WHY THE PRESIDENT WAS LATE IN DEALING WITH COVID-19: PART VI

…Dr. Anthony Fauci, the “Truth Teller” of the COVID-19 Pandemic

President Trump was forced to have to listen to Doctor Fauci

This all started back in 2018, when Bill Gates met with President Trump. 

Gates had urged Trump to invest in new technology to help deal with pandemics. 

But Trump ignored Gates and thought his idea was too far-fetched. 

Gates was obviously correct.

Then later, in 2019, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence had ranked

a major disease outbreak among the top global threats to watch out for.

They warned that: “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 deaths and disabilities.  It would severely affect the world economy,

strain international resources, and increase calls on the United States for support”.

If that wasn’t enough, there were a number of high-profile simulations, a.k.a. “germ games”,

designed to highlight the risks of pandemics.  Trump and company, had obviously ignored them as well.

In August 2019, the national Crimson Contagion simulation included participation from more

than 100 federal, state, and local leaders, as well as private sector partners and

even members of the White House National Security Council. 

The scenario of this simulation was based on a novel (new) influenza virus that originates in

China and spreads around the world. It forecast 110 million illnesses, 7.7 million

hospitalizations, 586,000 deaths, making the point that the “current medical-supply

chain and production capacity cannot meet the demands imposed by nations

during a global virus pandemic,” (sound familiar).

Luciana Borio, who had worked in the pandemic office at the NSC, before it disappeared

in 2018, spoke at a symposium at the Emory University to mark the 100^th anniversary of

the 1918 influenza pandemic.  “The threat of pandemic flu is the number one health

security concern” she told the audience.  “Are we ready to respond? I fear the answer is no.”

Now, in our early days of the current US outbreak, most public-health officials were focused on the red numbers on display at the Johns-Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center website,

which listed the rise of infections around the world in real time.  This gave everyone

a real, but spooky sense of the global spread of the coronavirus.

But this was not what President Trump was focusing on.  The president was only interested in one area that could have an effect on his potential re-election. 

That being: the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Trump has always seen the Dow as a barometer of his success and possible re-election.

He is willing to do anything to keep the economy on its “sugar-high” through to this November.  Since the pandemic started, the economy was his only concern.  No, his interest wasn’t the need for medical supplies or ventilators or masks and gloves, it was only on the Dow.

He also wasn’t interested in listening to the experts, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a veteran of the war against

global diseases for four decades.

Trump only saw the pandemic as an invisible germ that would infect his re-election

and color him as the loser he is.

The president spent the first months of the outbreak in talking down the virus as he focused his tweets on the impeachment “Witch Hunt” as he boasted on the “high records” in the stock market.

This was why the president has been late in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

What occurred over the next months will be covered in Part VII

which deals with more of the President and his devastating involvement in the pandemic.

Copyright G. Ater 2020