Same day:
What information he should receive?“I had a long talk with President Xi — for the people in this room — two nights ago, and he feels very confident. He feels very confident. And he feels that, again, as I mentioned, by April or during the month of April, the heat, generally speaking, kills this kind of virus,” Trump told the nation’s governors last week. “So that would be a good thing. But we’re in great shape in our country.”
[...]
Trump has remained uncharacteristically restrained in his public comments about the coronavirus, which has infected more than 70,000 people, the vast majority of whom are in China.
[...]
The United States has been working closely with the World Health Organization and engaged in other diplomatic efforts to get its experts into China. Several U.S. experts are now in Beijing, three senior administration officials said, but officials are still working to ensure that those experts get access to the data and sites they need. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still does not have the information it wants, administration officials said.
Although the United States has so far effectively contained the virus, some senior administration officials said there have been tensions within the administration over what information the president should receive, his posture toward China and what message to send to the American public.
WaPo
Jesus Christ. The president can't even be told anything because he's such a total fuckwad.Some officials have complained that Trump’s comments about the virus emanate from his briefings with Azar, who they say has been overly controlling in the response and has told other doctors not to get too far into the details of the virus and the outbreak with Trump.
While His Lardship tweets out bullshit. Like he did with the Sharpie hurricane map. And announces Alabama will receive infected Americans, only to change that story when Alabama complained. (I guess the Sharpie map including them in hurricane path was more than enough.)Azar has also wanted to be the one to announce major updates about the administration’s response to the virus, several officials said.
On Thursday, he briefed the Senate Finance Committee that the CDC would use public health labs in five cities that normally test for influenza to also test for the coronavirus, taking state health officials by surprise. One senior administration official said it was part of an effort to execute “radical transparency” with Congress and the public, noting that officials are doing their best to communicate clearly and effectively in a fast-moving situation.
Doesn't that mean that warm weather in April (when it isn't normally 80 degrees and humid in the US) will not stop the virus?HHS officials have told Trump that infections could decrease in the spring when it gets warmer because most coronaviruses and upper respiratory infections — including the flu — level off as the weather warms.
The coronavirus spreading through China and in about two dozen other countries, however, has never been seen before, and little is known about how it behaves or whether it will eventually mutate. The idea that it will taper off in the spring is “mainly an educated guess,” according to one senior White House official. In Singapore, for instance, it is above 80 degrees and humid, but there are still more than 50 cases of the virus.
Which is his only concern, and which is why he tweeted that the market looks good to him.[S]everal officials said there has been too much focus on evacuating Americans overseas — and too little on what to do if the epidemic spreads within the United States, given the continued growth of the virus.
Trump named a coronavirus task force last month that is led by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and composed of top officials from the CDC, the National Institutes of Health, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the White House. It came after a Jan. 27 meeting in acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney’s office, where some officials argued that the administration was not taking the threat seriously enough.
[...]
When it became clear late last month that the outbreak was far more serious and widespread than previously known, several major international and U.S. air carriers suspended flights to China for weeks. China has also halted work at several factories across the country as it tries to contain the virus, affecting some international companies’ ability to conduct business.
The United States subsequently escalated its response, barring most non-U.S. citizens who recently visited China from traveling to the United States and mandating federal quarantines for Americans who had visited China’s Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak, within the past 14 days.
[...]
Trump grew concerned that any stronger action by his administration would hurt the economy, and he has told advisers that he does not want the administration to do or say anything that would further spook the markets. He remains worried that any large-scale outbreak could hurt his reelection bid.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
UPDATE 2/28:
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