and other basic PPE supplies.

Note: According to the CDC, the coronavirus bacteria has been found on a cruise ship 17 days after passengers had left.  Scientists in Iceland claim they have found 40 mutations of the coronavirus – and admit seven cases can be traced back to a football match in England.  They traced the virus back to three European countries – Austria, Italy, and England.

VP Pence: “I can tell you that at no point has the White House Task Force discussed a nationwide lockdown.”

WHO warns the US could be the next epicenter of the global coronavirus.

On the basis of the February 4, 2020 HHS EUA determination, the Secretary of HHS declares that circumstances exist justifying the authorization of emergency use of medical devices, including alternative products used as medical devices, during the COVID-19 pandemic, authorizing the emergency use of ventilators…

March 25, 2020: Congress passes a $2,200,000,000,000 rescue package.  Trump says, in a letter sent to state governors, that his administration is working to publish new guidelines for state and local governments to use when making decisions about “maintaining, increasing or relaxing social distancing and other mitigation measures” for the coronavirus epidemic.  The data will suggest guidelines categorizing counties as “high risk, medium risk or low risk” for the virus.  The data will drive “the next phase” of the response.

Note: There are at least 53,934 confirmed cases in the United States and at least 728 people have died.

March 26, 2020: It was announced that last week 3.3 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits.  US death toll reaches 1,000.  Health worker union sleuths find 39 million masks in stockpile.  (Note: California estimates they will need 500 million for the duration of the pandemic.)

White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said the United States “can start thinking about getting back to some degree of normality when the country as a whole turns that corner” of reducing the spread of the coronavirus outbreak.  “You need to see the trajectory of the curve start to come down.”

The US overtakes China with the most coronavirus cases with 83,329 positive tests.

Reuters reveals that the Trump administration cut CDC staff in Beijing by more than two-thirds over the past two years.

March 27, 2020: Total number of US cases passes 100,000.

Fox Business Network announced it has officially “parted ways” with anchor Trish Regan following her controversial rant against what she called the ‘coronavirus impeachment scam’ earlier this month.

Kentucky republican representative Thomas Massie called for an in-person vote on the coronavirus stimulus bill forcing House members to return to Washington.  The bill finally passes.

More than 800,000 physicians across the country signed a letter urging Trump to keep social distancing practices in place after he said he wants to reopen businesses by Easter.

Trump tells Pence not to call governors who have been critical of the federal government’s response to the crisis.

Trump used the Defense Production Act for the first time to compel General Motors to produce ventilators.  He promises to make 100,000 ventilators in 100 days.

March 28, 2020: Trumps says he intends to ignore the provision of the bill that requires the newly created Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery to report to congress ‘without delay’ when any other agencies in his administration refuse to provide information about how the money is being spent.

For several days Trump has noted that the US is surpassing South Korea and other countries when it comes to coronavirus testing.  Note: While the US has overtaken South Korea in total number of coronavirus tests administered, it has conducted far fewer tests per capita given the US population is more than six times larger than South Korea’s.

Total number of US cases passes 141,000

March 29, 2020: Trump says federal guidance urging social distancing will stay in place through April 30.

Total number of US cases passes 164,000.

March 31, 2020: Mitch McConnell claims the slow response by President Donald Trump and Congress to the COVID-19 crisis was because the impeachment "diverted the attention of the government."

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) details two problems with testing. First, his state doesn’t have enough tests, saying “we’re one day away if we don’t get test kits from the CDC that we wouldn’t be able to do testing.” And second, that the federal government has depleted the tests available on the private market.

Trump respond to Bullock’s concerns by saying, “I haven’t heard about testing in weeks. We’ve tested more now than any nation in the world. We’ve got these great tests, and we’ll come out with another one tomorrow, that’s almost instantaneous testing. But I haven’t heard about testing being a problem.”

The FDA approved a test that provides results in as little as two minutes. The company that created it, Bodysphere, reportedly said it's ready to "have millions of test kits" in dozens of states by mid-April and is working with federal agencies on distribution.

The FDA gave emergency approval to two antimalarial drugs (hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine) to be used as treatment for COVID-19 patients. Despite limited studies on its benefits, the FDA said the possibility of it being effective outweighs the risks. Millions of doses will be shipped out to hospitals nationwide, and a trial on its effectiveness is underway.

More than a dozen companies worldwide are working to develop a vaccine. And three of them have reportedly started Phase 1 of clinical trials with human volunteers. A vaccine isn't expected for at least a year, but the quick turnaround could be unprecedented – a process that usually takes years.

Almost the entirety of what the public knows about the death projection was presented on a single slide today from the White House coronavirus task force. A White House representative said the task force has not publicly released the models it drew from out of respect for the confidentiality of the modelers, many of whom approached the White House unsolicited and simply want to continue their work without publicity.  A representative for Fauci did not respond to a request for comment. A spokeswoman for Vice President Pence declined to comment. On a Thursday call with conservative leaders, Pence said it was “difficult” to view the models but “the president thought it was important to share with the American people.”

Coronavirus task force briefing: “I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead.”  Trump says he anticipates the epidemic will be the “the worst thing the country has probably ever seen.”

The US has more than 185,000 infections and over 3,800 deaths.

April 1, 2020, per Johns Hopkins: The United States, which now accounts for almost a quarter of reported global infections, logged its 5,000th death and a new first - 1,000 deaths in a single day.

Trump: “Things are going to get worse.  We're going to have a couple of weeks, starting pretty much now, but especially a few days from now, that are going to be horrific.”

Infectious disease specialist Dr. Desai on Fox News: “So last year we know about this. We knew coronavirus was coming, we knew it was a respiratory disease, and we knew it was person-to-person. Why is it that it is this week that the FDA finally approved these new Abbott lab testing? Which, by the way, was one test at a time. It’s a great test but it’s one test at a time. It’s different from the labs that are doing mass testing.

We needed this months ago. You look at Korea, South Korea and the U.S. had their first official confirmed case on the same date: January 19th. Since January 19th, you look at what South Korea did and what we did. Their population is 1/6th of ours, look at the cases they have, look at the mortality they have.

It’s a trifle compared to what we’re dealing with right now because we had a very weak response and they had a very strong response."

The Trump administration grants an emergency six-month extension for the PREDICT program.

April 2, 2020: Wimbledon is cancelled for this year.

The Labor Department reported 6.6 million Americans filed unemployment claims last week.

Congress will not return to Washington until April 20^th.

Dr. Laura Ucik, a third-year resident in New York, said she goes to work feeling "like a sheep going to slaughter.  My colleagues and I are writing our last will and testament. I'm 28 years old.  We fear that we may not survive this pandemic and yet we show up every day to this hospital to take care of our community. We're running out of (personal protective equipment), we're running out of pain medicine, we're running out of sedatives, we're running out of oxygen masks."

N.Y. Times: More than 2,000 ventilators, a key piece of equipment to treat coronavirus patients, in the federal stockpile are unavailable to be deployed because the Trump administration failed to maintain the devices as they were in storage.

Per Johns Hopkins data, reported coronavirus cases worldwide pass 1,000,000 with 50,000 deaths.  (Confirmed cases topped 500,000 a week ago.)

WHO: “Over the past five weeks, we have witnessed a near exponential growth in the number of new cases, reaching almost every country, territory, and area.”

The US has 230,000 confirmed infections and more than 5,500 have died.

April 3, 2020: Trump fires Michael Atkinson who just happened to be the intelligence community watchdog who played a key role in Trump’s impeachment.

April 5, 2020: Trump: "We have made great progress with the antibody testing, fantastic progress.”

April 6, 2020: Members of the National Academy of Sciences' Standing Committee on Emerging Infectious Diseases and 21st Century Health Threats told members of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy there are issues with the availability and reliability of the antibody tests in the United States right now.

April 7, 2020: Trump announces a freeze on US contributions to the WHO.  (Obviously an attempt to deflect blame away from his administration; later he denies saying it.)

Kayleigh McEnany is appointed as Trump’s new press secretary.  This is the same woman who on April 4^th said “We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here..and isn't it refreshing when contrasting it with the awful presidency of President Obama."

Trump removes Pentagon Inspector General Glenn Fine who had just been designated to oversee the newly created Pandemic Response Accountability Committee.

Trump: “I think mail-in voting is horrible, it’s corrupt.”

Reporter: “You voted by mail in Florida’s election las tmonth, didn’t you?”

Trump: “Sure.  I can vote by mail”

Reporter: “How do you reconcile with that?”

Trump: “Because I’m allowed to.”

April 9, 2020: Economists say the US unemployment rate is 13%, the worst since the Great Depression.

Per Johns Hopkins the US has more than 450,000 cases more than Spain, Italy, and France combined.

April 10, 2020: The number of worldwide deaths caused by the coronavirus surges past the 100,000 mark, doubling in nearly a week.

VP Pence: "Very soon we will have an antibody test that Americans will be able to take to determine whether they ever had the coronavirus." 

April 11, 2020: The US death toll eclipses any other country with 18,860.

Trump: Regarding ventilators, “A lot of them will be coming at a time when we won’t need them as badly.”

Confirmed cases of the coronavirus reached at least 519,453 as of Saturday afternoon. At least 20,071 have died in the US.

The New York Times publishes a long article about a series of Trump administration failures in the early days of the coronavirus.

April 12, 2020: Dr. Anthony Fauci said on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday that "no one is going to deny" that more lives could have been saved during the coronavirus crisis if the Trump administration had implemented social distancing guidelines prior to March.

The Republican Governor of Louisiana said he would have cancelled Mardi Gras if the feds had warned him sooner.

Republican Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan suggested that the president of the United States had not told the truth when he said that states have all the medical supplies they need.

The US now has the highest number of coronavirus deaths with 21,692. 

April 13, 2020: Trump: “Governors should have had ventilators. They chose not to have them.”

South Korea reported that at least 116 people initially cleared of the new coronavirus had tested positive again. 

Trump claims he can overrule States over ending coronavirus shutdowns.

Trump’s coronavirus briefing presented a video timeline of his coronavirus actions.  The only event listed between January 31^st when he ordered the partial ban on travel from China and March 13^th when he declared a national emergency was February 6^th “CDC ships First Testing Kits”.

New Jersey, Louisiana, Washington DC, and Maryland record their highest daily deaths since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak.

Per the Johns Hopkins website, 2,000,000+ cases worldwide with 682,000+ in the US.

April 14, 2020:

·      The seven governors of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsyslvania, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Delaware formed a joint reopening strategy council.

·      California, Oregon and Washington have also combined together into a joint regional task force.

·      Monday, Trump said, “When somebody’s president of the United States, the authority is total. And that’s the way it’s got to be. It’s total. It’s total. And the governors know that.”

April 15, 2020: For the first time ever, the Washington Post supports a Democrat for president.  “Trump must be defeated.”

Trump says the U.S. has "passed the peak" of the coronavirus outbreak, which has infected more than 632,000 people in America.

Per the Johns Hopkins website 636,000+ cases in the US.

April 16, 2020: Seven northeastern states extended their shutdown until May 15^th. Seven midwestern governors announce their states will coordinate on reopening.

Per the Johns Hopkins website 667,000+ cases in the US.

April 17, 2020: Trump’s releases his 3-phase guidelines for reopening the economy.

Covid-19 surpasses the seasonal flu in deaths this year.  147,508 Covid-19 versus 142,937 for the flu.

"We have a massive blindspot because of the lack of testing," Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children's Hospital told ABC News. "We've not really had a deep understanding of the amount of illness that happened in the community."

Per the Johns Hopkins website 699,000+ cases in the US.

April 18, 2020: The rapid coronavirus test that Trump touted at the White House and has been pushing for weeks has been producing false negatives.

Trump bragged today that America has “produced better health outcomes than any other country”.

The White House issued a sharp rebuke today to Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, who reportedly spent over $1.7 million on flights bringing medical supplies from China in secret—out of fear the Trump administration would seize the cargo for the federal stockpile.

April 19, 2020: Today on CNN’s State of the Union, Republican Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland said that Donald Trump is lying about states having enough tests to reopen their economies.

Per the Washington Post, more than a dozen U.S. researchers, physicians and public health experts, many of them from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, transmitted real-time information about its discovery and spread in China to the Trump administration, according to U.S. and international officials.

Dozens of grocery store workers have died from the coronavirus, despite masks, temperature checks and capacity restrictions to keep them safe.

April 20, 2020: Trump on state closures, “Some governors have gone too far. Some of the things that happened are maybe not so appropriate.  And I think in the end it's not going to matter because we're starting to open up our states, and I think they're going to open up very well."

Trump said about testing, “We are moving very rapidly.  And we'll be doubling our number of daily tests if the governors bring their states fully online to the capability that they have. We have tremendous capability out there already existing. We have testing coming in two weeks that will blow the industry away.”

April 21, 2020: The Trump campaign admits the federal government disease control experts became aware of the virus on January 6^th.

Two Californians who died on Feb. 6 and Feb. 17 had contracted the novel coronavirus signaling that the virus may have spread — and claimed lives — in the United States weeks earlier than previously thought.

April 22, 2020: New autopsy results show two Californians died of coronavirus on Feb. 6 and Feb. 17 -- up to three weeks before the previously known first US death from the virus. These deaths now stand as the country's earliest two attributed to the coronavirus, a development that appears to shift the understanding of how early the virus was spreading in the US.

Researchers analyzed medical records of 368 male veterans hospitalized with confirmed coronavirus infection at Veterans Health Administration medical centers who died or were discharged by April 11.

About 28% who were given hydroxychloroquine plus usual care died, versus 11% of those getting routine care alone. About 22% of those getting the drug plus azithromycin died too, but the difference between that group and usual care was not considered large enough to rule out other factors that could have affected survival.

Hydroxychloroquine made no difference in the need for a breathing machine, either.

April 23, 2020: Trump says coronavirus "may not come back" in the fall, a claim at odds with Dr. Anthony Fauci, who said it will persist.