WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL LOCKDOWN SERIES

WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL LOCKDOWN SERIES

The outgoing Obama team runs the Trump transition team through a series of pandemic-scenarios. 13, 2017 : The joint Obama-Trump transition teams run an exercise for pandemic preparedness. If we have missed any key information, please notify us by sending an email to Jan. Readers can reach their own conclusions based on these publicly available facts. These lapses meant that the United States was ultimately forced to make more drastic economic sacrifices to catch up to the severity of the pandemic than would have otherwise been necessary. When it came time to minimize the loss of life and economic damage, the United States was unnecessarily underprepared, had sacrificed valuable time, and confronted the pandemic with a more mild response than public health experts recommended. The President and some of his closest senior officials also disseminated misinformation that left the public less safe and more vulnerable to discounting the severity of the pandemic. In response to COVID-19, the United States was slow to act at a time when each day of inaction mattered most–in terms of both the eventual public health harms as well as the severe economic costs. While some measures were put in place to prepare the United States for pandemic readiness, many more were dismantled since 2017. Several Trump administration officials raised strong concerns prior to the emergence of COVID-19 and raised alarms once the virus appeared within the United States.

In our view, the timeline is clear: Like previous administrations, the Trump administration knew for years that a pandemic of this gravity was possible and imminently plausible. government’s preparation for a pandemic, tracking warning signals of COVID-19, and public and internal responses when the outbreak hit inside the United States. policy events related to the novel coronavirus pandemic. What follows is a comprehensive timeline of major U.S. Editor’s note: originally published on April 13, 2020, most recently updated on November 3, 2020.

White house national lockdown