What historians heard when Trump warned of a 'foreign virus'

Posted: Mar 12, 2020 

By Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN

For immigration historians and other scholars, the way US President Donald Trump is describing the coronavirus pandemic has a familiar ring.

"This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history," Trump said in an Oval Office address Wednesday night. "I am confident that by counting and continuing to take these tough measures we will significantly reduce the threat to our citizens and we will ultimately and expeditiously defeat this virus."

As soon as Trump's words describing a "foreign virus" hit the airwaves, Nükhet Varlik knew she'd heard them before.

"We've had plenty of examples of this in the past. It's mindblowing that this still continues," said Varlik, an associate professor of history at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, and at the University of South Carolina.

"It opens up the ways of thinking about disease in dangerous ways," she said. "Once you open that door...historically we have examples, we know where it goes. And we don't want to go there. I find it extremely dangerous."

It's the latest chapter in a story that historians see as centuries in the making. From the plague to SARS, whenever an outbreak spread, racism and xenophobia weren't far behind.

Here's what scholars told CNN about some of history's shameful episodes, and the lessons we can learn from them.

The 'Black Death' in the 14th century

The expert: Nükhet Varlik, associate professor of history at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, and at the University of South Carolina

The event: "Jewish populations were accused of deliberately poisoning the wells and causing the plague. We know examples of this from many places in Europe," Varlik says.

As rumors spread, Jews were killed, buried alive and burned at the stake. And they weren't the only group erroneously blamed for causing the disease.

"European accounts talk about plague as 'Oriental Plague.' ... They look at the Ottoman Empire as the origin of the plague. Well, it's just entirely unfounded. It's not accurate," Varlik says.

The takeaway: "These discourses, both popular and scientific, shaped the perception of how societies understood disease and responded to it for at least the last 600 years," Varlik says. "They are not only dangerous for the present (because it informs policy and response), but also for the future because it leaves a legacy behind."

Similarly, she says, describing coronavirus as a "foreign virus" isn't helpful. "We're all in this together," she says.

Opinion: The way we talk about coronavirus matters

Cholera outbreaks in New York in the 19th century

The expert: Alan Kraut, distinguished professor of history at American University in Washington

The event: An 1832 cholera outbreak "was very largely blamed on Irish Catholic immigrants," Kraut says.

"This is in part because this was also the period of the Second Great Awakening, of intense Protestant evangelism, and Catholics were always the target of that,' he says. "They attributed the presence of the epidemic to the 'filthiness' and 'ignorance' of Irish Catholic immigrants."

The takeaway: "Whenever there's a crisis like an epidemic, people immediately look for who to blame. And groups that have already been stigmatized are natural targets," Kraut says.

In New York's response to cholera outbreaks, Kraut says, the xenophobia faded over time.

"By the third cholera epidemic in that era, there was less of an emphasis on blaming the Irish, and more of an emphasis on establishing public institutions to choreograph a response," he said.

Rather than demonizing immigrants, creating government institutions to improve public health for everyone became a priority, Kraut says. And in 1866, New York's Metropolitan Board of Health was born.

Quarantines in San Francisco's Chinatown

The experts: Doug Chan, president of the Chinese Historical Society of America, and Marie Myung-Ok Lee, writer in residence at Columbia University's Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race.

The events: Quarantines in San Francisco's Chinatown followed multiple outbreaks in the 19th century.

"During an outbreak of smallpox in San Francisco in 1876, a population of 30,000 Chinese living there became medical scapegoats, Chinatown was blamed as a 'laboratory of infection,' and quarantined amidst renewed calls to halt immigration. The Chinese Exclusion Act, the first immigration law based on race, was enacted in 1882," Lee noted in a recent essay for Salon.

"As soon as the immigration started to increase, that is when the job prospects for white laborers became threatened, and that is when the rumors about Chinese being disease vectors began," she told CNN.

As the plague spread in 1900, Chan says officials in San Francisco quarantined the city's Chinatown neighborhood "for no good reason."

"Things got to the point where there were forced vaccinations of people in the Chinatown community with a vaccine that had not been fully tested," he says. "And it produced adverse reactions... they basically used the Chinese as human test subjects."

The takeaway: "It's a sad commentary that I think many of the same narrative threads are surfacing," Chan says. "Unfortunately Americans when facing adversity, whether it's competition from a nation-state or in this case a virus, it's the disturbing American tendency to racialize the adversity very quickly, and we're seeing manifestations of that."

Lee says it's troubling to see.

"You could have been here since the Chinese Exclusion Act. You could be third or fourth generation," she says. "But you'll always be seen as a foreign invader and have somebody assault you on the subway saying you have the coronarivus."

Health screenings and quarantines on Ellis Island

The expert: Alan Kraut, distinguished professor of history at American University in Washington

The event: "There was a fear in the late 19th and early 20th century that disease could come from abroad, and therefore we had to inspect very carefully," Kraut says.

At the time, officials conducting health inspections on Ellis Island said their aim was to keep the American population safe. But the emphasis on screening for disease at places like Ellis Island had implications far beyond the famed immigrant processing center, Kraut says.

"One of the patterns of nativist rhetoric in the early 20th century was that these newcomers were unfit to be Americans, that is, physically unfit to be Americans, and therefore they would not be able to assimilate if admitted," Kraut says. "If you go through the thinking of especially those who were eugenicists and race thinkers, there were so many of them who at least mentioned the theme of physical inferiority."

The takeaway: "The foreign-born have always been targets," Kraut says, "facing the underlying accusations that they're unfit to be Americans."

SARS

The expert: Ho-Fung Hung, sociology professor at Johns Hopkins University

The event: Ethnic bias and racism, Hung argues, led to less effective responses to the 2003 SARS outbreak.

And editorial cartoons in some US newspapers at the time, he says, "stigmatized all Chinese travelers as SARS carriers, and associated SARS with the Chinese-American community."

For example, one cartoon featured an open Chinese food takeout container with 'SARS' written on it above a caption that read 'Bad Chinese Take-Out."

"These associations of Asian and Chinese people with disease, they remain dormant. But every time it's reactivated when there is this kind of a crisis," Hung says.

The takeaway: Blaming diseases on foreigners happens frequently in times of public health crisis, Hung says. But he says it's counterproductive.

"The virus itself doesn't know ethnic boundaries. So if you are stuck with this perception that only certain groups of people you need to keep a distance from, you miss the more important part of keeping distance from other potential carriers," he says.

Hung says describing coronavirus as a "foreign virus" is similarly problematic.

"It is already a global pandemic, so it is too late and it is useless to just frame it as a 'foreign virus' and say we will be OK in just cutting off travel from foreign places. Emphasizing the foreignness of the virus is no longer useful," he says. "It's similar to stereotyping and social distancing only against certain groups. It is counterproductive."

The first known US coronavirus case is nearly two months old — and it's still 'pretty complicated' to be tested

Dennis Wagner USA TODAY

How many Americans are infected by coronavirus? How many have been tested?

Nearly two months after the first known case of the respiratory disease was reported in the United States, and a day after the World Health Organization declared it as a pandemic, federal agencies remain short on answers.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not respond to questions from USA TODAY on Thursday about the nation's detection program, which has been plagued by a shortage of test kits, flawed science and dubious data.

Tracking the outbreak:US coronavirus map

There were 1,215 confirmed or presumptive positive cases of COVID-19, with 36 fatalities in the United States as of Thursday, according to the CDC's website. The agency is no longer issuing data on the number of tests taken.

Infectious disease experts, however, say the official tally is only a fraction of the reality, because it does not contain data from some states, and the lack of test kits has prevented diagnosis for thousands who may be ill.

A Johns Hopkins University data dashboard, which, unlike the CDC's website, is updated throughout each day, counted 40 deaths and 1,663 confirmed U.S. cases as of late Thursday night.
Sen. Lindsey Graham was immediately tested. What about the rest of us?

In late February, as the viral insurgency bloomed in the U.S. about a month after the first identified case in Washington state on Jan. 21,, epidemiologists at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles calculated that up to 9,000 Americans would be infected by March 1.

Their study noted that contagious diseases spread in a geometric progression, and "the opportunity window to contain the epidemic of COVID-19 in its early stages is closing."


More recent developments place that prediction in a stark, personal context: Americans are under quarantine or self-monitoring, stock markets have plunged, workers are telecommuting and major events are canceling.

Consider Kyle Edgar, 20, who spent his spring break last week with thousands of people at bars and fraternity parties at University of Maryland in College Park, and at a gathering for modified car aficionados in nearby Montgomery County.

Afterward, Edgar developed a sore throat, congestion, chills and a cough. Due to remission from bone cancer, he didn’t want to take any chances with his immune system.  

Edgar said his regular physicians declined to test for coronavirus, but directed him to another healthcare facility, which sent him to a third location. There, an employee suggested he visit a nearby clinic for sexually transmitted diseases, where a doctor in a mask and bodysuit took nose and throat swabs.

The process took three hours, said Edgar, a freshman at University of South Carolina. His results are expected by Monday.

“It was pretty complicated going through all those hoops,” he added. “But I wanted to get it done.”

Counting the people:We're 'equipped' to count nation's population amid coronavirus crisis, census officials say. Lawmakers aren't so sure.

In a nationwide patchwork, Americans have reported similar troubles from New York state to Washington state. And their experiences raise hackles when compared to politicians and celebrities who sometimes are tested without delay.

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Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, who was at Mar-a-Lago recently for an event attended by an infected Brazilian official, reportedly secured a test despite having no recollection of contact with the individual.

Similarly, Utah Jazz players apparently underwent prompt testing after All-NBA center Rudy Gobert was diagnosed with the virus, even though the teammates apparently were a-symptomatic. His positive test prompted the NBA's decision on Wednesday night to suspend its season. 

Testing is 'No. 1 issue' to resolve as US combats coronavirus pandemic

The national coronavirus picture, meanwhile, remains opaque.

In the absence of clear CDC tracking, some states are divulging numbers for COVID-19 testing, but with limited transparency.

California, for example, reported 177 positive cases out of 8,227 tests as of Wednesday , with about roughly 11,000 people self-monitoring due to possible exposure. But it is unclear whether the totals include testing done by private facilities.

California asks the state's 18 public health labs to report positive testing, but does not require it. State officials declined to be interviewed by USA TODAY.

So did authorities in Florida, which announced 35 presumed coronavirus cases as of Thursday, with 301 negative tests and 142 pending.

You asked us tons of questions about the coronavirus:We're answering them.

Testing for the virus uses reagents that extract, purify and stabilize genetic materials, or RNA, that are identified with COVID-19. Some protocols require two tests per individual, and it is unclear how states tally the results.

More significantly, because the CDC neither publishes nor collects comprehensive data, no one knows how many Americans have been tested or are infected.

Joseph Eisenberg, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan, said testing is "the No. 1 issue that needs to be resolved right now" if the nation hopes to staunch the viral spread.

"It is really hard to understand why they haven't been prepared," he added.

In a void of federal leadership, he noted, universities and private businesses have begun taking "positive steps" to combat the disease even though they are "flying blind."

"We're really hampered by not having these tests to do something more systematic," Eisenberg said. "You can't target intervention … you're taking away a really valuable tool.

"This may be here to stay," he warned.
'Failing' of US healthcare system to test for coronavirus leads to political fallout

For Jessica Mason, who became sick after a Jan. 8 visit to Walt Disney World in Florida, illness is compounded by uncertainty.

Mason said she needed holes punctured in her ear drums to regulate the pressure and drain fluid. Then her congestion and upper respiratory symptoms returned. She said the Ohio Department of Health couldn’t tell her where to get tested for coronavirus, and urged her to self-quarantine.

“I’m worried and confused as to what the government wants me to do,” said Mason.

The turgid testing program in a nation renowned for advanced medical care and transparency has prompted comparisons to countries like South Korea, which reportedly tested 66,000 people in a single week.

The facts on coronavirus aren't all scary:So why so much fear?

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the testing logjam constitutes a "failing" of the nation's healthcare system.

When compared with other countries that have rigorous programs, Fauci said, "We're not set up for that. Do I think we should be? Yes. But we're not."

That testimony came this week before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, where the chair, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-New York, delivered a scathing monologue.

"We are now in the middle of a global health crisis," Maloney said. "Unfortunately, when we look at the last three months objectively, it is clear that strategic errors and a failure of leadership impaired our nation's ability to respond to this outbreak."

Last week, Maloney noted, President Donald Trump described COVID-19 tests as "beautiful" and said anyone who needs an exam can get one.

"He was absolutely wrong," the congresswoman said. "My constituents are telling me they can't get tested … The president and his aides may think they are helping with political spin and happy talk, but the American people want the truth."

Opinion:I'm an epidemiologist. Here's what I told my friends about the coronavirus and COVID-19.

In Massachusetts, Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, on Thursday called on the federal government to give states the authority to test for COVID-19 at more hospitals and private and public labs.

While the Bay State had finally received more kits, Baker said agencies were strapped to process test specimens because the only approved testing center is in Boston.

“We need the federal government … to give hospitals and testing facilities here in Massachusetts that have the capacity to test, the material and then the approval that they need to actually begin to test," Baker said.

"I think there are probably a lot of people all over the country who are engaged in similar kinds of conversations. This is a critical issue for us.”

Contributing: Jayne O'Donnell, Joey Garrison and Kevin McCoy, USA TODAY.



115 MORE PHOTOS HERE 
https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/news/world/2020/01/22/deadly-coronavirus-spreading-across-china-reaches-u-s/4536705002/


Task force health expert contradicts Trump about coronavirus vaccine timing

By Maegan Vazquez, CNN Tue March 3, 2020 

TEN DAYS LATER AND NOTHING HAS CHANGED

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump was contradicted by a health expert on his coronavirus task force over the timing for a potential vaccine during a briefing Monday.
Trump was asked about a timeline for a vaccine during the Cabinet Room meeting with pharmaceutical executives and members of his task force.
"I don't know what the time will be. I've heard very quick numbers, that of months. And I've heard pretty much a year would be an outside number. So I think that's not a bad range. But if you're talking about three to four months in a couple of cases, a year in other cases," Trump said.
But Dr. Antony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, immediately corrected the President: "Let me make sure you get the ... information. A vaccine that you make and start testing in a year is not a vaccine that's deployable."

Trump defends holding campaign rallies even as coronavirus spreads
As Fauci explained the timeline, Trump folded his arms.
Fauci said: "So he's asking the question -- when is it going to be deployable? And that is going to be, at the earliest, a year to a year and a half, no matter how fast you go."
"Do you think that's right?" Trump asked the pharmaceutical executives at the table, just as Fauci finished speaking. "Well, I think treatment in many ways might be more exciting."
The pushback didn't come just from Fauci.
Throughout the meeting, Trump was hyperfocused on pressing industry leaders in the room for a timeline for a coronavirus vaccine and treatment. But experts at the table -- from the administration and the pharmaceutical industry -- repeatedly emphasized that a vaccine can't be rushed to market before it's been declared safe for the public.
"So you're talking over the next few months, you could have a vaccine?" Trump later asked Stéphane Bancel, the CEO of Moderna, a biotechnology company.
"Correct, (for) phase two (testing)," Bancel answered.
Fauci interjected: "He wouldn't have a vaccine. He'd have a vaccine to go into testing."
Trump said: "Oh, so you're talking in about a year."
Fauci said: "A year to a year and a half."
The President said that one executive was "talking about two months."
But Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar clarified that Regeneron, a biotechnology company that was represented in the room, would be ready for phase one testing for a vaccine in two months.
Leonard Schleifer, the CEO of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, then underscored that "vaccines have to be tested because there's precedent for vaccines to actually make diseases worse. ... You don't want to rush and treat a million people and find out you're making 900,000 of them worse."
"That's a good idea," Trump said.
The President also said he agrees that any coronavirus vaccine has to be safe in order for it to be made widely available, but added: "Get it done. We need it. We want it fast."
Inovio CEO J. Joseph Kim, who was in the meeting, told CNN that Trump told the executives to contact him directly if they encountered holdups within the federal government.
A source familiar with the administration's response said the scientists and experts gathered for the meeting were able to convince Trump that it will likely take a year or longer for an effective vaccine to be on the market.
"I think he's got it now," the source said.

They call it the “Wuhan virus.” 

Trump aides pound on China. Health experts say: Please stop.

By Nahal Toosi, Politico•March 13, 2020

They call it the “Wuhan virus.”

As a lethal pandemic races across the world, overwhelming health systems and upending entire societies, President Donald Trump’s top aides and allies see an opening to weaken a vulnerable adversary.

The Trump team’s escalating drumbeat against China is worrying some public health experts, who say the attempts to blame Beijing for the coronavirus outbreak could harm efforts to combat the spreading contagion, while winning praise from others.

And it’s come amid conspiracy theories and counteraccusations from Chinese officials, some of whom are alleging the virus’s true origins lie outside China, in what U.S. officials say is a malicious effort to shift blame.

National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien has accused China of covering up the health crisis. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has repeatedly labeled the illness the “Wuhan coronavirus” — a reference to the Chinese city that is the epicenter of the disease.

Hawkish pro-Trump lawmakers in Congress, meanwhile, have raised alarms about China’s outsized role in global supply chains for key medicines. And that’s on top of other anti-Beijing moves that have nothing to do with the virus at all.

The Chinese are fighting back with their own harsh rhetoric, all while signaling that their herculean effort to eradicate the virus means the world should look to them – and not the United States — as a leader and role model.

As for the president, he has largely stayed above the fray, limiting his criticism to noting the virus’s geographical roots and labeling it a “foreign virus” during an Oval Office address on Wednesday. He’s even praised Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s stewardship of the crisis, tweeting that Xi “is strong, sharp and powerfully focused on leading the counterattack on the Coronavirus.”

The Trump administration’s hardline reaction to Beijing’s handling of the coronavirus is in many ways par for the course: Its foreign policy relies more on sticks than carrots, and it has flatly declared the ruling Chinese Communist Party a long-term global threat.

That dim view of China is shared increasingly across the political spectrum in Washington. Few in either party will defend China’s management of the virus, or call to emulate its draconian methods.

But some former U.S. officials say that by kicking China while it’s down, the Trump team is wasting a golden opportunity to build trust with an increasingly powerful country whose cooperation it will need to tackle future transnational challenges, including pandemics.

“A lot of these emotional and punishment policies will over time come back to bite us,” warned Paul Haenle, a former National Security Council official who dealt with China under the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.

Within the Cabinet, America’s top diplomat has been China’s most expansive critic. The secretary of state is arguing to anyone who will listen that China’s lack of transparency, especially early on, has damaged global efforts to halt the virus.

“It has proven incredibly frustrating to work with the Chinese Communist Party to get our hands around the data set which will ultimately be the solution to both getting the vaccine and attacking this risk,” Pompeo told CNBC last week.

But Pompeo’s attempts to rebrand COVID-19 as “the Wuhan virus” or the “Wuhan coronavirus” are drawing a furious backlash from Chinese officials and semi-official pundits, who say the terms are xenophobic.

State Department officials insist that Pompeo is using the term to counter Chinese disinformation – prevalent on internet forums and voiced by some Chinese officials – that the virus might have actually sprung from the United States.

O’Brien sent a similar critical message on Wednesday, asserting that authorities in China had “covered up” the initial outbreak. As a result, the national security adviser said, "it probably cost the world community two months to respond."
National security adviser Robert O'Brien arrives at a signing ceremony with President Donald Trump for a trade agreement with Japan in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Monday, Oct. 7, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)More

Other Trump aides have suggested the virus offers the U.S. economic opportunity.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the outbreak could “accelerate the return of jobs to North America,” although that was before the virus was detected in large numbers inside the United States. Peter Navarro, a strident anti-China voice within the executive branch, has used the outbreak to push for ways to decrease U.S. reliance on China for the manufacturing of key drugs and medical equipment.

Some of Trump’s most vocal supporters in Congress have expressed similar concerns about dependence on Chinese manufacturers. Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida on Thursday chaired a hearing titled “The Coronavirus and America’s Small Business Supply Chain” to highlight U.S. vulnerabilities.

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas has been among the harshest anti-China critics as the coronavirus has spread. He, like Pompeo, refers to it as the “Wuhan virus” and has floated the unsubstantiated theory that the virus was manufactured by the Chinese in a bioweapons lab, a claim scientists dismiss as conspiratorial and implausible.

Even as Cotton announced Thursday that he was temporarily closing his Washington, D.C., office after a Senate staffer tested positive for the virus, he hinted at unspecified moves to retaliate against an unnamed culprit, presumably Beijing.

“We will emerge stronger from this challenge, we will hold accountable those who inflicted it on the world, and we will prosper in the new day,” he said.

The virus-related rhetoric and actions have been coupled by other anti-China moves large and small, many of them led by Pompeo and the State Department.

During the Munich Security Conference in February, Pompeo launched several broadsides at Beijing. He accused it of fostering maritime disputes, undermining pro-democracy movements and trying to co-opt local and state officials in the United States. He also warned other countries that “Huawei and other Chinese state-backed tech companies are Trojan horses for Chinese intelligence.”

In recent weeks, the State Department has designated five Chinese media outlets as “foreign missions,” effectively declaring them extensions of China’s government. Those outlets now have to get U.S. federal government permission for various actions, such as leasing office space.

Shortly afterward, China expelled three Wall Street Journal reporters, a move it linked to its unhappiness over a headline in the Journal’s opinion pages that described China as the “sick man” of Asia. In apparent response, the Trump administration said it was imposing caps on the number of Chinese citizens allowed to work for Chinese media outlets in the United States.

"President Trump has made clear that the United States will establish long-overdue reciprocity in our relations with China," a State Department spokesperson said. "We urge the Chinese Communist Party to immediately uphold its international commitments to respect freedom of expression, including for members of the press."

On Wednesday, Pompeo singled out China and a handful of other countries – Iran, Cuba and Venezuela – as he unveiled the State Department’s annual human rights report. China, Pompeo said, is imprisoning citizens because of their religious beliefs and “Chinese citizens who want a better future are met with violence.”

Former U.S. officials and analysts in the China and global health fields offered mixed reactions to the Trump administration’s handling of the diplomatic side of the crisis.

Some said that Pompeo and others’ tough commentary has been helpful by raising pressure on China to be more open about developments on its soil. In mid-February, China finally allowed in a team from the World Health Organization that included Americans.

“Clobbering the Chinese on some of the things they need to be clobbered on is not a bad thing at all,” said Stephen Morrison, director of the Global Health Policy Center at Center for Strategic and International Studies. The WHO “has been super deferential toward the Chinese, and we were getting stiffed and stonewalled for weeks and weeks.”

But Morrison and others agreed that other U.S. moves have probably done more to degrade trust than build it – including using labels like the “Wuhan coronavirus.”

“Naming a disease after a place stigmatizes that place and that’s why there’s been an intentional move away from that,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, a former Obama administration official who help lead the U.S. response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Africa. “Ultimately, diseases are about biology, not geography.”

Konyndyk added that initial U.S. offers to send specialists to China to examine the outbreak came across as demands more than genuine friendly offers, turning off Chinese officials already wary of any U.S. presence on the ground.

“The way that the administration [was] framing it and talking about it was really about us getting visibility on their situation rather than us helping them,” he said.

The analysts and former officials didn’t doubt the reasoning behind some of the U.S. moves – Chinese media outlets, for one, are widely considered propaganda operations. But the timing of the U.S. moves sent a poor signal, they argued.

That being said, given the downturn in U.S.-Chinese relations in recent years – predating Trump – there’s no guarantee that China would have reacted any differently on the coronavirus outbreak had the U.S. not been making such moves.

In a recent essay, Haenle and co-author Lucas Tcheyan noted that epidemics have typically been seen as “non-sensitive areas for U.S.-China cooperation.” One result of 2002-2003 outbreak of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in China was more U.S.-Chinese collaboration in the field of global health, the authors said.

“In the nearly two decades following SARS, in which other global health crises involving the H1N1 influenza strain and the Ebola virus unfolded, Washington and Beijing demonstrated a growing willingness to manage threats to global health, stability, and economic growth together,” they wrote. “The coronavirus, however, has demonstrated just how low bilateral ties have sunk.”

State Department officials point out that the U.S. has delivered some 18 tons of supplies and pledged up to $100 million to help China and other countries battle the coronavirus. According to some media accounts, the Chinese have quietly accepted much of the aid.

In public, however, some Chinese officials are not showing much gratitude.

Lijian Zhao, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, is among the most outspoken critics. On Friday, he used his Twitter account, which is infamous for its mean-spirited rhetoric, to link to clips of a recent Capitol Hill appearance by Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“When did patient zero begin in US?” Zhao asked in one tweet, implying without evidence that the outbreak began in the United States. “How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!”

Perhaps the most intriguing development on the geopolitical side of the coronavirus crisis is China’s attempt to capitalize on it diplomatically.

Thanks to quarantines, lockdowns of entire regions and other stringent measures, the Chinese appear to have brought the outbreak to heel -- albeit after it killed more than 3,000 of their citizens. Earlier this week, Xi, the Chinese leader, visited Wuhan in a show of confidence.

At the same time, China is increasingly offering expertise and aid to other countries struggling to contain the illness. A group of Chinese experts headed to Italy this week to help combat the virus in that badly hit European country; Italy has put its entire 60 million population under quarantine.

Chinese propaganda organs, meanwhile, have painted Xi as taking heroic steps to arrest the outbreak. The argument, pushed over and over in state-run media, is that China’s authoritarian system is uniquely capable of solving such crises.

The state-controlled outlets also paint the U.S. political system as incompetent in its response.

“Political virus puts US behind the curve of infection control,” read one headline in China's Global Times, a tabloid that often pushes the views of anti-U.S. voices within the Chinese system.

China Launches a Fake News Campaign to Blame the U.S. for Coronavirus

COVID-19 CONSPIRACY THEORIES; EVERYONE'S GOT ONE

Brendon Hong,The Daily Beast•March 13, 2020
 

REUTERS

HONG KONG—Bombastic Chinese government officials are laying the groundwork to blame the United States for the global coronavirus pandemic, and in turn extricate the Chinese Communist Party from any blame. Trumpian rhetoric, it seems, has a clear mirror reflection on the other side of the globe. The American president calls the pandemic sweeping the globe “a foreign virus”? The Chinese are calling it an American one.

Zhao Lijian, the spokesperson of the Chinese foreign ministry and face of the CCP, insinuated by tweet in both English and Chinese on Thursday that the United States is behind the the novel coronavirus outbreak in China: “CDC was caught on the spot. When did patient zero begin in U.S.? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be U.S. army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! U.S. owe us an explanation!”

The rant was inexplicably paired with a video clip from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield’s testimony before Congress on Wednesday, subtitled in Chinese, about Americans who may have been misdiagnosed with the flu when they actually had COVID-19, the disease brought on by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

Zhao’s creeping escalation of rhetoric is the latest example of the Chinese Communist Party’s attempt to shift blame after its officials bungled efforts to contain the virus at the onset of the outbreak. And who better than its key geopolitical foe—the United States—to be the scapegoat?

The claim by Zhao was first seeded in late February, when Zhong Nanshan, a seasoned epidemiologist and pulmonologist who identified the SARS virus in 2003, said that the coronavirus “may not have originated in China” even though the first known cases were in the city of Wuhan and the majority of confirmed infections were there and in the rest of Hubei province.

It didn’t take long for state media and Chinese trolls to grab hold of Zhong’s talking point, merging it with the crackpot theory that the coronavirus is a bioweapon. Soon they were asking which nation has sophisticated biowarfare capabilities and can release its viral weapons to wipe out an unsuspecting population. The obvious conclusion, for them, was the United States.

Simultaneously, on Chinese social networks like Weibo, hashtags for the “Japanese virus” and the “Iranian virus” helped shape the narrative that SARS-CoV-2 could be of foreign origin, and China merely got a raw deal. Now, the “Italian virus” tag is doing the same.

Never mind that Chinese researchers, like Shi Zhengli, the “Bat Woman” virologist profiled by Scientific American, have conducted field research in China’s rural areas to locate and identify dozens of lethal viruses that are similar to SARS and the coronavirus that is now infecting many around the world. They recognize that there are many more strains that could make the leap to humans, causing new viral outbreaks like the one China went through in the past three months.

Like Trump, Zhao has a history of posting combative outbursts on Twitter, which is banned in China except for some of the party’s officials. He is one of the first Chinese diplomats to register and run an official account on Twitter—and the first to weaponize his feed, rallying China’s paid trolls through talking points spewed onto the social network. Last August, he was promoted from his post as deputy chief of mission in Pakistan to become deputy director of the Chinese foreign ministry’s information department.

That’s all to say, in an age of post-truth misinformation and disinformation, Zhao is Beijing’s vociferous master of spin. Other Chinese officials often echo his talking points online. There is little doubt that the CCP’s ranks coordinate the content of their Twitter feeds.

As new infection numbers taper off to mere dozens per day in China, the pandemic is politicized more than ever. Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Wuhan this week in what was essentially a victory tour for the country’s “war” against the virus. To prevent the embarrassing situation from the previous week, where residents shouted “It’s all fake!” from their balconies when a CCP official staged a photo op, two police officers were stationed in every apartment near locations where Xi was set to appear.

Right now, people in mainland China and Hong Kong are baffled by the current situations in Western Europe and the United States. There have been months of warnings from Asia, and thousands have died from COVID-19, yet all of that was insufficient for many nations in the West to prepare for the virus’ landfall.

“If it were purely a financial crisis in Asia—an illness of capital,” a venture investor said to me offhandedly this week, “institutions [in Europe and America] like banks and hedge funds would have reacted with no delay.” But public health, she suggested, wasn’t as much of a concern even in an era of globalization, when, normally, many millions of people are moved across continents each day.

In the past three months, some of those who suffered in China thought their cases would be signals of a global threat. That their warning signs were mostly ignored may serve to feed Zhao’s disinformation suggesting the U.S. is behind it all.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman pushes coronavirus conspiracy theory that the US Army 'brought the epidemic to Wuhan'

COVID-19 CONSPIRACY THEORIES; EVERYONE'S GOT ONE

Ryan Pickrell,Business Insider•March 12, 2020
 

China's flag is raised during the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Jerry Lampe/Reuters

A Chinese government spokesman said on Thursday that the US Army might have "brought the epidemic to Wuhan," appearing to push a popular conspiracy theory.

Chinese officials have been trying to reshape the narrative about the coronavirus, suggesting that it might have originated outside of China, even though the center of the outbreak was the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

Amid this push, a conspiracy theory that US athletes participating in the Military World Games in Wuhan last fall brought the coronavirus into China has emerged. There is no evidence supporting this claim.

A Chinese government spokesman said on Thursday that the US Army may have "brought the epidemic to Wuhan," appearing to push a popular coronavirus conspiracy theory in China.

Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, called attention to a comment on Wednesday from Robert Redfield, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, acknowledging that some Americans who were said to have died from influenza may have actually died from COVID-19.

"When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected?" Zhao wrote on Twitter. "What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US Army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!"

In a short thread on Twitter — a social media platform that's inaccessible in China — Zhao demanded to know how many of the millions of infections and thousands of deaths during the latest flu season were actually related to COVID-19.

The coronavirus first appeared in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year, and since then, the pandemic has claimed the lives of thousands of people, mostly in China.

As China has faced criticism, Chinese authorities have pushed back, suggesting that the virus may have originated somewhere else. Dr. Zhong Nanshan, a leading Chinese epidemiologist, said in late February that "though the COVID-19 was first discovered in China, it does not mean that it originated from China."

Zhao stressed the same point in a recent press briefing.

"No conclusion has been reached yet on the origin of the virus," he told reporters, adding that "what we are experiencing now is a global phenomenon with its source still undetermined."

One popular coronavirus conspiracy theory that has emerged in China is that US military athletes participating in the Military World Games in Wuhan last year may have brought the virus into China. There is, however, no evidence to support this accusation.

The Trump administration has laid the blame firmly at China's feet. "Unfortunately, rather than using best practices, this outbreak in Wuhan was covered up," the White House national security adviser, Robert O'Brien, told reporters on Wednesday.

"It probably cost the world community two months to respond," he added.

Geng Shuang, another Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, said O'Brien's "immoral and irresponsible" comments denigrated China's efforts to fight the virus.

Read the original article on Business Insider


Chinese diplomat promotes conspiracy theory that US military brought virus to Wuhan

By Ben Westcott and Steven Jiang, CNN

A prominent Chinese official has promoted a conspiracy theory that the United States military could have brought the novel coronavirus to China -- and it did not originate in the city of Wuhan, as thought.

© Andy Wong/AP Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian during a daily briefing at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs office in Beijing, on February 24.

Posting to his more than 300,000 followers on Twitter, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian republished a video of Robert Redfield, the director for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, addressing a US Congressional committee on March 11.

In the clip, Redfield said some influenza deaths in the US were later identified as cases of Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Redfield didn't say when those people had died or over what time period, but Zhao pointed to his remarks in support of a growing conspiracy theory that the coronavirus did not originate in Hubei province in central China. He did not offer any further evidence for the claim.

"CDC was caught on the spot. When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!" the Foreign Ministry official said.

Hundreds of athletes from the US military were in Wuhan for the Military World Games in October 2019.

The video of Redfield was also published to Twitter by other state media outlets, including national broadcaster CCTV and the popular Global Times tabloid.

On Friday, Zhao's fellow Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said there were "varied opinions" on the origin of the virus in the international community.

"China always considers this a scientific question, which should be addressed in a scientific and professional manner," he said, avoiding questions on whether Zhao's tweet represented the Chinese government's official position.

Origin theories

Parts of Chinese social media, and even the country's government, appear to have launched a concerted campaign to question the origin of the novel coronavirus, which has infected more than 125,000 people globally.

The first reported cases of the virus were in Wuhan, and since then the city has had more infections and deaths than anywhere in the world.

Speaking in his official capacity at a press conference in Beijing on March 4, Zhao told reporters that "no conclusion has been reached yet on the origin of the virus" -- and Chinese scientists were still tracing where it came from.

On February 27, renowned Chinese infectious disease expert Zhong Nanshan also questioned where the coronavirus had come from.

"The infection was first spotted in China but the virus may not have originated in China," Zhong said at a press conference.

On Thursday, Hua Chunying, Zhao's boss who heads the Chinese Foreign Ministry's Department of Information, tweeted a link to Redfield's testimony, saying it was "absolutely wrong and inappropriate to call this the Chinese coronavirus."

China's ambassador to South Africa, Lin Songtian, took to Twitter on March 8 to say that although the first epidemic was recorded in China, it didn't mean the virus "originated from China."

However, Zhao's colleague Geng cautioned Thursday that the origin of the virus could only be determined "by science."

"We don't hope to see anyone making an issue out of this to stigmatize other countries," he said. "With COVID-19 developing into a pandemic, the world should come together to fight it instead of leveling accusations and attacks against each other, which is not constructive at all."

Twitter diplomacy

Zhao's comments are another example of Chinese government figures using Twitter to defend China against criticism -- despite the platform being banned in the country, along with Facebook, Instagram and a number of other prominent Western social media sites.

Prior to 2019, few Chinese officials had verified Twitter accounts. But since then, ambassadors, mission heads and Chinese foreign ministry spokespeople across the world have joined Twitter.

In January, Chinese ambassador to the UK Liu Xiaoming weighed in on the UK's decision on whether or not to ban telecommunications giant Huawei from its 5G networks on Twitter.

Cui Tiankai, the Chinese ambassador to the US, took to Twitter in December to deny accusations of human rights abuses against Muslim-majority Uyghurs in Xinjiang. "Ultimately, facts will always prevail over lies," he tweeted.

Zhao was promoted in mid 2019 after building a reputation for himself on Twitter as a fierce advocate for Chinese interests -- arguing with western politicians and blocking Beijing's critics -- during his time as a senior diplomat at the Chinese embassy in Pakistan.

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CAN CORONAVIRUS LIVE ON YOUR CLOTHES?

How cleaning your laundry can help contain COVID-19
 
Credit: belchonock / 4X-image

Written by Mark Brezinski

Updated March 11, 2020

Recommendations are independently chosen by Reviewed’s editors. Purchases you make through our links may earn us a commission.

As the number of COVID-19 infections worldwide continues to rise, it's important for us all to do our part in limiting its spread. The best way to do that is simply by frequently and thoroughly washing your hands. But what about your clothes?

According to the CDC, coronaviruses like COVID-19 can survive on surfaces anywhere from a few hours to a few days. While it's more likely to catch COVID-19 from hard surfaces that are frequently touched, like door knobs or railings, there is still a chance it can be transmitted via your clothes.

Credit: Yana Tikhonova

Washing your laundry can help clean away COVID-19, preventing it from infecting you or others.

SICK ROOM BEDDING (AND PJ'S) SHOULD BE CLEANED AND REPLACED EVERY OTHER DAY IF POSSIBLE OR AT LEAST THREE TIMES A WEEK.

REGULAR CLEANING OF BEDDING SHOULD BE WEEKLY

The facts about viruses living on clothing

While research is still being done, we do know COVID-19 is mainly being spread via droplets emitted during coughing or sneezing. As such, the most effective precautionary measures are to:

Stay two meters away from anyone who's coughing or sneezing.
Avoid touching your face.

Frequently wash your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds.

It's currently not known how well this specific strain of coronavirus can survive by clinging to materials such as cloth. If it's similar to past strains of the virus, it could survive anywhere from about two hours to a few days.

What we do know is that soft surfaces, like your clothes, are likely to be worse incubators for COVID-19 than hard, frequently-touched surfaces, like door knobs and countertops. When dealing with hard surfaces, a simple disinfectant should suffice-the EPA has posted a list of cleaners that should be effective at sanitizing surfaces after exposure to COVID-19.

Credit: Nattakorn Maneerat

Thoroughly washing your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds is the best way to stave off spreading or contracting COVID-19.

Should you change the way you do laundry?

While the CDC doesn't specifically outline any changes to your typical laundry routine, they do provide a list of best practices when doing laundry for someone who's ill:

Ideally, wear disposable NITRILE gloves and discard them after each use. When using reusable gloves, only use those gloves for cleaning and disinfecting surfaces infected with COVID-19—do not use them for any other household purpose. Wash your hands immediately after using the gloves.

If you aren't using gloves when handling dirty laundry, be sure to thoroughly wash your hands afterwards.

Try to not shake the dirty laundry. Shaking the laundry carries a possibility of dispersing the virus through the air.

If possible, use the warmest water setting on your washer and ensure items are dried completely afterwards.

Dirty laundry from an ill person can be washed with other people's items.

If possible, consider placing a bag liner in your hamper that's disposable or can be laundered. Otherwise, ensure the hamper itself is washed and sanitized.
How often should you be washing clothes right now?

Unless you're actively dealing with someone infected with COVID-19, you can keep washing your laundry the normal amount. If you are coming into contact with someone infected with the virus, however, it's probably a good idea to launder your clothes afterwards to ensure you're limiting the virus's ability to spread.

Again, while doing your laundry can help reduce some risk of spreading the virus, it's nowhere near as effective as consistently washing your hands.
Does washing clothes kill viruses like coronavirus?

This is a tricky question, because the technically correct answer might be misleading. In short, no, washing your clothes won't kill COVID-19, but it will still clean it off of your clothes.

The CDC offers these definitions for "cleaning" and "disinfecting":
Cleaning refers to the removal of germs, dirt, and impurities from surfaces. Cleaning does not kill germs, but by removing them, it lowers their numbers and the risk of spreading infection.

Disinfecting refers to using chemicals to kill germs on surfaces. This process does not necessarily clean dirty surfaces or remove germs, but by killing germs on a surface after cleaning, it can further lower the risk of spreading infection.

Basically, washing your clothes will clean them, but won't disinfect them. Even if your washer and dryer have sanitize modes, those are unlikely to kill the virus. According to our in-house laundry expert, lab manager Jonathan Chan, "Flu viruses denature at about 167°F—most sanitize cycles don't go above 150°F." Fortunately, you don't really need to kill COVID-19, you just need to get rid of it. And that's where cleaning your clothes can help. During the wash cycle, the agitation and detergent will likely scrub the COVID-19 off the infected clothes and flush it out with the wastewater.


Can you get coronavirus from using a laundromat or your apartment's laundry facilities?The most likely way you would contract COVID-19 from a public laundry facility is by touching hard surfaces that were recently touched by someone infected with COVID-19, such as the handle to a washer or dryer. As such, just make sure you wash your hands after using the facility. Even if someone has done a big load of laundry that's covered in COVID-19, it will likely have flushed out with the wastewater during a wash.

Credit: Srongkrod

While your clothes are unlikely to pick up COVID-19 from the laundromat, you should still wash your hands after interacting with frequently-touched surfaces like doors and countertops.
The bottom line: Do your laundry, but really focus on keeping your hands washed

Again, while it's a good idea to wash your laundry—especially if you've been exposed to someone with COVID-19—you're unlikely to spread the virus via unwashed clothes. It's not impossible, just unlikely. It's far more important to simply stay two meters away from folks who are coughing or sneezing and to remember to keep thoroughly washing your hands.

CORONAVIRUS CAN LIVE ON SURFACES FOR 3 DAYS—HERE’S WHAT YOU CAN DO TO KEEP THINGS CLEAN

Disinfect your home the right way.

Credit: Wave Break Media/Getty Images

Written by Amanda Tarlton

Updated March 12, 2020

Recommendations are independently chosen by Reviewed’s editors. Purchases you make through our links may earn us a commission.

In light of the recent coronavirus outbreak, you thoroughly cleaned your house top to bottom four days ago—so you're good to go, right? Uh, maybe not, according to recent research. Tests by both scientists and the U.S. government have now revealed that coronavirus germs can live on surfaces for up to three days. Yikes.

If that's the case, what's the best way to disinfect the surfaces in your home? And what should you use? Below are some of the top cleaning tips to prevent the spread of coronavirus according to scientists and our own experts.

Which products should you use to protect against coronavirus?

Sprays and sanitizers are selling out at retailers across the country—but which ones are actually effective (i.e. worth buying)? The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released a list of products that they've approved for use against the coronavirus. According to the EPA, all of the products—which include brands like Purell, Clorox, and Lysol—have been proven to be "effective against harder-to-kill viruses." 

In a news release, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler stressed, "Using the correct disinfectant is an important part of preventing and reducing the spread of illnesses.
One more thing: If you do choose to buy essentials like cleaning products or paper towels, please buy responsibly. Buying more than you need hurts your friends and neighbors so keep that in mind when you're ordering your supplies.

How to clean surfaces of potential coronavirus germs

Credit: Getty Images

Always follow the instructions on your specific product's label.

It's not just what you use to clean—it's also how you clean. Since a lot of information about coronavirus (including how to prevent it) is still unclear, Jonathan Chan, senior lab testing technician, recommends following general cleaning best practices for now. That includes knowing how to use sprays and wipes correctly. "Let disinfectants sit on the surface you're cleaning for at least 10 seconds before wiping them away," he advises, adding, "If you're using wipes, be sure to wipe in one direction. Studies have shown that wiping in one direction and not going back and forth helps reduce recontamination."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests cleaning "high-touch" surfaces daily to keep your home clean. These surfaces include tables, hard-backed chairs, doorknobs, light switches, remotes, handles, desks, toilets, and sinks. The CDC also advises people to wear gloves (which should be discarded after each use) while disinfecting and to wash your hands immediately after.
Is there anything you should do differently when cleaning to prevent coronavirus?

Other than opting for the products recommended by the EPA, not so much, Jonathan says. "The coronavirus isn't magic—it's just a virus and can be disinfected the same way," he explains. "Just let your cleaning products do their work and be diligent."

And while researchers agree that they have yet to find exactly how to clean surfaces of potential coronavirus germs, the study leader from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases says that any solution containing diluted bleach is your best bet right now.

The product experts at Reviewed have all your shopping needs covered. Follow Reviewed on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for the latest deals, product reviews, and more.

Prices were accurate at the time this article was published but may change over time.

PARENTING
How to clean and disinfect your child's toys Read

TRUMP TRANSPARENCY

Exclusive: White House told federal health agency to classify coronavirus deliberations - sources 

MARCH 11, 2020 Aram Roston, Marisa Taylor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House has ordered federal health officials to treat top-level coronavirus meetings as classified, an unusual step that has restricted information and hampered the U.S. government’s response to the contagion, according to four Trump administration officials.


The officials said that dozens of classified discussions about such topics as the scope of infections, quarantines and travel restrictions have been held since mid-January in a high-security meeting room at the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), a key player in the fight against the coronavirus.

Staffers without security clearances, including government experts, were excluded from the interagency meetings, which included video conference calls, the sources said.

“We had some very critical people who did not have security clearances who could not go,” one official said. “These should not be classified meetings. It was unnecessary.”

The sources said the National Security Council (NSC), which advises the president on security issues, ordered the classification.”This came directly from the White House,” one official said.

The White House insistence on secrecy at the nation’s premier public health organization, which has not been previously disclosed, has put a lid on certain information - and potentially delayed the response to the crisis. COVID19, the disease caused by the virus, has killed about 30 people in the United States and infected more than 1,000 people.

HHS oversees a broad range of health agencies, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which among other things is responsible for tracking cases and providing guidance nationally on the outbreaks.

The administration officials, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said they could not describe the interactions in the meeting room because they were classified.

An NSC spokesman did not respond to questions about the meetings at HHS. But he defended the administration’s transparency across federal agencies and noted that meetings of the administration’s task force on the coronavirus all are unclassified. It was not immediately clear which meetings he was referring to.

“From day one of the response to the coronavirus, NSC has insisted on the principle of radical transparency,” said the spokesman, John Ullyot. He added that the administration “has cut red tape and set the global standard in protecting the American people under President Trump’s leadership.”

A spokeswoman for HHS, Katherine McKeogh, issued a statement that did not address questions about classified meetings. Using language that echoed the NSC’s, the department said it that it agreed task-force meetings should be unclassified.

Critics have hammered the Trump administration for what they see as a delayed response to coronavirus outbreaks and a lack of transparency, including sidelining experts and providing misleading or incomplete information to the public. State and local officials also have complained of being kept in the dark about essential federal response information.

U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence, the administration’s point person on coronavirus, vowed on March 3 to offer “real-time information in a steady pace and be fully transparent.” The vice president, appointed by President Donald Trump in late February, is holding regular news briefings and also has pledged to rely on expert guidance. Katie Miller, Pence’s press secretary, said Wednesday that since being appointed the vice president has never requested that HHS hold meetings in the SCIF or treat information as classified.


The meetings at HHS were held in a secure area called a “Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facility,” or SCIF, according to the administration officials.

SCIFs are usually reserved for intelligence and military operations. Ordinary cell phones and computers can’t be brought into the chambers. HHS has SCIFs because theoretically it would play a major role in biowarfare or chemical attacks.

A high-level former official who helped address public health outbreaks in the George W. Bush administration said “it’s not normal to classify discussions about a response to a public health crisis.”

Attendees at the meetings included HHS Secretary Alex Azar and his chief of staff Brian Harrison, the officials said. Azar and Harrison resisted the classification of the meetings, the sources said.

HHS did not make Azar or Harrison available for comment.

One of the administration officials told Reuters that when complex issues about a quarantine came up, a high-ranking HHS lawyer with expertise on the issue was not admitted because he did not have the proper security clearance. His input was delayed and offered at an unclassified meeting, the official said.

A fifth source familiar with the meetings said HHS staffers often weren’t informed about coronavirus developments because they didn’t have adequate clearance. He said he was told that the matters were classified “because it had to do with China.”

The coronavirus epidemic originated in China and the administration’s main focus to prevent spread early on was to restrict travel by non-U.S. citizens coming from China and to authorize the quarantine of people entering the United States who may have been exposed to the virus.

One of the administration officials suggested the security clearances for meetings at HHS were imposed not to protect national security but to keep the information within a tight circle, to prevent leaks.

“It seemed to be a tool for the White House - for the NSC - to keep participation in these meetings low,” the official said.

Two Democratic senators, both senior members of the Intelligence Committee expressed dismay Wednesday in statements to Reuters.

“Pandemics demand transparency and competence,” said Mark Warner of Virginia. “Classification authority should never be abused in order to hide what the government is doing, or not doing, just to satisfy domestic political concerns.”

Ron Wyden of Oregon said: “The executive branch needs to immediately come forward and explain whether the White House hid information from the American people as a result of bogus classification.”

Roston and Taylor reported from Washington, D.C.; Richard Cowan contributed reporting; Editing by Julie Marquis

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A WEEK AGO

Trump officials lavish praise on president's coronavirus response 

SYNCOPHANTIC SUCK UPS
Jerry Adler Senior Editor, Yahoo News•March 6, 2020


Almost every day for the past week and a half the White House has held a briefing on the coronavirus, and the message that emerges from them is clear: Whatever happens in the outside world, as far as his administration is concerned, President Trump is doing a tremendous job.

The transcripts of the briefings show administration officials appearing to engage in a competition to pay the most fulsome tribute to the “leadership,” “vision” and “strong actions” of the president. Surprisingly, Vice President Mike Pence, whose experience in praising Trump should have made him an odds-on favorite, appears to be in a dead heat with Health and Human Services Secretary Alexander Azar.

The tone was set at the briefing on Feb. 26 at which Pence was introduced as the head of the coronavirus task force, and took pains to praise Trump for recognizing that the situation was, in fact, an emergency: “This team has been, at your direction, Mr. President, meeting every day since it was established.” At every public appearance since then, Pence has been scrupulous to attribute every action taken by the task force to Trump’s “direction” or “leadership,” including such minutiae as revising federal inspection protocols for nursing homes.

Then Azar got on board during the Feb. 26 briefing with this encomium:

“Thank you, Mr. President, for gathering your public health experts here today and for your strong leadership in keeping America safe. Because of this hard work and the president’s leadership, the immediate risk to the American public has been and continues to be low.

“The president’s early and decisive actions, including travel restrictions, have succeeded in buying us incredibly valuable time. … The president’s actions taken with the strong support of his scientific advisors have proven to be appropriate, wise, and well-calibrated to the situation.”
Vice President Mike Pence at a recent briefing on the Trump administration's coronavirus response. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

At another briefing on March 3, Azar seized the honor of announcing that Trump’s quarterly paycheck, which he regularly turns over to worthy causes within the government, had been donated “to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Health at HHS to fund the coronavirus preparedness and response activities.”

The vice president volleyed back the next day at a briefing with airline executives, as a transcript of the meeting shows:

PENCE: You know, Mr. President, you said from early on that we were going to have a whole-of-government approach. But the truth is, as evidenced by all these great industry leaders, it’s really a whole-of-America approach.

TRUMP: Right.

PENCE: And the American people deserve to know that, according to all of our experts, the risk to the average American of contracting the coronavirus remains low. And that’s largely owing to your decision, Mr. President, to suspend all travel from China into the United States and to quarantine all Americans that are returning. … We’re grateful for that, Mr. President.

Trump of course is well-known for his fondness of praise from any source, no matter how patently self-interested or insincere: from his own Cabinet and members of his own party in Congress; from friendly media sources and even those he thinks are hostile, when they say something he likes; from North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, who sent him a “beautiful letter” and from Vladimir Putin, who bestowed on him one of Trump’s favorite accolades: “He called me a genius, OK?” (That translation of Putin’s comment is disputed.)

And, of course, no one can praise Donald Trump with as much enthusiasm as Donald Trump. “I like this stuff, I really get it,” he said, while touring the Centers for Disease Control. “Every one of these doctors said, How do you know so much about this? Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.”

One consistent theme in his remarks on the coronavirus has been his foresight and courage in stopping travel to the United States from China in the early stages of the outbreak.

“My great responsibility — I think the biggest decision we made was going very early,” Trump said on Feb. 29. “And that was a decision made against a lot of people that thought we shouldn’t do that. That’s why we’re at 22 instead of a much higher number. It would have been a much higher number. That was a big decision. It was a hard decision because it had never been done before anyway. I mean, not even early or late. It had never been made, a decision like that. So that was big.”

Trump has contrasted this “big decision” with the Obama administration’s response to the Ebola outbreak in 2014, which he denounced at the time as putting the whole country at risk.



The U.S. must immediately stop all flights from EBOLA infected countries or the plague will start and spread inside our "borders." Act fast!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 2, 2014

Only two people died of Ebola in the United States, both patients who contracted it in Africa and were brought to the U.S. for treatment. There were no instances of transmission within the country apart from two nurses who came into contact with patients, and both recovered.

With coronavirus cases still emerging in the U.S., the benefits of Trump’s travel ban are still unclear. Public health experts said travel and trade restrictions are counterproductive, and the World Health Organization opposed it. But Robert Redfield, director of the CDC, said on Friday, as Trump toured the agency’s offices in Atlanta, that “the overall risk to the American public does remain low, and I think we owe a lot to the decisive decisions initially to have travel restrictions.”

As early as the Feb. 26 briefing, Trump expressed confidence in the response, insisting that with his guidance and thanks to the people he appointed, “We’re very ready for it.”

“We’re ready for it. We’re really prepared. We have — as I said, we’ve had — we have the greatest people in the world. We’re very ready for it. And again, we’ve had tremendous success — tremendous success — beyond what people would have thought.”

And just in case, Pence said, in remarks that perhaps said more about his priorities than he intended, “We’ll be adding additional personnel here at the White House to support our efforts on the President’s behalf.”

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