Timeline of the Coronavirus Pandemic and U.S. Response

Complete Timeline from JustSecurity.Org

What follows is a comprehensive timeline of major U.S. policy events related to the novel coronavirus pandemic. We’ve focused on the U.S. 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.

Interesting read and makes a change to see so much information compiled in one place. Gives a perspective on the key points that have led to such an important issue and the players and decisions that have affected so many and will do for a very long time.

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. 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. While some measures were put in place to prepare the United States for pandemic readiness, many more were dismantled since 2017.

I'm trying to absorb as much as I can and make a mental picture to understand this better but wanted to share so others can perhaps do the same. It's good to have this in the format it comes in and in one place. I'm not sure how many discrepancies or contradictions there are, but that's where you come in perhaps.

Starts on Friday, Jan. 13, 2017 and so far leads up to Sunday, April. 12, 2020.

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. 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. 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. 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.

Complete Timeline from JustSecurity.Org


I know there could be so much that many would like to add/insert into this timemine, but there's a lot to get on with and to get to grips with.

These are publicly available facts and reasearchable further if you wish to continue digging. Apparenly the timeline will be updated.

My personal feeling is that nobody "up there" in the clouds gives a damn about those "down here" on the ground. Too much about money and power and not enough about people or humanity. No accountability, rediculous budget cuts, out of control egos, and huge decisions have and are being made by those who lost touch with those they are SUPPOSED to serve.

This is just the U.S. There are many other countries involved and they all have their own timelines I'm sure.

If anyone has issues with the source, please show us why but please don't flame the messenger. And mods, if this is in the wrong forum you know what to do. Thanks.

I need some air.

a reply to: nerbot

yes, a good summary. total failure, you could say. but it won't change the fact that trumps followers will continue to see him as their saviour, and those who see him as a dangerous egomaniac will find their opinion confirmed. everything stays the same. and that costs lives. the irony is that the vehement pro-life supporters are suddenly not so pro-life anymore. confusing times.

I think the Trump administration did a pretty good job of handling this. You cannot shut the economy down because of one confirmed death. It was more important to the Democrat congressmen and women to impeach Trump than to look at the upcoming pandemic and postpone the impeachment. This is the fastest response I have seen to a legitimate epidemic. The Ebola hype that never manifested and the Zika lies were like people crying wolf when there was no wolf present.

You do not destroy the economy when there is no evidence it is in your country, no administration that is sane would do that. It is time to start slowly and safely start opening the economy again, especially the services needed to farm efficiently. Farmers are being hampered from doing their jobs, they need access to what they need without much headaches and they need to be able to sell their products or they will give up and then we will suffer for years. We still have grains, but there will be a shortage if this keeps up too long, the reserves are going down because people are buying more than they usually do. There is going to be a world wide rice shortage too. No shortage of meat yet, but that will change if the reserves of food for the animals happens, plus a lot of slaughter houses are having problems, farmers cannot get their beef processed.

Some of this is not going to be fixed by opening the economy, the disease is a real problem. The States barking about keeping the economy shut down will benefit the most if our farmers go belly up. They control the imports from South America, imports go through their ports. Their economies will prosper if the farmers go under. Open your eyes America, look who will profit the most from keeping the country shut down.

I'll just put this here...






Time-line Straight from the White House

January 11th we have zero cases in the
United States zero we don't have any
cases so there are no cases reported
that we know if this is January 11th the
CDC issued a level-one travel notice
health for health while there were still
no confirmed cases so we had zero cases
people want me to act I'm supposed to
close down the economy the greatest
economy in the history of the world and
we don't have one case can
in the United States that's January 11th
on January 17th the CDC began
implementing Public Health entry
screenings at three major US airports
that receive the greatest volume of
passengers from Wuhan at my instructions
there was not a single case of the
corona virus in the United States so On
January 17th there wasn't a case in the
fake news to say oh he didn't act fast
enough well you remember what happened
because when I did act I was criticized
by Nancy Pelosi by sleepy Joe Biden I
was criticized by ever in fact I was
called xenophobic on January 21st okay
still early there was one case of the
virus at that time we call it the Wuhan
virus right Wuhan there was one case in
the whole United States we have one case
this is all documented one case in the
whole United States one case I'm
supposed to shut down the government the
biggest the biggest economy in the
history of the world shut it down we
have one case January 31st not one
person has died and I issued a travel
restriction from China think of it so
nobody died and I issued you can't get
earlier than that so we have nobody died
and I said China you can't come in I'm
sorry because I saw what was going on so
I issued travel restrictions and that
date even though nobody died and I got
brutalized over it by the press

Some things are crystal clear from that timeline. Some things are not clear at all like how the toxic US political landscape slowed the US response. If that was in the timeline it would showcase how both sides don't have real concern for citizens. Some were saying doom and gloom, others prancing around China Town in SF saying nothing to fear. Others calling travel bans racist for political scoring points.

It was really the perfect storm to allow something to spread in the modern era. Iron grip on info on one side of the pond and a quasi political civil war on the other side. As the OP pointed out, almost no real concern for actual people.

a reply to: nerbot

If anyone has issues with the source, please show us why

OK.

I looked over the source and yes, there are several points that, in hindsight, look incriminating. However, if one understands that the same people who were warning about a pandemic have been warning of a pandemic continuously for years, it is easy to see why they were discounted at first.

Many of these events took place while the House of Representatives was actively trying to impeach the President, which would of course divert some of his attention to that. No one is facing a trial and just ignores it... no one. This aspect is not even mentioned.

Now some specific points:

September 2018:

HHS Secretary Alex Azar reallocates $266 million of funds from the CDC to the Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) program in the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).

Yes, this happened because the borders were overrun and Trump was under constant attack by Democrats in Congress to improve housing facilities far beyond what was previously considered acceptable. At the same time, the same Democrats demanding this refused to appropriate funds to do so. The money had to come from somewhere.

The same month: The Trump administration fails to follow through with an Obama-era project designed to protect against medical supply shortages during pandemics.

Farther down, there is a section devoted to the inadequate amount of medical supplies in reserve. Taken together, this indicates that the "Obama-era project" was not working as intended, and underscores the President's recent claims that medical reserves were depleted when he assumed office.

July 2019:

The CDC removes an American public health official stationed in Beijing within China’s disease control agency. The official, Dr. Linda Quick, worked with Chinese epidemiologists to help detect and contain diseases.

I do not see how one individual being removed should affect US response to such a severe level. If this is the case, then we had bigger issues with disease preparedness than this one removal. Also, the article omits the reason why she was removed, preferring to insinuate that she was removed because the President didn't care about disease preparedness.

There is absolutely no mention of the travel ban which the President implemented in late January 2020, the same ban which his detractors immediately characterized as "racist." So far, all of those detractors have also indicated that they would not have implemented any such travel ban at such an early date.

Look, I know what you're trying to do: you want to make the President look as bad as you can while still acting like you're above the fray. That much is obvious. I warn you, however, that continual attempts to spin facts have a habit of coming back on people, and I would also like to point out, as a posting member of ATS, that you started this thread outside the Political Mud Pit using a heavily biased political source.

Neither behooves you.

TheRedneck

TIMELINE: THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S DECISIVE ACTIONS TO COMBAT THE CORONAVIRUS

Check out the comprehensive timeline below.... from the link above.

December 31: China reports the discovery of the coronavirus to the World Health Organization.

January 3: CDC Director Robert Redfield sent an email to the director of the Chinese CDC, George Gao, formally offering to send U.S. experts to China to investigate the coronavirus.

January 5: CDC Director Redfield sent another email to the Chinese CDC Director, George Gao, formally offering to send U.S. experts to China to investigate the coronavirus outbreak,

January 6: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a travel notice for Wuhan, China due to the spreading coronavirus.

January 7: The CDC established a coronavirus incident management system to better share and respond to information about the virus.

January 11: The CDC issued a Level I travel health notice for Wuhan, China.

January 17: The CDC began implementing public health entry screening at the 3 U.S. airports that received the most travelers from Wuhan – San Francisco, New York JFK, and Los Angeles.

January 20: Dr. Fauci announces the National Institutes of Health is already working on the development of a vaccine for the coronavirus.

January 21: The CDC activated its emergency operations center to provide ongoing support to the coronavirus response.

January 23: The CDC sought a “special emergency authorization” from the FDA to allow states to use its newly developed coronavirus test.

January 27: President Trump tweeted that he made an offer to President Xi Jinping to send experts to China to investigate the coronavirus outbreak.

January 27: The CDC issued a level III travel health notice urging Americans to avoid all nonessential travel to China due to the coronavirus.

January 27: The White House Coronavirus Task Force started meeting to help monitor and contain the spread of the virus and provide updates to the President.

January 29: The White House announced the formation of the Coronavirus Task Force to help monitor and contain the spread of the virus and provide updates to the President.

January 31: The Trump Administration:

Declared the coronavirus a public health emergency.

Announced Chinese travel restrictions.

Suspended entry into the United States for foreign nationals who pose a risk of transmitting the coronavirus.

a reply to: rickymouse

Here is what I would say.

No administration would handle this perfectly. We haven't seen anything like this for quite some time, and now with the economy being totally different than it was in other times where similar events happened, there is no way to be perfect and I wouldn't expect that.

What I think most people have a problem with, is that neither Trump nor his followers will ever OWN anything that could have been better, and they OWN things that they had no impact with. Trump makes this worse on himself by fighting that he could have done something better by trying to spin the narrative he wants to be out there.

Plain and simple he could have turned this event into a simple and easy re election decision had he handled this differently. I don't think a lot of people are really fired up about Uncle Joe and in many ways the decision is again the least of two evils.

Trump's evil is on display every day, and he makes EVERYTHING about him and how he doesn't make any mistakes. He can still change the narrative here as our people are really quite simple and easy to please if he just starts acting like a leader. Instead he just continues to prove he has major insecurities that are a downfall of his administration. They were darn near tolerable when things were operating without any major issues. But they are totally unacceptable now.

If trump had shut everything down in February (2-28-20 less than 3000 confirmed deaths worldwide), he would have been crucified by the left for over reacting. Also, by this point, we would have been in quarantine for twice as long, and the economy would be in even worse shape...which also would have been "Trumps fault".

a reply to: mzinga

Trump is a Braggard, he has probably always been that way. In his businesses he probably always took credit for things that went right, and blamed someone under him and fired them if something went wrong. That practice is very common in government too, it is not just execs of corporation.

Been around for a long time and have seen all presidents do the same thing, but usually they do not say they personally did things, they talk about their administration doing it. Just because Trump wants credit does not mean that what his administration is doing is not correct. The wife and I are getting twenty four hundred bucks, I am thankful for that. I do not care if big businesses get some help, as long as the small businesses also get helped, I would hate to see Amazon do well when our local stores flop. The thing is that some of the online businesses that will be getting that stimulus money are actually doing better, they will take away available money from the ones that need it.

a reply to: mzinga

What I think most people have a problem with, is that neither Trump nor his followers will ever OWN anything that could have been better

Then maybe you should listen closely:

In hindsight, the response was not perfect. It could have been better.

I have no problem saying that, because it is true. What is also true is that the President is the only person in Washington DC who actually took any action early on to try and contain this virus. Could he have done it sooner? Yes. Should he have done it sooner? Probably. But as it is, he was already called a racist so what would have been that response had he implemented a travel ban a month earlier? Even a week earlier?

I think what you say goes both ways. To those who don't like Donald Trump, nothing will ever be good enough.

TheRedneck