Why was the response to the Coronavirus Pandemic so ineffective? Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta of the Washington Post covered the Pandemic from the beginning and their analysis of the failure begins with the Trump White House: “Many of the senior staff and cabinet members who had joined Trump in January 2017 had already left. More than twenty had been pushed out or fired. Others had resigned in disgust. At least one appeared to be headed to jail.
“Who was left? A mix of family members, twenty somethings, hangers-on, fourth-stringers, former lobbyists, sycophants, and scattering of competent, well-meaning aides…who mostly kept their heads down.” (p. 29-30)
Trump’s team completely misread the signs of the growing Pandemic. Even with the FDA and CDC and the Coronavirus Task Force, Trump and the people around him were in denial about the disaster. Mostly, they were focused on Trump’s ReElection campaign and regarded the Coronavirus as an annoyance.
Two of the best chapters in Nightmare Scenario are Chapter 7, Dr. Birx (read p. 145 where Birx overplays her hand on the Christian Broadcasting Network) and Chapter 8, Dr. Fauci. Abutaleb and Paletta carefully provide the background of these two key figures in the battle against Covid-19. Both doctors are specialists and came to understand the enormity of the Pandemic…but as the virus spread, Trump and his team ignored them.
As the news of the Pandemic grew worse, Trump dismissed Dr. Birx as “pathetic.” When Dr. Fauci threw out the first pitch at a National’s game, Trump was enraged. Trump claimed he was going to throw out the first pitch at a Yankees game, but the Yankees refused. Trump seriously considered firing Dr. Fauci because Fauci’s ratings were higher than his own. And Trump was apoplectic about the Fauci doughnuts, T-shirts, socks, and the Fauci bobblehead doll! (p. 155).
There were many chances to get the Pandemic under control, but Trump’s distaste for masks–“It makes you look weak”–and his belief that the virus would “just go away like a miracle” resulted in a weak, ineffective Government response. Trump surrounded himself with anti-science types and minions who blocked actions that could have saved lives.
The numbers in Western NY for Delta Variant infections and hospitalizations are going up. The Nightmare Scenario continues here. What’s happening in your neighborhood? GRADE: A
Table of Contents:
Authors’ Note ix
Prologue: Covered in Death 1
Part I
Chapter 1 The Invisible Enemy 11
Chapter 2 Like Water Through a Net 23
Chapter 3 Trapped at Sea 45
Chapter 4 Testing, Testing 63
Chapter 5 The Panic 85
Chapter 6 The Shutdown 109
Chapter 7 Dr. Birx 131
Chapter 8 Dr. Fauci 153
Chapter 9 Of Masks and Men 175
Chapter 10 “Liberate” 197
Part II
Chapter 11 Pharmacist in Chief 217
Chapter 12 Remdesivir 243
Chapter 13 Jared’s Shadow Task Force 251
Chapter 14 The Downfall of the Health Agencies 277
Chapter 15 From Bad to Worse 305
Chapter 16 The Second Wave 319
Chapter 17 Opening Day 339
Chapter 18 Atlas, Shrug 349
Chapter 19 A Shot in the Dark 369
Chapter 20 Long Live the King 391
Chapter 21 Judgment Day 411
Epilogue 425
Acknowledgments 431
Notes 437
Index 461
It’s hard to imagine a worse person to be at the helm during a pandemic than Trump (then again, it’s hard to imagine a worse person to be at the helm for any emergency than the pathologically self-absorbed Trump). His response was typical Trump: bullying, deflection, all-caps tweets, giving interviews for softball-lobbing friendly interviewers, like Sean Hannity (the Geobbels of the Trump Adminstration), and ridiculing what he could not understand. Because of his pathetic, selfish response, half the nation believed covid was a hoax or would magically disappear (because, ya know, that happens with viruses); that attitude segued into even more dangerous falsehoods about masks and the vaccine. So, hello Delta variant. Currently in Louisiana, over 97% of those hospitalized for covid are unvaccinated. I’m sure the statistics are similar in other states. Now, in order to make their cult leader look strong & powerful & right in all things, Trumpsters are blaming everyone from Fauci to Pelosi, still claiming masks don’t work, still refusing the vaccine, still ignoring social distancing, and making it likely that covid will continue to mutate into even more threatening strains against which the current vaccines are less effective. Good help us!
God help us.
/stupid autocorrect
Deb, we seem to be dealing with the trifecta of the Delta Variant, Afghanistan, and the effects of Climate Change. Yes, we all need a lot of help!
Only the Good actually help…
Todd, I’m getting the feeling we’re in a phase of Natural Selection.
George, the continuing crises in Mexico, certainly Haiti, and in the likes of Syria are, sadly, at least as desperate as even Afghanistan. (Mexico because of all those fleeing the crises, political and otherwise, in Central America, and the Obama/Trump/Biden actually evil policies in regards to them.)
Todd, check out the cover (and stories) in the latest issue of THE ECONOMIST. Brilliant, but depressing.
Deb, many of the White House staff thought Trump might change his ways and mandate mask wearing and social distancing after he was infected with Covid-19. But no, Trump just said the coronavirus was no big deal and continued his super spreader Election rallies. Meanwhile, Dr. Fauci, who was actually trying to save lives, was getting 10 death threats per day.
Despite my county having a high rate of vaccination (70%), things are not great. And I think it is the failure to wear masks along with breakthrough infections. If we had kept those masks on a few months ago, we might have spared ourselves a lot of spread.
Patti, I agree. People thought things were back to Normal…but they weren’t. Diane and I wear masks every time we leave the house.
I couldn’t say it better than Deb (as usual). We watched the first part of Spike Lee’s new HBO documentary series (until he went off on a Black Lives Matter tangent), and the reminders of all the stupid things Trump did and said were graphic. I never got it. If he just dealt with the outbreak in the first two or even three months, it would surely have HELPED his re-election campaign. The man deserves to be brought up on charges for his complicity in the deaths of hundreds of thousands.
Jeff, remember Trump suggesting injecting Clorox (and some of his followers actually did it!). And Trump forcing the FDA to approve Hydroxychloroquine because it was a “miracle drug” that would defeat the coronavirus. So many stupid actions!
Unfortunately, Trump was just one among many fascists and fascist fan-kids who almost if not uniformly decided the pandemic was No Big Deal…Bolsonaro in Brazil, Duterte in the Philippines, Putin in Russia, of course, Modi in India, Johnson in the UK to too great an extent till he caught it, Conte in Italy to too great an extent…and the Ron DeSantises among us are still working this vein.
And every pandemic Changes History. Pandemics do that.
I’m glad the book notes the undue influence of Pat Robertson’s CBN News, which is at least as pernicious as anything Fox News/Business Channels vomit up, or OAN or Newsmax…in part because, oddly enough, it’s usually presented more “reasonably”…and since it isn’t worried about sponsors at all, doesn’t engage with Nielsen, and thus we have even less of a sense of just how large its audience might be. (Albeit we don’t usually contribute to CBN’s upkeep as we do with Fox’s, through the payment of cable fees.)
I live in a super-blue city (Decatur) in a very blue county (Dekalb) in Georgia which, despite the outcome of the last election, I’m not at all willing to consider a blue state. It would be a stretch to call it purple. Despite the fact that our governor is an idiot (but not quite on the DeSantis or Abbott level) things seemed to be headed in the right direction until the Delta variant came along. Vaccination rates still aren’t nearly high enough, about 49%, but only 40% fully vaccinated. We have our share of anti-vaxxers, but the anti-mask crowd seems bigger and more vocal. I’d say I’m not the least bit optimistic.
Michael, we have people in our community completely impervious to logic and reason when it comes to masks and vaccinations. And, of course, they’re getting sick (and spreading the Delta Variant). Two of my friends are dealing with “breakthrough” infections despite being completely vaccinated. We can’t defeat the disease unless everyone does their part!
I just got back from taking a covid test (I have no reason to believe I have covid, but a negative test is required for a procedure I’m having on Thursday). On the way back home, I had to run errands at two stores, keeping my mask on the whole time. In the first store, the cashier had a mask over her mouth, but not her nose. At the second store, the cashier was completely unmasked. As I left the store, I glanced at the headline of today’s Times-Picayune: “Covid Delta variant spreading like wildfire.” Well, thinks I, I can come up with at least two reasons in the last five minutes as to why that’s happening!
Deb, Katie’s job requires her to visit nursing homes and one day last week she had to undergo FOUR rapid covid-19 tests in one day. Before entering a nursing home in Massachusetts, you have to undergo a rapid test, no matter that you just got tested an hour ago. This might explain some of Katie’s hostility towards unvaccinated people who continue to spread the coronavirus.
In Europe we followed Trump’s activities (not only re covid …) kind of horrified. But we also had a few government which didn’t see or want to see how serious it would be. Boris Johnson let the UK just continue as usual – until he got covid himself and then realised that being obese like him wasn’t so good.
In Germany we had the problem and still have that the different states are rather independent in medical strategies – like the US states.
And here in Hungary the government was so proud that they got vaccines from China and Russia and were one of the fastest vaccinators – but still had 30 000 deaths, about twice as many as other comparable countries. One reason for this is the abysmal health system. Rotting hospitals and docs and nurses are paid so bad that many ran away to Austria and Germany where they not only made much more but also were really welcomed.
One would have thought that the “Spanish Flu” a hundred years ago might have told us something but obviously that wasn’t the case, really sad.
PS:
There’s a funny picture of Trump and Mrs Merkel that says everything:
https://time.com/5307314/donald-trump-angela-merkel-g-7-photograph/
Wolf, Merkel is highly respected in the U.S. Trump…not so much. So many mistakes were made and continue to be made–like your China and Russia vaccines.
About 10 daya ago I was at a celebration of life for my former sportswriting partner here in Winnipeg. It was held outdoors on a rural resturant patio and the people were there by invitation and the majority were older people who I knew and figured were vaccainated. When they came, they were wearing masks, but almost all took them off after they entered the area for the service. The funny thing is that I wasn’t worried at the time. Even though restrictions have been eased a little here in Manitoba, most facilities are making visitors wear a mask when they enter The ones that don’t usually have a sign on the door asking people to wear one. Our CFL football team, the Blue Bombers, has had two home games in the past couple of weeks with crowds in the ten thousands and no masks. Our pro baseball team also is back home after playing the first part of the season in Tennesee and no masks on most fans. Not for me. When I visited my friend at a personal care home they day before he passed, I had to put on a gown, gloves, mask and a plastic-type visor that covered my eyes when I signed in. When I left his room, I had to remove the gown and gloves and place them in a garbage bin. The mask and visot remained in place until I signed out. I felt safe despite the location.
Kent, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If people would just wear masks, much of this Pandemic could be stopped. But we have many people who refuse to wear masks or get vaccinated. So the Pandemic continues…
And yet they drink bleach or de-wormer because Trump or Alex Jones or “the internet” tells them to do it.
You cna’t cure stupid.
Jeff, you can’t cure stupid, but stupid seems to procreate significantly.
In Texas, Trump remains the dreadful gift that keeps on giving. All of the announced or presumptive candidates for the governorship in next year’s election are scrambling over each other to grab the Trumpist vote. So Greg Abbott, who has already gotten an endorsement from Genghis Con himself (for what that’s worth — since Teflon Don has plenty of time to change course) blithely endangers public health by refusing to mandate vaccines and masks. Meanwhile, the state legislature is hellbent on enacting the GOP’s Trumpist voter suppression bill, no matter that Covid rates continue to rise here, and the lawmakers have done nothing of consequence to require changes in the state power grid that crashed so miserably in February. What a train wreck.
Fred, yes Texas in a train wreck. But our Governor’s resignation goes into effect at 11:59 P.M. tonight and then Andrew Cuomo will have to defend himself against multiple sexual harassment charges.