Thread by @jgkoomey

Here's a thread documenting the epic incompetence of the Trump administration + the GOP in dealing with the pandemic. Some Democratic politicos deserve severe critiques also (Cuomo and DeBlasio being the poster children there) but a national problem requires a national response.

Remember, that for pandemics as well as for climate change, "Speed trumps perfection". Stop obsessing about "optimality". There is nothing optimal about responding to a pandemic or to climate change, just move as fast as you can.

https://twitter.com/JIMrichards1010/status/1239140710558969857?s=20

Hey look, the GOP (not Trump) hamstrung the Obama Administration's effort to build up strategic reserves to fight pandemics going as far back as 2011: rawstory.com/2020/04/heres-…

Hey look, there was a pandemic response plan developed by national security officials in 2016, which Trump and the GOP ignored:

https://twitter.com/ddiamond/status/1242966350357770242?s=20

Hey look, Trump and the GOP disbanded the pandemic response unit in 2018: washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-h…

Hey look, @AtomicAnalyst called it on May 10, 2018:

https://twitter.com/AtomicAnalyst/status/994696175575068672?s=20

Hey look, there was a ten-year old US pandemic early-response team ON THE GROUND IN CHINA. Trump fired them all two months before the coronavirus was first detected in Wuhan, China. latimes.com/world-nation/n…

Hey look, Trump and the GOP waited 8 weeks after the first confirmed case to do anything, squandering precious time:

https://twitter.com/NathanLerner/status/1239683455077756929?s=20

Hey look, in January 2020, a US manufacturer said they could produce millions of N95 masks, they just needed a guaranteed order so they could get their factory going. The Trump Administration inexplicably refused. vox.com/covid-19-coron…

Hey look, the Trump administration inexplicably nixed a plan to send out lots of masks for free to every US household. This would have saved tens of thousands of lives for sure. independent.co.uk/news/world/ame…

Hey look, the Trump administration repeatedly blocked efforts to require masks on airplanes, airports, and other transit modes.

https://twitter.com/davidshepardson/status/1349805492139401222?s=20

Hey look, the US is #43 in the world in gene sequencing the virus. What? washingtonpost.com/world/2020/12/…

Hey look, here's a GOP governor criticizing Trump for failing to ramp up coronavirus testing: washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/0…

Hey look, from Day 1 the Trump administration hollowed out HHS, thereby sabotaging future pandemic response.

https://twitter.com/ddiamond/status/1344637311179489282?s=20

Hey look, here's a Republican who did the right thing. @Schwarzenegger set up a supply reserve for pandemic supplies, which was stopped by Democrat Jerry Brown (bad move, Jerry). politico.com/states/califor…

But of course, @Schwarzenegger is a different kind of Republican, of which there are very few, nowadays.

https://twitter.com/Schwarzenegger/status/1348249481284874240?s=20

Mike DeWine of Ohio started strong, but things have gone awry more recently, as they have in much of the country in the absence of a competent national response.

https://twitter.com/jgkoomey/status/1245521143450095617?s=20

Hey look, in October 2020, documentation of 130,000 to 210,000 avoidable US deaths from COVID 19. ncdp.columbia.edu/custom-content…

Now we're up to more than half a million deaths in the US from COVID-19, most of them avoidable.

https://twitter.com/jgkoomey/status/1349778589575749634?s=20

Please, please, please, don't "both sides" this. There have been notable failures by Democrats (Cuomo, DeBlasio, Jerry Brown) but the responsibility for the national failures is 100% with Trump and the GOP.

https://twitter.com/gregggonsalves/status/1272098703273271300?s=20

An article in The BMJ (a journal owned by the British Medical Association) sums it up here: bmj.com/content/369/bm…

Summary: The responsibility for the disastrous US national response to coronavirus is 100% with Trump and the GOP./fin

Addendum: Trump and the GOP even messed up the vaccine rollout! talkingpointsmemo.com/news/how-opera…