Due to the coronavirus, the world is facing a pandemic and a major economic downturn. This is happening all over the world, but the implications for the U.S. may be the greatest in terms of the American people’s health, the country’s economy, and the upcoming political elections. A lot of these are the results from the actions of President Donald Trump.
This article has 4 sections. Part I has Sections I and II, and Part II has Sections III and IV.
This article first summarizes significant timelines of the coronavirus (Section I). Then it discusses several of President Trump’s specific remarks or actions with respect to the coronavirus (Section II). Then it discusses the implications of these remarks and actions upon the health of the American public, the people’s livelihood and their pocket books, and the impacts on this fall’s American elections (Section III). The article ends with some comments on the need to eliminate discriminatory double standards (Section IV).
Because this article is long, we have separated the article into Part I and Part II. This is Part I (placed in the “Political/Social Commentary” page) and includes Sections I and II. Part II (placed in the “Other” page in this same March 2020 release of this website) includes Sections 3 and 4.
Section I: Significant Timelines
Before we discuss President Trump’s actions and various impacts, we first provide a timeline of significant events during the last four months.
- China first detected the coronavirus (now known as COVID-19) in Wuhan in early December 2019, and perhaps as early in mid November 2019.
- In late December 2019, the Chinese government announced that there were many cases of mysterious flu-like illnesses being found in Wuhan.
- On12/31/2019, China alerted the World Health Organization (WHO) of these mysterious illnesses.
- On 1/6/2020, the New York Times published an article by two NYT reporters titled “China Grapples with Mystery Pneumonia-Like Illness” [1].
- On 1/11, China reported its first death. Also, Chinese scientists posted the genome of the mysterious new virus (now known as COVID-19), This led shortly after to the WHO developing a template for preparing tests. Many countries have since developed tests using the Chinese genome information and the WHO template. For example, within a week virologists in Berlin had produced the first diagnostic test for the disease [2], and S. Korea has used the WHO template to provide free testing of more than tens of thousands of people per day since around the middle of February ([3] and more information in a later part of this document).
- On 1/13, the WHO reported a case in Thailand, the first case outside of China.
- On 1/16, Japan confirmed its first case.
- On 1/20, S. Korea confirmed the first case.
- On 1/21, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the first coronavirus patient in the U.S.
- On 1/22, the death toll in China increased to 17 with more than 550 infections.
- On 1/23, Wuhan was put under quarantine in China as air and rail departures were suspended.
- On 1/30, the WHO declared coronavirus a global emergency.
- On 1/31, Russia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom confirmed their first cases of the virus, while the number of confirmed cases in China jumped to 9,809.
- On 2/2, the first death outside of China was reported in the Philippines, while the death toll in China rose to 304, with 14,380 infections.
- On 2/12, 175 people were infected on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship, docked at Yokohama, Japan.
- On 2/14, Egypt became the first country in Africa to report a case and France reported Europe’s first death from the virus.
- On 2/18, China’s daily infection figures drop below 2,000 for the first time since January, with China’s death toll rising to 1,868, with 72,436 infections.
- On 2/20, S. Korea reported its first death from the coronavirus.
- On 2/22, Italy reported its first two deaths, while Iran confirmed a fifth death. In China, the number of new infections fell significantly with 397 cases reported as compared to 1,868 only 4 days earlier on 2/18.
- On 2/26, 2,800 deaths globally and about 80,000 infections globally.
- On 2/29, first death in the U.S., in the state of Washington.
- On 3/7, 3,500 deaths globally and 102,000 infections globally.
- On 3/7, China’s new daily infections dropped to 143 with 80,651 infections. China’s exports plunged 17.2% in the first two months of 2020 after the outbreak brought much of the country to a halt.
- On 3/11, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.
- On 3/12, over 4,600 deaths globally and 126,000 infections globally, while China’s new daily infections dropped to only 15, clearly indicating that the problem has reduced significantly and that the coronavirus may begin to be under control in China.
- On 3/16, S. Korea reported on 3/13 that it was the first time that the number of recoveries (117) from the coronavirus was more than the number of new infections (110). One of the main reasons for this significant milestone is that testing is widely available. The death toll in S. Korea is 72, with 7,979 infections.
In summary, in 3-4 months, the new coronavirus has spread rapidly all over the world. It is going to get worse before it can get better. It is going to take drastic national and international leadership to overcome this pandemic. Currently in only a few countries, like China and S. Korea, the situation seems to be stabilizing and improving (e.g., significant reduction in the number of new infections, or the number of recovered cases becomes more and more than new cases).
Section II: President Trump’s Significant Remarks or Actions
As our country’s top leader, what President Trump does or says has tremendous impacts on the directions and operations of the whole governing apparatus of the country, and therefore on the livelihood, physical and mental health, and spirit of the citizens of this country, including the pocketbooks of our citizens and the bottom lines of our businesses. Therefore, let’s recall many of President Trump’s actions and words since the beginning of 2020 when the new coronavirus became known to the U.S. and the world.
1. On 1/22/2020, the day after the first coronavirus case was confirmed by the CDC, President Trump, when asked “are there worries about a pandemic at this point,”‘ in a CNBC TV interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, responded “No, Not al all. And 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.”
2. On 1/24, Trump again told Americans that there was no reason to worry, and “it will all work out well.” On 1/30 in a speech in Michigan, he said “We have it very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this moment — five. And those people are all recuperating successfully.”
3. On 1/31, the day after the WHO declared the coronavirus a global emergency, President Trump put on a travel restriction on China, to and from China, effective starting on 2/2/2020. This was a positive step, but it was far from enough as clearly shown below.
4. On 2/10 on 3 different occasions, Trump made the remark “Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets little warmer, it miraulously goes away.” However, his statement is not supported by science or infectious disease experts in his administration, and presently there is no indication that the coronavirus may diminish significantly with warmer weather, like the common flu.
5. On 2/19, Trump told a Phoenix TV station “I think the numbers are going to get progressively better as we go along.” Four days later he said the the situation is “very much under control” and “we had 12, at one point. And now they’ve gotten very much better. Many of them are fully recovered.”
6. For several weeks starting around mid February, President Trump and some of his officials on several occasions said that testing is available to anyone who wants such a test. That was just not true, although that statement was repeatedly made. First, the testing kit was not available to anyone who wants a test. It was not necessarily available even if a doctor has prescribed such a test and the patient has symptoms of the infection. The testing kits were only distributed by the CDC to selected agencies. Furthermore, there was a serious problem with these test kits because the tests were not accurate. The U.S.’s development of their test kit should be compared with what S. Korea did, who has been offering free testing of about 10,000 people per day since the middle of February, with a test cost of about $20 each. Furthermore, in S. Korea once a test has been proven in the laboratory, normally it takes a long time (e.g., many months) to get it approved for general use for the public. In the case of the coronavirus test kit, it got approval in one week! [3] It is a little unclear what is the cost of each test. It is $20 according to the first article in Ref. [3], but the cost is listed as $134 in Ref. [4].
The federal government via CDC and FDA (Food Drug Administration) set down very strict guidelines on who can prepare such test kits, diallowing reputable research labs on the forthfront of such research to conduct more general testing even when they have shown success in their laboratory. More information on this problem is described in [5].
7. Even on 3/6 after a briefing in a visit to CDC in Atlanta, Trump mentioned again that “anyone who wants a test can get a test.” But that evening at the White House VP Pence, who is leading the administration response, knows better and would not commit to that, but said doctors treating potentially symptomatic Americans could contact local officials and have state labs do the testing.
8. Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has repeatedly said that the test program that CDC has been working on has not met what has been advertised, and in a testimony in Congress on 3/11 said that any vaccine for the coronavirus is at least a year to a year and a half away.
9. On 3/11 evening, in a nationwide address from his White House desk, Trump for the first time acknowledged the seriousness of the coronavirus situation in the U.S. and that the problem is not going away soon. At this time, the whole country was cancelling large gatherings including the NCAA basketball tournament and the NBA, and everyone was planning to cancel various gatherings, including schools and even medium size gatherings. Yet, in his speech there was no mention or guidance on this important issue.
The only major action announced by President Trump was additional traffic restriction from and to Europe, effective starting at midnight 3/13. Even on that, President Trump made three important mistakes. One mistake in his announcement is that the restriction does not apply to Americans who are returning from Europe. That caused a lot of anxiety for Americans who were in Europe at that time, and caused many of them taking very expensive flights home. The second mistake is that the restriction applies only to people, and does not apply to trade and cargo. The third mistake is that Ireland was also exempt, just like Great Britain. But there was no explanation for the announced exception, even though Great Britain has more infections than some of the other countries in Europe. Just like many decisions of Trump, his decisions are arbitrary, and not well thought out.
His justification for the travel restriction is that there are more infections today in Europe than in the U.S., but ignoring that perhaps we have lower infections may be due to our behind in the testing. There was no mention of any other step to reduce the seriousness of the coronavirus.
It is then not surprising at all that on the next day on 3/12, the DJIA dropped by 2,352 points (or 10%), the worst drop since 1987.
10. On 3/13 afternoon, reacting to the large dissatisfaction shown all over the country to his performance on his 3/11 nationwide address and to the next day’s huge market drop in the stock market, President Trump gave another nationwide address from the White House. He declared a national emergency that will provide $50 billions to fund various support programs. He waived interest on student loans.
Together with a large group of CEOs, he also announced a series of measures to help protect the health of our citizens, e.g., Walmart and Target would allow their parking lots to be testing sites. Trump also made two mistakes in his announcement. One mistake is that he said that insurance companies will waive all copays for coronavirus treatments. In reality, insurance companies only agreed to waive the copays for coronavirus testing. The second mistake that he said that Google has 1,700 engineers working to develop a website to help people find a test location. In reality, Verify, a subsidiary of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, with a total workforce of only 1,000 people is working on a website related to the coronavirus. More information about this disparity can be found in [6].
Declaring a national emergency is necessary, and some of the proposed actions are necessary. However, what President Trump said was again full of false information or half truths. Furthermore, in response to a question, Trump said he is not responsible for any delay, even though it was his administration who in May 2018 canceled the pandemic preparedness office within the National Security Council, and for the 2021 budget proposed a budget cut of 15% (or $1.2 billion) for the CDC and a $35 million decrease to the Infectious Diseases Rapid Response Reserve Fund. Again, he doesn’t admit to mistakes and loses more credibility.
The stock market did rise significantly (by almost 2,000 points for the DJIA). However, about half of that gain occurred during the last hour of trading when there was a lot of news that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnunchin were very close to reaching a large relief package in Congress.
11. On 3/16, President Trump in another nationwide address mentioned that the Federal Reserve the day before has reduced interest rate to almost 0%. He emphasized that people should avoid any gatherings of more than 10 people and to practice group distancing, and acknowledged that the coronavirus may not reach a peak until July or August.
In spite of reducing the interest rate to almost 0% and the prospect of Congress passing a significant relief package, the stock market crashed. For example, the DJIA dropped by almost 3,000 points on 3/16, and has dropped by 29% since 1/1/2020. Again, this is not surprising, because testing is still not yet widely available, implying that the situation will get even more worse, and the whole country is almost closing down, thus basically shutting down all business, and it is going to cause the government to spend a large amount of money to keep people above water, thus increasing significantly the federal deficit and the national debt
Nevertheless, in a response to a question, President Trump rated himself 10 on a rating of 1 to 10.
This ends Part I of this article. Part II is in the “Other” page of this same release (March 2020).
——————————————————————————————————————
[1] “China Grapples With Mystery Pneumonia-Like Illness” by S.-L. Wee and V. Wang, the New York Times, 1/6/2020 and revised on 1/21/2020.
[2] “How testing failures allowed coronavirus to sweep the U.S.” by J. Kenen, Politico, March 6, 2020.
[3] S. Korea’s test was based on a WHO template which is available to the world. The CDC in the U.S. decided to create their own test from scratch, only to see that effort plagued by delay and dysfunction that continues to this day. More information on this can be found in the following two articles: (1) “How this South Korean company created coronavirus test kits in three weeks” by I. Watson, S. Jeong, J. Hollingsworth and T. Booth, CNN, March 12, 2020. (2) “How South Korea Scaled Coronavirus Testing While the U.S. Fell Dangerously Behind” by S. Engelberg, L. Song and L. Dephillis, ProPublica, March 15, 2020.
[4] “South Korea is doing 10,000 coronavirus tests a day. The U.S. is struggling for even a small fraction of that” by M. J. Kim and S. Denyer, The Washington Post, March 13, 2020.
[5] ” ‘It’s Just Everywhere Already’: How Dellays in Testing Set Back the U.S. Coronavirus Response,” by S Fink and M. Baker, the New York Times, March 10, 2020.
[6] “The Google and Verily coronavirus websites are off to a rocky start,” by A. C. Estes, recode, March 16, 2020.
Pandemic, Economy, and Political Implications: Part I
Due to the coronavirus, the world is facing a pandemic and a major economic downturn. This is happening all over the world, but the implications for the U.S. may be the greatest in terms of the American people’s health, the country’s economy, and the upcoming political elections. A lot of these are the results from the actions of President Donald Trump.
This article has 4 sections. Part I has Sections I and II, and Part II has Sections III and IV.
This article first summarizes significant timelines of the coronavirus (Section I). Then it discusses several of President Trump’s specific remarks or actions with respect to the coronavirus (Section II). Then it discusses the implications of these remarks and actions upon the health of the American public, the people’s livelihood and their pocket books, and the impacts on this fall’s American elections (Section III). The article ends with some comments on the need to eliminate discriminatory double standards (Section IV).
Because this article is long, we have separated the article into Part I and Part II. This is Part I (placed in the “Political/Social Commentary” page) and includes Sections I and II. Part II (placed in the “Other” page in this same March 2020 release of this website) includes Sections 3 and 4.
Section I: Significant Timelines
Before we discuss President Trump’s actions and various impacts, we first provide a timeline of significant events during the last four months.
In summary, in 3-4 months, the new coronavirus has spread rapidly all over the world. It is going to get worse before it can get better. It is going to take drastic national and international leadership to overcome this pandemic. Currently in only a few countries, like China and S. Korea, the situation seems to be stabilizing and improving (e.g., significant reduction in the number of new infections, or the number of recovered cases becomes more and more than new cases).
Section II: President Trump’s Significant Remarks or Actions
As our country’s top leader, what President Trump does or says has tremendous impacts on the directions and operations of the whole governing apparatus of the country, and therefore on the livelihood, physical and mental health, and spirit of the citizens of this country, including the pocketbooks of our citizens and the bottom lines of our businesses. Therefore, let’s recall many of President Trump’s actions and words since the beginning of 2020 when the new coronavirus became known to the U.S. and the world.
1. On 1/22/2020, the day after the first coronavirus case was confirmed by the CDC, President Trump, when asked “are there worries about a pandemic at this point,”‘ in a CNBC TV interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, responded “No, Not al all. And 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.”
2. On 1/24, Trump again told Americans that there was no reason to worry, and “it will all work out well.” On 1/30 in a speech in Michigan, he said “We have it very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this moment — five. And those people are all recuperating successfully.”
3. On 1/31, the day after the WHO declared the coronavirus a global emergency, President Trump put on a travel restriction on China, to and from China, effective starting on 2/2/2020. This was a positive step, but it was far from enough as clearly shown below.
4. On 2/10 on 3 different occasions, Trump made the remark “Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets little warmer, it miraulously goes away.” However, his statement is not supported by science or infectious disease experts in his administration, and presently there is no indication that the coronavirus may diminish significantly with warmer weather, like the common flu.
5. On 2/19, Trump told a Phoenix TV station “I think the numbers are going to get progressively better as we go along.” Four days later he said the the situation is “very much under control” and “we had 12, at one point. And now they’ve gotten very much better. Many of them are fully recovered.”
6. For several weeks starting around mid February, President Trump and some of his officials on several occasions said that testing is available to anyone who wants such a test. That was just not true, although that statement was repeatedly made. First, the testing kit was not available to anyone who wants a test. It was not necessarily available even if a doctor has prescribed such a test and the patient has symptoms of the infection. The testing kits were only distributed by the CDC to selected agencies. Furthermore, there was a serious problem with these test kits because the tests were not accurate. The U.S.’s development of their test kit should be compared with what S. Korea did, who has been offering free testing of about 10,000 people per day since the middle of February, with a test cost of about $20 each. Furthermore, in S. Korea once a test has been proven in the laboratory, normally it takes a long time (e.g., many months) to get it approved for general use for the public. In the case of the coronavirus test kit, it got approval in one week! [3] It is a little unclear what is the cost of each test. It is $20 according to the first article in Ref. [3], but the cost is listed as $134 in Ref. [4].
The federal government via CDC and FDA (Food Drug Administration) set down very strict guidelines on who can prepare such test kits, diallowing reputable research labs on the forthfront of such research to conduct more general testing even when they have shown success in their laboratory. More information on this problem is described in [5].
7. Even on 3/6 after a briefing in a visit to CDC in Atlanta, Trump mentioned again that “anyone who wants a test can get a test.” But that evening at the White House VP Pence, who is leading the administration response, knows better and would not commit to that, but said doctors treating potentially symptomatic Americans could contact local officials and have state labs do the testing.
8. Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has repeatedly said that the test program that CDC has been working on has not met what has been advertised, and in a testimony in Congress on 3/11 said that any vaccine for the coronavirus is at least a year to a year and a half away.
9. On 3/11 evening, in a nationwide address from his White House desk, Trump for the first time acknowledged the seriousness of the coronavirus situation in the U.S. and that the problem is not going away soon. At this time, the whole country was cancelling large gatherings including the NCAA basketball tournament and the NBA, and everyone was planning to cancel various gatherings, including schools and even medium size gatherings. Yet, in his speech there was no mention or guidance on this important issue.
The only major action announced by President Trump was additional traffic restriction from and to Europe, effective starting at midnight 3/13. Even on that, President Trump made three important mistakes. One mistake in his announcement is that the restriction does not apply to Americans who are returning from Europe. That caused a lot of anxiety for Americans who were in Europe at that time, and caused many of them taking very expensive flights home. The second mistake is that the restriction applies only to people, and does not apply to trade and cargo. The third mistake is that Ireland was also exempt, just like Great Britain. But there was no explanation for the announced exception, even though Great Britain has more infections than some of the other countries in Europe. Just like many decisions of Trump, his decisions are arbitrary, and not well thought out.
His justification for the travel restriction is that there are more infections today in Europe than in the U.S., but ignoring that perhaps we have lower infections may be due to our behind in the testing. There was no mention of any other step to reduce the seriousness of the coronavirus.
It is then not surprising at all that on the next day on 3/12, the DJIA dropped by 2,352 points (or 10%), the worst drop since 1987.
10. On 3/13 afternoon, reacting to the large dissatisfaction shown all over the country to his performance on his 3/11 nationwide address and to the next day’s huge market drop in the stock market, President Trump gave another nationwide address from the White House. He declared a national emergency that will provide $50 billions to fund various support programs. He waived interest on student loans.
Together with a large group of CEOs, he also announced a series of measures to help protect the health of our citizens, e.g., Walmart and Target would allow their parking lots to be testing sites. Trump also made two mistakes in his announcement. One mistake is that he said that insurance companies will waive all copays for coronavirus treatments. In reality, insurance companies only agreed to waive the copays for coronavirus testing. The second mistake that he said that Google has 1,700 engineers working to develop a website to help people find a test location. In reality, Verify, a subsidiary of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, with a total workforce of only 1,000 people is working on a website related to the coronavirus. More information about this disparity can be found in [6].
Declaring a national emergency is necessary, and some of the proposed actions are necessary. However, what President Trump said was again full of false information or half truths. Furthermore, in response to a question, Trump said he is not responsible for any delay, even though it was his administration who in May 2018 canceled the pandemic preparedness office within the National Security Council, and for the 2021 budget proposed a budget cut of 15% (or $1.2 billion) for the CDC and a $35 million decrease to the Infectious Diseases Rapid Response Reserve Fund. Again, he doesn’t admit to mistakes and loses more credibility.
The stock market did rise significantly (by almost 2,000 points for the DJIA). However, about half of that gain occurred during the last hour of trading when there was a lot of news that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnunchin were very close to reaching a large relief package in Congress.
11. On 3/16, President Trump in another nationwide address mentioned that the Federal Reserve the day before has reduced interest rate to almost 0%. He emphasized that people should avoid any gatherings of more than 10 people and to practice group distancing, and acknowledged that the coronavirus may not reach a peak until July or August.
In spite of reducing the interest rate to almost 0% and the prospect of Congress passing a significant relief package, the stock market crashed. For example, the DJIA dropped by almost 3,000 points on 3/16, and has dropped by 29% since 1/1/2020. Again, this is not surprising, because testing is still not yet widely available, implying that the situation will get even more worse, and the whole country is almost closing down, thus basically shutting down all business, and it is going to cause the government to spend a large amount of money to keep people above water, thus increasing significantly the federal deficit and the national debt
Nevertheless, in a response to a question, President Trump rated himself 10 on a rating of 1 to 10.
This ends Part I of this article. Part II is in the “Other” page of this same release (March 2020).
——————————————————————————————————————
[1] “China Grapples With Mystery Pneumonia-Like Illness” by S.-L. Wee and V. Wang, the New York Times, 1/6/2020 and revised on 1/21/2020.
[2] “How testing failures allowed coronavirus to sweep the U.S.” by J. Kenen, Politico, March 6, 2020.
[3] S. Korea’s test was based on a WHO template which is available to the world. The CDC in the U.S. decided to create their own test from scratch, only to see that effort plagued by delay and dysfunction that continues to this day. More information on this can be found in the following two articles: (1) “How this South Korean company created coronavirus test kits in three weeks” by I. Watson, S. Jeong, J. Hollingsworth and T. Booth, CNN, March 12, 2020. (2) “How South Korea Scaled Coronavirus Testing While the U.S. Fell Dangerously Behind” by S. Engelberg, L. Song and L. Dephillis, ProPublica, March 15, 2020.
[4] “South Korea is doing 10,000 coronavirus tests a day. The U.S. is struggling for even a small fraction of that” by M. J. Kim and S. Denyer, The Washington Post, March 13, 2020.
[5] ” ‘It’s Just Everywhere Already’: How Dellays in Testing Set Back the U.S. Coronavirus Response,” by S Fink and M. Baker, the New York Times, March 10, 2020.
[6] “The Google and Verily coronavirus websites are off to a rocky start,” by A. C. Estes, recode, March 16, 2020.