Thread by @JStormogipson

"On Jan. 8, the CDC issued an alert about the disease. But the agency was without one of its crucial partners in combatting such a threat. The CDC would have worked closely with the NSC’s global health unit, but that had been disbanded." 1/
nbcnews.com/politics/white…

"In 2018, Trump fired his homeland security adviser, Thomas Bossert, whose portfolio included global pandemics. The next month, national security adviser John Bolton disbanded the NSC’s global health unit..." 2/

"Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer, the top official in charge of a pandemic response, also left his job. So did Borio, whose title was director for medical and biodefense preparedness. None of them was replaced..."3/

"...That meant Trump had no top advisers in the White House with expertise in global pandemics." 4/

"Luciana Borio once worked on President Donald Trump’s National Security Council, but she left last year after a purge of the global health unit..." 5/

"...So when she realized how bad the coronavirus outbreak was likely to get — and saw that the Trump administration was not taking the necessary steps to contain it — all she could do was take her case to the public..."6/

“...'Act Now to Prevent an American Epidemic,' was the headline of her Jan. 28 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, in which she called for widespread testing and beefing up hospital preparedness. “The Wuhan coronavirus continues to spread at an alarming rate,” she warned..." 7/

“...'If the number of cases increases, experience from the 2009 swine flu pandemic and the 2015 Zika epidemic suggests that the CDC will struggle to keep up with the volume of screening,” wrote Luciana Borio..." 8/

“...'Government should focus on working with private industry to develop easy-to-use, rapid diagnostic tests that can be made available to providers.'..." 9/

"...Not until a month later, on Feb. 29, did the FDA loosen the rules to allow more labs to apply for approval to conduct covid-19 testing. Labs have complained about other bureaucratic hurdles imposed by the FDA and CDC that slowed down the development of tests." 10/

"U.S. Lags in Coronavirus Testing After Slow Response to Outbreak" nyti.ms/2IT5ppr 11/

Meanwhile Trump continued to lie about about COVID-19:
Feb 28th: Trump claimed it was the Democrats' "new hoax".

"Throughout late February, Trump also continued to claim the situation was improving..." 12/
nyti.ms/2vmSmcH

The Pinocchio President -
March 17th Trump:
“I’ve always known this is a pandemic. I’ve felt that it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic ... I’ve always viewed it as serious.”
Hmm, Let's just see: 13/13
#ConManInChief
#PinocchioPresident

https://twitter.com/jheil/status/1240056993290821640?s=09

And now this:
"I ran the White House pandemic office. Trump closed it."
By Beth Cameron
March 13, 2020 1/
washingtonpost.com/outlook/nsc-pa…