Watching Trump bring up swine flu (H1N1) shows the magnitude of his stupidity & his belief in the the stupidity of his followers and of conservative media.
The H1N1 response was a huge lesson in how *to* respond to an imminent pandemic and how the USA could lead the world...1
...in response. That a deadly disease killed people is a truism: It is only after deaths begin that anyone knows a deadly infectious outbreak has begun. How you measure success is how a government responded. And Obama's H1N1 response is practically a case study in competence...2
...just start with one comparative date: The key, most important moment in the development of a potential pandemic is when the @WHO, relying on its massive detection network, declares there to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. Let's look at the dates and...3
...response. WHO declared an international public health emergency with H1N1 on April 25, 2009. On April 26 - the next day! - Obama declared a public health emergency which grants enormous powers to the health agencies. Same day, began releasing 25% of antiviral drugs needed...4
...to treat this new influenza virus from the federal stockpile.
Now, let's compare. We know now on January 28, 2020, Trump was told how disastrous this was. The WHO declared a public health emergency of international concern on Jan 30. The Trump response?...5
...nothing. Five days later, “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.” 2/10: "Going to be fine...April, will miraculously go away." on and on...2/26: "Its like the flu."
No real action, other than a half-assed travel restriction put in place after COVID was here from..
...Europe. Finally, on March 13 - two & half months after the WHO declaration, Trump declares a national emergency, finally giving our health agencies powers to fight it. By then, almost 10,000 Americans had died - 90% of total number who died in the entirety of H1N1 outbreak...
...the comparison here - the US developed the gold standard testing kit by April 28, 2009 and distributed testing kits to the world, THREE DAYS after the WHO declaration, we did emergency production and shipped them across the USA and the world (ours was used by everyone...
...because competence made us the gold standard of the world. That one act did more to contain the global spread than anything.
Again, this could go on and on. But calling H1N1 response a failure is more proof: #DimwitDon is too ignorant & incompetent to be president.
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