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Showing Original Post only (View all)This is a MUST-READ article just published in the New Yorker "The Plague Year" Oh My God [View all]
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/04/the-plague-yearIMHO, Definitely worth taking the time to read and distribute
The mistakes and the struggles behind Americas coronavirus tragedy.
By Pulitzer Prize Winning Author Lawrence Wright
December 28, 2020
There are three moments in the yearlong catastrophe of the covid-19 pandemic when events might have turned out differently. The first occurred on January 3, 2020, when Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, spoke with George Fu Gao, the head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which was modelled on the American institution. Redfield had just received a report about an unexplained respiratory virus emerging in the city of Wuhan.
The field of public health had long been haunted by the prospect of a widespread respiratory-illness outbreak like the 1918 influenza pandemic, so Redfield was concerned. Gao, when pressed, assured him that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission. At the time, the theory was that each case had arisen from animals in a wet market where exotic game was sold. When Redfield learned that, among twenty-seven reported cases, there were several family clusters, he observed that it was unlikely that each person had been infected, simultaneously, by a caged civet cat or a raccoon dog. He offered to send a C.D.C. team to Wuhan to investigate, but Gao said that he wasnt authorized to accept such assistance. Redfield made a formal request to the Chinese government and assembled two dozen specialists, but no invitation arrived. A few days later, in another conversation with Redfield, Gao started to cry and said, I think were too late.
Perhaps Gao had just been made aware that the virus had been circulating in China at least since November. Certainly, Redfield didnt know that the virus was already present in California, Oregon, and Washington, and would be spreading in Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Iowa, Connecticut, Michigan, and Rhode Island within the next two weekswell before Americas first official case was detected.
Redfield is convinced that, had C.D.C. specialists visited China in early January, they would have learned exactly what the world was facing. The new pathogen was a coronavirus, and as such it was thought to be only modestly contagious, like its cousin the sars virus. This assumption was wrong. The virus in Wuhan turned out to be far more infectious, and it spread largely by asymptomatic transmission. That whole idea that you were going to diagnose cases based on symptoms, isolate them, and contact-trace around them was not going to work, Redfield told me recently. Youre going to be missing fifty per cent of the cases. We didnt appreciate that until late February. The first mistake had been made, and the second was soon to happen.
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This is a MUST-READ article just published in the New Yorker "The Plague Year" Oh My God [View all]
BigBearJohn
Dec 2020
OP
I agree with your posts on this thread. The answers about this have been in our faces the entire
BComplex
Dec 2020
#44
If you're talking about the how-to-handle-a-mad-virus info the Obama administration gave
calimary
Dec 2020
#56
Obama left the people, the protocols, and materials in place that would have stopped much of this ..
Botany
Dec 2020
#15
If Hillary hadn't had the Presidency stolen from her we and the world would not be going through ...
Botany
Dec 2020
#24
+1, I remember him laughing while Trump saying anyone who wants a test can get a test
uponit7771
Dec 2020
#31
+1, non politicos weren't paying attention to how vile Trump was and are now just seeing it in open
uponit7771
Dec 2020
#34
Well Said, Thank You..His ."COVID-19 INCOMPETENCE HAS DEFINED TRUMP"...FOREVER, AND FOREVER,
Stuart G
Dec 2020
#11
The whole world handled CV19 relatively fine the US is the outlier still to this day
uponit7771
Dec 2020
#32
We are outlier in infections per million its Trumps argument that deaths per million is the measure
uponit7771
Dec 2020
#65
Ni..That's Trump admins argument, case per million Trump is relatively horrible
uponit7771
Dec 2020
#69
And about his trip to Walter Reed hospital in November 2019? No information about what that was for.
erronis
Dec 2020
#14
A stunning piece of journalism. It reads like a novel. Highly recommend. Thank you Big Bear John.
Ninga
Dec 2020
#17
OMG I just found out what a spectacular hatchet job has been done on Deborah Birx
LearnedHand
Dec 2020
#38
This story could have been written in March. Trump's failures were so predictable. nt
SunSeeker
Dec 2020
#46
In the not too distance future this needs to be expanded and published as a book.
sarge43
Dec 2020
#47
Iffy at best, Mr Redfield. "...isolate them, and contact-trace around them was not going to work."
nilram
Dec 2020
#50
Trump presided over a 2 year draw down cut CDC staff in China by more than 2/3rds
neohippie
Dec 2020
#64