I don't think that they did it on purpose, but both the World Health Organization and the CDC really shit the bed on this one.
Instead of acting like responsible medical science advisers, both organizations chose to act politically and downplayed the threat of this virus.
Dr. Inan Dogan has been publishing a series of brilliant articles about this pandemic at Yahoo Finance. In
this article he presents the timeline of the pandemic, which lays bare the feckless decisions and wishful thinking by the President and the WHO and the CDC that completely pissed away our precious and fleeting opportunity in January and February to get ahead of this thing before the nation was overrun by this plague:
"I am furious and frustrated. Once the greatest country on the face of this planet, the United States is going hat in hand to China, begging for a few respirators and masks. Anthony Fauci and the CDC know that nearly half of the infected people show no symptoms and stealthily spread the new coronavirus, yet their hands are tied trying to tell the American people to wear masks because the few that we do have rightfully belong to our healthcare workers. We are absolutely helpless.
Let’s start from the beginning. On December 31, China notified the World Health Organization about an unknown virus causing a SARS like disease. By January 2nd, there were 44 confirmed cases in Wuhan, obviously all of which were symptomatic cases. At least 6 of these patients died.
On January 3rd, Singapore started temperature screening all passengers arriving from Wuhan. That same day, Hong Kong reported two cases, both of whom travelled to Wuhan and displayed fever and pneumonia like symptoms.
On January 7th, the World Health Organization reported that Chinese experts isolated a novel coronavirus causing a new outbreak.
The first known COVID-19 death, a 61 year old male, occurred on January 9th, but China revealed this on January 11th.
Two new cases outside of China were reported on January 13th and 16th in Thailand and Japan; both patients had traveled to Wuhan.
The CDC announced that passengers from Wuhan would be screened at JFK starting on January 17th, and in San Francisco and Los Angeles on January 18th. At the time, the CDC didn’t know whether the virus could spread from person to person.
We discovered the first case of COVID-19 in the U.S. on January 21st. “A man from Washington state returned home after a trip to Wuhan, China, on Jan. 15, sought medical attention on Jan. 19 and now is in isolation at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, Wash.,” according to NPR.
America is a great country, but it seems like Singapore is greater when it comes to acting fast and detecting COVID-19 infections. We started screening passengers from Wuhan on the west coast 15 days after Singapore did.
China reported its second and third COVID-19 deaths on January 17th and January 20th. “Zhong Nanshan, who heads up China’s National Health Commission, told Xinhua News Agency, China’s official state-run news organization, that two cases of human-to-human transmission had been confirmed in China, one in Wuhan and one in Guangdong,” reported ABC news.
Three days later, on January 23rd, the World Health Organization’s director-general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus calmed our nerves, saying “At this time, there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission outside China”, and decided not to declare the coronavirus outbreak a “global emergency”.
“On January 23, 2020, the Department of State ordered the departure of all non-emergency U.S. personnel and their family members from Wuhan” the State Department said. That’s the same day China cancelled its New Year celebrations and imposed extensive travel restrictions to Wuhan and surrounding municipalities.
On January 24th “A woman from Chicago who traveled to Wuhan, China, at the end of December and returned on Jan 13 represents the second travel-related case of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) infection diagnosed in the United States, according to officials from the Illinois Department of Public Health” University of Minnesota’s CIDRAP reported.
Also on January 24th the Chinese COVID-19 death toll stood at 26 (assuming that they weren’t lying about it or undercounting it).
On January 25th, China expanded travel restrictions to five other Chinese cities in Hubei, covering 56 million people. The Chinese death toll reached 56 the next day (kind of fishy, right? Just 56 people died but China is imposing unheard of lockdowns).
Also on January 25th the third case of a coronavirus infection was confirmed in Southern California, a traveler from Wuhan.
On January 26th, two more cases of the new coronavirus infection were detected in Arizona and Los Angeles, both with travel histories to Wuhan.
The death toll in China reached 106 on January 27th if you can believe it.
On January 29th, we evacuated 195 “Deep State Department” (as Trump calls it) employees from China to California. Wouldn’t it be more beneficial for us if they stayed isolated in China and provided human intelligence in terms of the extent of the COVID-19 outbreak within China?
On January 30th, the CDC confirmed the 6th coronavirus infection, also the first “known” human-to-human transmission within the U.S. Thankfully, the CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield let us know that “the immediate risk to the American public is low.” Nevertheless, on that same day the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a public health emergency because their “greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems, and which are ill-prepared to deal with it.” Thank God we have a strong health system and are well-prepared to deal with this kind of outbreaks.
The clowns at the World Health Organization urged countries not to restrict travel or trade in response to COVID-19 on January 30th as well.
On January 31st, the CDC confirmed the seventh coronavirus infection, a male who traveled to Wuhan. “We are preparing as if this were the next pandemic, but we are hopeful still that this is not and will not be the case,” the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Dr. Nancy Messonnier said after this news came out. Very comforting!!
On January 31st, Trump also announced that all foreign nationals who had traveled to China except the immediate family members of US citizens or permanent residents won’t be allowed into the U.S. effective February 2nd, 5 pm (EST). Better late than never, though why just China? The virus had spread to around two dozen countries by the end of January.
The next day Joe Biden sent the following tweet: “We are in the midst of a crisis with the coronavirus. We need to lead the way with science — not Donald Trump’s record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering. He is the worst possible person to lead our country through a global health emergency.” So, if Biden were the POTUS, would he have listened to the clowns at the WHO, CDD, and NCIRD and have done nothing?
On February 1st, a Boston student who recently traveled to Wuhan became the 8th confirmed coronavirus case in the U.S.
On February 2nd, a Santa Clara woman became the ninth confirmed case. She also traveled to Wuhan. The 10th and 11th cases, a husband and wife from California, were also confirmed later that day. The husband traveled to Wuhan and the wife was infected by the husband.
On February 5th the twelfth known coronavirus case in the U.S. was confirmed, a Wisconsin man who traveled to Beijing and was exposed to known cases while there. In the meantime, 350 Americans from Wuhan arrived into the country and were quarantined.
On February 10th, the thirteenth known case of COVID-19 was identified, one of the evacuees from Wuhan.
On February 12, another evacuee from Wuhan was confirmed as the 14th case. The 13# and the 14# patients arrived in different flights from Wuhan and had no contact with each other in the U.S.
On February 13th, the CDC “confirmed another infection with Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) in the United States. The patient is among a group of people under a federal quarantine order at JBSA-Lackland in Texas because of their recent return to the U.S. on a State Department-chartered flight that arrived on February 7, 2020,” from Wuhan.
On February 19th Iran confirmed its first coronavirus case and hours later reported two deaths from COVID-19. More importantly, “state news agency IRNA reported that they had not travelled abroad or even outside of Qom province prior to their deaths,” according to BBC. These two were the first two known community transmission of the new coronavirus outside of China. On that day, Trump was busy granting clemency to Blagojevich, Milken and Kerik, and the S&P 500 Index closed at 3386.
On February 21st, Italy reported the first local transmission of the new coronavirus, a 38-year male was believed to have contracted the virus after coming in contact with someone who had been to China.
On February 22nd Italy reported its first two deaths from COVID-19, two patients at two different locations.
That’s when I realized the gravity of the situation. I spent the next few days reading and researching the subject. On February 25th I came to the conclusion that it was just a matter of time that the new coronavirus will spread from Italy to other European countries and then to the United States.
One viable option for us to slow down the spread of this virus was to impose a complete travel ban (meaning no foreigners at all would be allowed to enter, and Americans arriving from other countries would be tested and put in a 14-day quarantine). Sure, this would have had a small economic impact on our economy as our GDP would take a 2.9% annualized hit, but we would save hundreds of thousands of jobs (and lives???).
The other alternative was burying our heads in the sand and pretending that everything was going to be magically ok. In this scenario I expected the recession to be deeper because this is the route initially taken by China and they were quickly forced to change course. So, I sent an email alert to our premium subscribers on February 26th.
That night, the CDC confirmed the first community transmission of the new coronavirus in California.
On February 27th, I also published a free article on our site and on Yahoo Finance with the title Recession is Imminent: We Need A Travel Ban NOW. I predicted that a US recession is imminent and that US stocks would go down by at least 20% in the next 3-6 months (you will notice a pattern of too conservative predictions by the end of this article). I also told you to short the market ETFs and buy long-term bonds.
One of the commenters said “Author needs to be sited for trying to cause hysteria”. Another said “Media fearmongering as usual.” A third one said “Where this person get his PhD from? Trump university? And in the end, seems he is more interested in protecting his stock.” A fourth one said “Wouldn’t a travel ban push the economy into an even bigger recession? The nonsense about bioterrorists (which, BTW, is not even a word according to Spell Check) is obviously just fear-mongering. I call fake news.”
That same day I went to Costco, bought a ton of food and ordered a freezer from Walmart. It didn’t occur to me to buy water or toilet paper that day. Costco was slightly more crowded than usual, so a few of our fellow Americans also saw this coming.
On February 28th, the second and third cases of unknown origin of the novel coronavirus were reported on the west coast.
On February 29th, the first death from COVID-19 was reported in Washington. It is now crystal clear to us that the new coronavirus is spreading uncontrollably within the United States.
On March 1st, New York confirmed its first case of COVID-19, a woman who recently traveled to Iran. Can you believe that New Yorkers were able to identify only a single case just a month ago?"
He's published three articles in this "Hell is Coming" series - I recommend all of them for their factuality and predictive accuracy.
