
US officials knew of Wuhan health crisis in November, a second report claims - pmoriarty
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/coronavirus-wuhan-china-november-us-dia-covid-19-a9459021.html
======
JMTQp8lwXL
Officials likely get told about many potential crises, but only a small
percentage of those pan out. Can we really hold officials accountable for when
the crisis actually happens?

If we locked down society or accepted draconian measures at every single
instance of a possible crisis, we would always be living in crisis because
there are always potential crisis of some kind that could happen soon.

~~~
fao_
You seem to be talking about the possibility that they overreacted though.
That's not really the point. The point is that they did _nothing_. They took
_no steps_ to prevent the spread of the virus.

The first, lightest, basic-fucking-step was to start screening people by body
temperature at airports. Anyone with an abnormal body temperature is taken
into quarantine for a few days. They had _three months_ from November to set
it up. (For reference, China _almost eradicated the virus_ in three months
from December to Feburary. And South Korea managed to almost completely _halt_
the spread of the virus in that time). Let's look at how that went:

I couldn't find anything from December or November.

January: "Travelers at 3 U.S. airports to be screened for new, potentially
deadly Chinese virus"

([https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/01/17/coronavirus...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/01/17/coronavirus-
us-airports-screening/))

Febuary: "CDC _considering expansion_ of airport health screenings for novel
coronavirus"

[https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/26/health/coronavirus-
airpor...](https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/26/health/coronavirus-airport-
screening-expansion-cdc/index.html)

March (15th): "The US administration has imposed a ban on non-Americans
travelling from the 26 European countries in the Schengen free movement zone."

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-
canada-51895246](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-51895246)

March (23rd): "Travelers shocked by barebones coronavirus screening at US
airports"

[https://nypost.com/2020/03/23/travelers-shocked-by-
barebones...](https://nypost.com/2020/03/23/travelers-shocked-by-barebones-
coronavirus-screening-at-us-airports/)

The point is that the United States had three months of advance warning to do
something. And they chose to sit on their hands and do nothing. And now 14,696
people have died, and almost 500,000 people are infected. This rate is rapidly
rising. What's more, _we don 't even know if this data is accurate_, it is
very likely a lower bound given how _difficult_ it is to obtain a test in the
United States at the moment
([https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/us/coronavirus-testing-
ch...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/us/coronavirus-testing-
challenges.html) | [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-
canada-51860529](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-51860529) |
[https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-
test...](https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-testing-hard-
to-get-despite-roche-abbott-cepheid-20200401.html)). Again, they had _three
months_ of _advance warning_ to set this testing up, within which South Korea
had almost _nullified_ the spread of the virus.

~~~
s1artibartfast
An alternative take is that they did not believe that the screenings were
going to have a meaningful impact on the spread to the US and were always a PR
move.

Even in January there were case reports of an up to 14 day incubation period,
cases without fever, and asymptomatic transmission.

~~~
joshstrange
Well the administration did a lot of things for optics/PR/the "markets" but
none of those steps were taken to actually help or protect Americans.

That's really the gut punch for me personally. Trump could have secured his
reelection 100% by taking this seriously but instead he was too focuses on the
short-term to look even as far as November.

~~~
s1artibartfast
I’m honestly not sure how this relates to what I said. Are you agreeing? I’m
not saying trump did a good job, just proposing that airport screenings may
not have made a difference

------
lsllc
Hmmm ... the director of the NCMI (part of the DIA) apparently refuted this:

 _" As a matter of practice the National Center for Medical Intelligence does
not comment publicly on specific intelligence matters. However, in the
interest of transparency during this current public health crisis, we can
confirm that media reporting about the existence/release of a National Center
for Medical Intelligence Coronavirus-related product/assessment in November of
2019 is not correct. No such NCMI product exists," Colonel Dr. R. Shane Day,
director of the National Center for Medical Intelligence, said._

Quoted in the article and also here:

[https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/08/politics/intel-agencies-
covid...](https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/08/politics/intel-agencies-covid-
november/index.html) (a few paragraphs down)

------
customized
There's a big difference between "the things we did weren't enough" and "if we
had done something, it probably wouldn't have worked anyway".

One is a measured opinion, the other is an excuse. Which are you willing to
accept from your government?

Also, when the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee dumps up to $1.7M in
stock right before a market crash, you have to question the timing.

