Peter Navarro coronavirus memos present that White Home was warned about outbreak

On Tuesday, Axios printed inside White Home memos that make the statements from President Donald Trump downplaying the coronavirus earlier than it grew to become a full-blown disaster look much more willfully ignorant.

A February 23 memo labeled as a “MEMORANDUM TO PRESIDENT” despatched via the Nationwide Safety Company, then-acting Chief of Workers Mick Mulvaney, and the Covid-19 process power warns in its very first sentence that “[t]right here is an growing chance of a full-blown COVID-19 pandemic that would infect as many as 100 million People, with a lack of lifetime of as many as 1-2 million souls.”

Three days later, nevertheless, Trump held a information convention by which he steered the coronavirus would quickly go away by itself in the US.

“When you’ve 15 [coronavirus cases], and the 15 inside a few days goes to be down to shut to zero, that’s a reasonably good job we’ve completed,” Trump mentioned.

On February 27, because the US confirmed case rely stood at 15, Trump went even additional, claiming of the coronavirus that “at some point — it’s like a miracle — it can disappear.” For sure, the memo that was addressed to him 4 days earlier made no allowance for the miraculous.

The February 23 memo doesn’t determine its creator, however Axios experiences that it was written by White Home commerce adviser Peter Navarro. The doc presciently advises the federal authorities to instantly make investments $618 million in private protecting gear (PPE) for well being care staff and ventilators.

“That is the primary line of protection for our well being care staff and secondary staff in amenities equivalent to elder care and expert nursing,” the memo says. “Key gadgets embrace N-95 facemasks, goggles, gloves, Tyvek fits, ventilator circuits and Constructive Air Press Respirators (PAPRs).”

Quick-forward 10 weeks and there at the moment are lots of of 1000’s confirmed coronavirus instances within the US, with greater than 10,000 already lifeless. Shortages of PPE and ventilators have change into main issues and a supply of pressure between Trump and state governors who’ve known as on him to do extra to acquire provides.

However as an alternative of heeding the February 23 warning that main investments in PPE and ventilators have been wanted, Trump dithered — and never simply till there was a sudden uptick in confirmed instances in early March. The Related Press’s Michael Biesecker reported on Sunday {that a} evaluate of federal buying contracts “exhibits federal businesses largely waited till mid-March to start putting bulk orders of N95 respirator masks, mechanical ventilators and different gear wanted by front-line well being care staff.”

“By that point, hospitals in a number of states have been treating 1000’s of contaminated sufferers with out satisfactory gear and have been pleading for shipments from the Strategic Nationwide Stockpile,” Biesecker added. When requested in regards to the federal authorities’s gradual response, Trump’s line has been that the states ought to have completed extra on their very own.

Trump was warned the coronavirus might spiral uncontrolled in January, then instructed individuals “we expect we’ve got it very effectively beneath management”

The February 23 memo was not the primary White Home doc to warn that the coronavirus might be actually unhealthy. Axios additionally printed a January 29 memo additionally authored by Navarro that suggested “an instantaneous journey ban to China” and sounded the alarm about knowledge indicating Covid-19 spreads extra simply from individual to individual than the H1N1 flu or SARS. The memo estimated as many as 18 million People might be contaminated by the coronavirus, with 543,000 deaths.

“The shortage of immune safety or an current treatment or vaccine would depart People defenseless within the case of a full-blown coronavirus outbreak on US soil,” the January 29 memo, which was addressed to the Nationwide Safety Council, says. “The shortage of safety elevates the danger of the coronavirus evolving right into a full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of hundreds of thousands of People.”

Throughout a rally the subsequent day in Des Moines, nevertheless, Trump downplayed the coronavirus risk, saying, “We predict we’ve got it very effectively beneath management.”

“We’ve got little or no drawback on this nation at this second — 5 [cases] — and people persons are all recuperating efficiently. However we’re working very carefully with China and different nations, and we expect it’s going to have an excellent ending for us … that I can guarantee you,” he added.

Trump did transfer to limit journey from China on February 2. However by then, the virus was already spreading contained in the borders of the US. And within the days that adopted, Trump continued to make public statements that gave People a false sense of safety.

“You understand, lots of people assume that goes away in April with the warmth,” he claimed on February 10.

Trump is now attempting to rewrite historical past

Throughout a information convention on March 17, Trump tried to faux that he took the coronavirus critically from the soar.

“I felt it was a pandemic lengthy earlier than it was known as a pandemic,” he mentioned.

Then, throughout a Fox & Pals interview on March 30, Trump mentioned of the coronavirus pandemic that “no person might have predicted one thing like this.” However the memos point out Trump’s personal advisers had not solely anticipated it however tried to warn him about it.

The Navarro memos reveal the sheer brazenness of Trump’s try and rewrite historical past. As an alternative of taking motion, Trump engaged in wishful considering till the unfold of the virus was so uncontrolled that many main inhabitants facilities within the nation have been pressured right into a state of digital lockdown. Hospitals, in the meantime, proceed to battle with useful resource shortages that the federal authorities did nothing to alleviate through the essential interval between January and early March.

Now, as an alternative of deceptive options that the coronavirus will go away by itself, Trump has moved the goalposts dramatically. Now not are 15 instances a “good job” — as an alternative, it’s a much more ghastly quantity.

“If we are able to maintain [the number of US deaths] down, as we’re saying, to 100,000, it’s a horrible quantity, possibly even much less, however to 100,000, so we’ve got between 100 [thousand] and 200,000, we altogether have completed an excellent job,” he mentioned on March 30.

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