Poll: Americans Think Wall Keeps Out Coronavirus

Today’s NPR leading headline “Americans Back Trump On Immigration — But Only To Stop COVID-19, Poll Finds” took me by surprise.

Why?

Because frankly, it’s practically too late for any of that.

That is to say, it’s too late for any effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19 by limiting travel, or immigration.

We’ve had our opportunity, and like many other opportunities, it was handed to us on a proverbial silver platter.

Now, we’ve the POTUS and his minions have squandered it.

Consider that as much as President Trump blows his own horn on the matter (as he does on almost everything, which according to him, he’s the best, the smartest, the greatest, the _insert_your_superlative_of_choice_here_ on anything and everything), claiming that his actions to limit its spread to the United States by limiting travelers from certain nations were effective, and helped prevent further spread of the infection, in light of what has happened in the days since as we all watched in horror at what unfolded.

They were not!

On January 22, while attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, POTUS was asked by CNBC Squawk Box host Joe Kernan if he was worried about a pandemic. Here’s the pertinent exchange.

JOE KERNEN: It was a couple of years ago. Before we get started– with- we’re going talk about the economy and a lot of other things–the CDC– has identified a case of coronavirus– in Washington state. The Wuhan strain of this. If you remember SARS, that affected GDP. Travel-related effects. Do you– have you been briefed by the CDC? And–

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I have, and–

JOE KERNEN: –are there worries about a pandemic at this point?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No. Not at all. And– we’re– we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s—going to be just fine.
ref: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/22/davos-2020-cnbcs-full-interview-with-president-trump.html

But let’s go back even further, to November 2019.

In a secret intelligence report prepared (yet denied) by the Army’s National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI) located on Fort Detrick, in Frederick, Maryland, which was based upon analysis of wire and computer intercepts, and satellite images, concerns that an out-of-control disease sweeping through China’s Wuhan region could pose a serious threat to U.S. Armed Forces in Asia, that “Analysts concluded it could be a cataclysmic event,” and that “it was then briefed multiple times to” the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s Joint Staff and the National Security Council of the White House. “The timeline of the intel side of this may be further back than we’re discussing. But this was definitely being briefed beginning at the end of November as something the military needed to take a posture on.”

After the NCMI report’s release, other intelligence community bulletins circulated through confidential channels throughout the government around Thanksgiving. Former Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Mick Mulroy who was also a senior CIA official, said that, “It would be a significant alarm that would have been set off by this. And it would have been something that would be followed up by literally every intelligence-collection agency. Medical intelligence takes into account all source information – imagery intelligence, human intelligence, signals intelligence. Then there’s analysis by people who know those specific areas. So for something like this to have come out, it has been reviewed by experts in the field. They’re taking together what those pieces of information mean and then looking at the potential for an international health crisis.”
(ref: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/intelligence-report-warned-coronavirus-crisis-early-november-sources/story?id=70031273)

And then, in January 2020, on the
• 3 –– The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director had discussions with Chinese colleague-cohorts about the virus;

– the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was also alerted of the report;

– Presidential Daily Briefs contained significant details from Intelligence reports from Office of the Director of National Intelligence and CIA about COVID-19 virus.

• 7 – The CDC established a COVID-19 Incident Management System
(ref: https://www.cdc.gov/budget/documents/covid-19/CDC-247-Response-to-COVID-19-fact-sheet.pdf)

• 8 – The CDC issued the emergency health advisory “Outbreak of Pneumonia of Unknown Etiology (PUE) in Wuhan, China” stating that “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is closely monitoring a reported cluster of pneumonia of unknown etiology (PUE) with possible epidemiologic links to a large wholesale fish and live animal market in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. An outbreak investigation by local officials is ongoing in China; the World Health Organization (WHO) is the lead international public health agency. Currently, there are no known U.S. cases nor have cases been reported in countries other than China. CDC has established an Incident Management Structure to optimize domestic and international coordination if additional public health actions are required.”
(ref: https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/han00424.asp)

And then, consider what the United States Department of State was doing by the third week of January.

As cable communications traffic had increased, they began repatriating U.S. Diplomats in Wuhan on chartered flights, while White House colleagues mentioned concerns for viral transmissibility.

“In January, there was obviously a lot of chatter.”

Skip forward to March.

On March 22, the South China Morning Post published a story which stated in part that ““silent carriers” – people who are infected by the new coronavirus but show delayed or no symptoms – could be as high as one-third of those who test positive, according to classified Chinese government data seen by the South China Morning Post.” It’s difficult to imagine that the United States Intelligence Agencies didn’t already have access to that information, one way, or another, by the time it was made public in the SCMP’s story.

South Korean health officials use Forward Looking InfraRed cameras to check the body temperatures of travelers arriving from Guangzhou, China, to monitor possible SARS virus patients at the Incheon International Airport in January 2004.

But by then, South Korea already had in place a robust national testing plan “which had carried out nearly 300,000 tests on all close contacts of its confirmed cases” which were the most comparable to China’s cases.

In fact, the Korean CDC found that over 20% of all asymptomatic cases remained without symptoms until the time of their discharge from hospital.

Dr. Jeong Eun-kyeong, MD, Director of South Korea’s CDC, told a press briefing on March 16, that finding asymptomatic cases – the so-called “silent carriers” who show no signs of infection – was due almost exclusively to widespread national testing, and stated that, “Korea currently has [found] a significantly higher rate of asymptomatic cases than other countries, perhaps due to our extensive testing.”

Then, look at April.

On April 22, news emerged in the United States that the first COVID-19 death did not occur in at EvergreenHealth Medical Center in Kirkland, Washington as previously thought. The Santa Clara County California Medical Examiner reported on April 21st that autopsies revealed 2 coronavirus-infected deaths occurred in Santa Clara County on February 6 and February 17. The NYT reported that, “The virus has an incubation period of 14 days and people who die of it are often sick for at least three weeks, so the individual who died on Feb. 6 could have been infected — and transmitting the infection to others — in early January, experts said.”
(https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/us/coronavirus-updates.html)
(https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-21/autopsies-reveal-first-confirmed-u-s-coronavirus-deaths-occurred-in-bay-area-in-early-february)

So there you have it.

TWO individuals whom died of COVID-19 infection on February 6th and 17th in Santa Clara County California – though it was unknown at the time of their death that they were infected with the coronavirus (the proverbial “silent carriers,” or asymptomatic patients) – had most likely been spreading the disease UNKNOWINGLY as early as January.

January… let that sink in for a moment.

The third week of January the State Department began chartered repatriation flights from Wuhan. By so doing, they were, more likely than not, literally importing the virus to the United States… through the repatriation of U.S. diplomatic and ambassadorial staff.

Again, consider what you’ve just read in the paragraphs above about what actions the CDC had already taken in response as early as January 7th – that they had established a COVID-19 Incident Management System – and the next day, issued an emergency health advisory headlined as “Outbreak of Pneumonia of Unknown Etiology (PUE) in Wuhan, China” in response to the news from China -AND- that they had been in communication with their Chinese scientific counterparts about the matter.

And it was because of the President’s ineptitude, lackadaisical Pollyanna attitude, and deliberate foot-dragging at his order – direct, or indirect – by certain members of his administration, the coronavirus was allowed to literally run wild in the United States precisely because it was unchecked – LITERALLY UNCHECKED.

Donald J. Trump, the President of the United States FAILED to lead at a time when it was most needed, and people were NOT identified, nor were they tested. Instead, all we got was some blithering idiotic statements like “it’s under control,” or “it’s going to go away” a.) when the weather gets warmer; b.) in due time; c.) all things eventually go away; d.) it is what it is, and other such blithering nonsense that embarrasses even the average person with at least half an ounce of common sense.

This solitary event shows how utterly out of his league he is, and how abysmally prepared he remains.

Closing down borders to immigration or travel to/from certain countries was useless.

South Korea’s rapid response – identify, test broad swaths of their population, isolate, hospitalize –  was key to their success is stopping COVID-19 in its tracks.

“The government used a combination of interviews and cellphone surveillance to track down the recent contacts of new patients and ordered those contacts to self-isolate as well.

“Within a month, the Korean outbreak was effectively contained. In the first two weeks of March, new daily cases fell from 800 to fewer than 100.”

At this juncture, the only thing America can do, is to continue to do what we have been doing – practice social distancing in public, use proper hand hygiene, wear face masks when out in public, limit public outings, avoid gatherings of people as much as possible, and maintain a clean environment… and hope an effective vaccine is ready soon – and at no cost to the General Public.