How Trump let the U.S. fall behind the curve on coronavirus threat

The first day President Trump mentioned the coronavirus in public, only one American was known to be infected. China soon identified the cause of the outbreak as a new strain of coronavirus but said there was “no evidence of significant human-to-human transmission.” At the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Director Robert Redfield, a physician and former AIDS researcher, tweeted Jan. 14 that “there is no confirmed person-to-person spread” of the illness in China, though his agency was “monitoring the situation closely.” The CDC issued a routine “level 1 travel notice,” advising Americans traveling to Wuhan to “practice usual precautions.” Three days later, the CDC announced that airports would conduct health screenings for passengers traveling from Wuhan to Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York. The same day as the Situation Room briefing, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross observed that the alarming rise in cases in China could “accelerate the return of jobs to North America.” White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told reporters the next day that Trump and his senior aides were continuing “to monitor the situation.” Standing next to her, Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health, said that the outbreak was “under control” and that “all the resources were in place.” As head of the task force, Azar tried to carve out a major role overseeing the federal response without sounding public alarms that were sure to upset the president, according to another administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The international organization urged countries to scale up “preparedness and response operations, including strengthening readiness to rapidly identify, diagnose and treat cases.” Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore rolled out COVID-19 tests fairly quickly, giving health officials a head start on tracing the spread of the virus and imposing a degree of containment measures that the United States did not take until weeks later, said Dr. C. Jason Wang, director of Stanford University’s Center for Policy, Outcomes and Prevention. On Feb. 27, as reported infections spread through Europe, Trump told reporters his administration had “done an incredible job.” “One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear,” he said.