Hi Heinz,

Thank you for commenting on my story. I do believe that our best scientists and economic specialists are doing all that they can to keep this virus down. But the question that I raise is that President Trump’s administration was in denial to the extent of the danger that the coronavirus presented. And that has made it so much harder on our medical staffs, around the nation to provide adequate health care to the thousands who have been stricken by this virus.

One small example. A month ago today, Kellyanne Conway, who serves as counselor to the president, told a reporter that the administration had the coronavirus under control. At that time there were 20 deaths. One month later there are now over 10,000 deaths. We have highest number of confirmed cases of the virus, over 4 times what China has, according to the John Hopkins University of Medicine’s Coronavirus Resource Center https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

At the time of Conway’s assurance, on May 7th, 2018 Luciana Borio, director of medical and biodefense preparedness at the NSC, spoke at a symposium at Emory University “The threat of pandemic flu is the number one health security concern,” she told the audience. “Are we ready to respond? I fear the answer is no.”

That same month, John Bolton, appointed by Trump to head the National Security Council, eliminated the team for pandemic preparedness. It was created in the aftermath of the 2014–15 Ebola outbreak to avoid seeing again a fragmented U.S. response and preparedness strategy, that ended up costing U.S. taxpayers $5.4 billion in emergency supplemental funding. At a March 13, 2020 press conference, when asked about this, Trump said, “I don’t know anything about it.”

This is not competent leadership. It is a serious charge, but a condition that necessitates a serious response from the public. It is not a case of picking on Trump. Rather, I believe, it is necessary to review how our nation has become the epicenter of the pandemic. What can we do to reverse course? It is important to have the President of the United States be open and not closed to receiving information that can improve his response to this crisis.

It does no one any good to see him fail in his work. We want him to succeed. To do that, he must listen to those that he does not respect, because they may have something valuable to say.

May we all be able to stay healthy.

Sincerely,

Nick