The administration had developed an actual pandemic play book for the Trump administration to use. It included mention of a possible novel coronavirus, among other things:
Evidence Shows Obama Team Left A Pandemic ‘Game Plan’ For Trump Administration
And then there was the dismantling of the pandemic response team:
“The Global Health Security and Biodefense unit — responsible for pandemic preparedness — was established in 2015 by Barack Obama’s National Security Advisor, Susan Rice (
here ). The unit resided under the National Security Council (NSC) — a forum of White House personnel that advises the president on national security and foreign policy matters.
In May 2018, the team was disbanded and its head Timothy Ziemer, top White House official in the NSC for leading U.S. response against a pandemic, left the Trump administration, the Washington Post reported (
here ). Some members of the global health and security team were merged into other units within the NSC, the article said.”
Partly false claim: Trump fired entire pandemic response team in 2018
The article gives a mixed verdict on the supposed reorganization of a system the current administration deemed bloated.
But to say the former administration wasn’t ready for anything this big isn’t necessarily true.
We obviously see that this pandemic shook every nation. But some were more prepared to get a handle on it and come up with comprehensive plans, than others. We have not been so good at it.
The Netflix series Pandemic, which my family and I ironically watched right when this thing was erupting in China, shows that medical experts indeed knew exactly what the risks were and that a pandemic was going to come. They also knew how to deal with it and have prepared expensively. Sadly, politicians don’t always play ball.
A Netflix series predicted a global pandemic. It was dismissed as 'a show about the flu'
But, watching this thing unfold, it’s clear that various governmental officials from every level of government in the US, federal, state, county, and city, of every political persuasion, have made massive mistakes in handling this.
Hopefully we can all learn from this.