Everything is under control

The virus has infected almost 10,000 people worldwide and killed more than 200. The vast majority of the cases and all but one of the deaths have been in China. The first death outside China from the new virus was recorded on Sunday in the Philippines.

[...]

Nearly 200 Americans who were evacuated from Wuhan are under a 14-day quarantine at a military base outside Los Angeles – the first by the government in half a century.

Another planeload of passengers from China was expected to arrive on Monday at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar near San Diego. The passengers, who have been screened twice for signs of the virus, will be quarantined at the base for 14 days to ensure they do not pose a health risk to the public.

Other cases of the new pneumonia-like virus include two in southern California, one in Massachusetts, one in Washington state, one in Arizona and two in Chicago.

  Guardian

Not to worry.  We have a president who knows more about everything than anybody. 

On Thursday at a speech at Michigan manufacturing plant, he downplayed any danger and told attendees that the spread of the coronavirus would have “a very good ending for us.” He added the administration was working “closely” with China to fight the virus and said hopefully “it won’t be as bad as some people think it could be.”

  Poliltico

"A very good ending for us." Did he get that from Wilbur Ross?

In reality, Trump behind the scenes has repeatedly quizzed aides about the coronavirus and its risks to Americans. Officials say Trump wants to project the image of the White House on the offensive toward the coronavirus, which the World Health Organization on Thursday declared a global public health emergency.

Appearing highly responsive on health care is a major White House priority after the president expressed irritation with his own administration’s moves on vaping and drug pricing, in addition to frustration about Republicans’ inability to repeal Obamacare. Health care has generally been a political loser for this administration.

And Trump has been a loser for this country.

Trump’s own recent, internal polling shows it as a weak spot for him, and a strength for Democrats, heading into the 2020 campaign. Trump berated Azar for the bad polling in mid-January, breaking away from a political strategy meeting in order to vent to his health secretary by phone.

It's Azar's fault. Always somebody else's fault.

“Key experts who would help lead a response from the National Security Council are gone or divested and the functions collapsed, and so you’re dependent on coordination from a reluctant health secretary,” said one former administration official.

Everybody associated with this administration gets buried.

Meanwhile, Azar opted out of a sought-after trip to Iowa next week where the health secretary was scheduled to join other Cabinet members as one of the president’s surrogates during the Iowa caucuses. “Azar was invited and is no longer going,” said a person familiar with the secretary’s plans. “He’s staying in Washington to lead the charge and response on coronavirus.”

But Azar’s position in the administration remains weakened after his extensive battles with [Seema] Verma, the nation’s Medicaid and Medicare chief who was previously a consultant for then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence. Azar and Verma’s battles grew so severe last month that the White House prepared a shortlist of replacements for both officials.

The Trump administration declared a public health emergency in the U.S. Friday in response to the global coronavirus outbreak.

"Today President Trump took decisive action to minimize the risk of novel coronavirus in the United States," said U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar at a White House press conference.

The risk of contracting the coronavirus [in] the U.S. is low — something that federal health administration officials emphasized repeatedly.

[...]

"I often get asked [about the] influenza outbreak," which has led to at least 8,000 deaths in the U.S. this season, said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is part of the NIH. "People want to know why we're paying so much attention to the novel coronavirus."

In contrast to the seasonal flu toll, which is predictable, Fauci said, "there are a lot of unknowns [with the coronavirus]."

"The number of cases has steeply inclined each and every day," Fauci noted. In addition, at the beginning of the outbreak, it wasn't clear whether an infected person without symptoms could transmit the virus to another person.

"Now we know for sure that there are" asymptomatic infections, Fauci said.

  NPR

CDC officials have not been invited into China, but are in neighboring Kazakhstan to help guard against the spread of the virus, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday during a visit there.

  Reuters

Will he get quarantined on return? Or maybe he'll contract and spread it to the White House?

Meanwhile, Trump has gutted US agencies and programs to deal with epidemics.

When Ebola was spreading in West Africa in 2014, Donald Trump took to Twitter.

“STOP THE FLIGHTS!,” he blasted in all capital letters. “NO VISAS FROM EBOLA STRICKEN COUNTRIES.”

He even cast doubt on the honesty of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, tweeting: “Ebola is much easier to transmit than the CDC and government representatives are admitting. Spreading all over Africa — and fast.”

[...]

Now Trump is president, and leading an administration that is chaotic and fractious. The outbreak of a new coronavirus could be his biggest public health challenge, and veterans of other disease outbreaks and epidemics are worried about how he’ll handle it.

[...]

Thus far, Trump has been almost silent about the coronavirus on social media, sending out a rather innocuous tweet Monday that praised his health officials.

[...]

He has also been silent about an ongoing epidemic of Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that has infected more than 3,400 people and killed more than 2,200 of them.

But as this outbreak spreads, Trump is not surrounded by seasoned advisers on public health. Trump’s onetime public health adviser, Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer, left the National Security Council in 2018 and returned to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). His team was taken apart. Another adviser who advocated for strong defenses against disease and biological attacks, former homeland security adviser Tom Bossert, also resigned in 2018.

[...]

Dr. Anthony Fauci, who heads the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the agency is collaborating with industry to get started on potential vaccines and one could be ready for the first Phase 1 stage of safety testing in three months or so.

[...]

[Lawrence Gostin, a senior professor at Georgetown University and an expert in global health law who has advised several administrations] also offered a more positive take — but for a different reason.

“In many ways I am actually delighted that our political leaders are too busy to interfere in this,” he said. “I mean that seriously, because first of all the administration doesn’t have seasoned, experienced people in global health in the White House. It’s not like under the Obama administration, where there were really experienced people who were advising the president.”

  Stat

He has a point.

[Asha George, executive director of the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense] disagrees.

“You can’t just say CDC has got this,” she said.

“When you look at how our federal government is organized, we have CDC, FDA, everybody doing their thing. Each has its own emergency response arm that swings into action wherever we have an outbreak. The question becomes what happens when you have an event that goes beyond the usual situation, the usual emergency,” George added.

“It’s a lot to try and manage.” That means a coordinator at the White House level, she said. Former President Barack Obama appointed Ron Klain as his “Ebola czar” during the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic.

In a letter to Trump Monday, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) noted: “Unfortunately, under your leadership, this position was eliminated in 2018 and you have provided no clarity on who would be the lead voice and coordinator of the U.S. response to an infectious disease threat. Having a person with expertise leading the whole government response is of utmost importance.”

[...]

But George worries that the churn at Trump’s White House might frighten off some of the choicer candidates.

“Are the experts throughout the country that used to be in an administration, are they going to be willing to come back to help the White House?” she asked. “I think the answer is no. These people are not going to come back into the administration.”

Especially after Trump's attack on Azar.

Many may help from private industry or state health departments, she said. But at the top levels of government, it’s not clear who may be whispering in Trump’s ear on behalf of public health.

But we can be sure it's nobody we can trust.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.