Trump finally acknowledged it on March 17th. That's less than half a month ago. Now death tolls are rising exponentially and he's blaming China and Obama. Before that, those who watched Fox news believed it was a simple cold and a media hoax.
Here's why, watch the video, no left winged media spin, just historical quotes from Fox news' mouth. Stuff that Fox watchers already forgot about, good thing it's on video:
https://www.facebook.com/7976226799/posts/10158631500661800/
Under the direction of Trump:
- Azar declared a public health emergency for the novel coronavirus on Jan. 31, and announced the travel restrictions to and from China, effective Feb. 2.
- Azar announced that any U.S. citizen returning to the U.S. who had been in Hubei Province in China in the previous 14 days would be subject to mandatory quarantine and health screening. U.S. citizens returning from mainland China outside Hubei Province were ordered to undergo health screenings and up to 14 days of monitored self-quarantine to ensure they’ve not contracted the virus and do not pose a public health risk.
- The World Health Organization cautioned against the overuse of travel restrictions, but stopped short of saying that Trump’s decision in the U.S.
- three experts were called by Democrats at a House subcommittee hearing on Feb. 5 questioned the decision of the travel restriction:
Nuzzo, Feb. 5: [W]e need to seriously reexamine the current policy of banning travel from China and quarantining returning travelers. All of the evidence we have indicates that travel restrictions and quarantines directed at individual countries are unlikely to keep the virus out of our borders. These measures may exacerbate the epidemic’s social and economic tolls and can make us less safe. Simply put, this virus is spreading too quickly and too silently, and our surveillance is too limited for us to truly know which countries have active transmission and which don’t. The virus could enter the U.S. from other parts of the world not on our restricted list, and it may already be circulating here.
The U.S. was a target of travel bans and quarantines during the 2009 flu pandemic. It didn’t work to stop the spread, and it hurt our country. I am concerned that by our singling out China for travel bans, we are effectively penalizing it for reporting cases. This may diminish its willingness to further share data and chill other countries’ willingness to be transparent about their own outbreaks. Travel bans and quarantines will make us less safe if they divert attention and resources from higher priority disease mitigation approaches that we know are needed to respond to cases within the United States.
… We often see, when we have emerging disease outbreaks, our first instinct is to try to lock down travel to prevent the introduction of virus to our country. And that is a completely understandable instinct. I have never seen instances in which that has worked when we are talking about a virus at this scale.
Respiratory viruses like this one, unlike others–they just move quickly. They are hard to spot because they look like many other diseases. It’s very difficult to interrupt them at borders. You would need to have complete surveillance in order to do that. And we simply don’t have that. Dr. Jennifer Bouey, chair of China policy studies at the Rand Corporation, agreed saying that the policy to restrict travel “doesn’t help that much in this–the current situation.” - Biden and several Dems politician called Trump's decision as xenophobic and prejudice, etc.
Just some facts