Post 36 - April 16, 2020
Day 36…
In March of 2014, WHO reported that there had been an outbreak of Ebola in Guinea, West Africa. It spread and case numbers continued to grow mostly in Guinea and nearby Sierra Leone and Liberia. By summer, there were 1,000 new cases every day.
Ebola is transmitted by coming into contact with either fluids or waste from an infected person. It is a far deadlier disease than the COVID-19 virus, with a mortality rate that can be 50% or more. It is different, though, in that asymptomatic people don’t transmit it. With Ebola if you don’t look sick, you don’t pass it.
The international community felt that the US was slow to respond, but by August of 2014, the US under President Obama started responding.
By December of that year - now nine months later, Congress appropriated $5.4 billion in emergency Ebola funding - most of which was spent outside of the US.
By the time the breakout was contained, 28,000 cases were reported with 11,000 deaths.
President Obama’s request for funding described that it would be used to “fortify domestic public health systems, contain and mitigate the epidemic in West Africa, speed the procurement and testing of vaccines and therapeutics, and…enhancing capacity for vulnerable countries to prevent disease outbreaks, detect them early, and swiftly respond before they become epidemics that threaten our national security.”
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) was named the lead agency for the Ebola response. The Department of State provided funding to assist countries prevent, prepare for and respond to Ebola. The CDC was named the medical lead for international response. A whole slew of other US agencies was tasked with specific assignments designed to combat the virus.
President Obama led a coordinated US effort. What he did was oversee the work each of these different agencies did. Each of these agencies was empowered to do the job that they were qualified to do.
3,000 DOD, CDC and USAID and other health officials were sent to the affected region.
At the end of the outbreak, twelve people were treated for the deadly disease on US soil and two died.
There was no pandemic.
It was stopped.
It could have gone global.
It could have been devastating.
Using what they learned from battling the Ebola outbreak, the Obama Administration created a color-coded 69-page National Security Council playbook on how to deal with a pandemic. It was officially called, The Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents. The current administration was apparently briefed on it in 2017.
The playbook lay with NSC officials in the global health security directorate which was disbanded by President Trump in 2018.
Obama was successful in combatting Ebola because he let the people who knew what to do, do. He and his administration oversaw the work and pressed Congress for funding when those experts told him what was needed, but he didn’t actually dictate the response himself.
He delegated the actual work to the people who knew how to do it.
That’s not at all what has happened with COVID-19.
President Trump does not trust anybody to do any work that he doesn’t initiate himself.
He thinks that anything happening out of his sight is subversive and undermining.
It’s paranoia.
Departments that had been created by past administrations to solve specific problems remain unstaffed and all but abandoned.
Resources like the Pandemic playbook lie forgotten on shelves in empty offices.
Instead of relying on people who have dedicated their lives to the study of something, the President makes up facts about a topic that suit him and his immediate needs and then sometimes, hours later, denies he ever put them forth.
He sends out conflicting messages or no message at all.
We need a national leader who is willing to marshal the considerable resources and might of the United States to combat this virus.
Widespread testing is the ONLY way that this economy is going to be able to reopen.
The problem is that we do not have nearly enough tests.
Not even one percent of the US population has been tested for the coronavirus yet.
A unified national response to the testing problem is the only way it will be solved.
That’s not happening.
For example, trade embargoes against China put in place by the Trump administration are preventing basic supplies like swabs needed for testing from being able to enter the US.
It’s insane.
There is no leadership on a national level at all.
We are fighting ourselves rather than working together to combat this.
States are in bidding wars with other states for basic supplies.
Is it any wonder that they are starting to band together in open defiance of the White House?
We have already learned valuable lessons from the past.
The cost of us having to be taught them again is too great.
We do not need to be floundering like this.
Meanwhile, it is another stunningly beautiful day in New York City.
A little chilly, maybe, and breezy, but sunny and bright.
The sky is indescribably blue.
The building across the way from us on 97th Street has a sward of green grass in front of it.
This morning we woke up to the sound of a lawnmower.
It was like being back in the ‘burbs as a kid.
In the middle of this global crisis, the virus, the economy, the terror there are still many moments of utter simplicity and genuine beauty.
We have all been forced to slow down.
To stop.
The outside world can often be shut out by turning off the TV because we aren’t out in it.
Yes, there is fear.
Yes, there is anxiety.
But there are also the most incredible blue skies we may ever see in our lifetimes.
Open up your window and look up at them.
And breathe.
Deeply.