Tag: coronavirus

Trump Calls Gail Collins a ‘Stone Cold Loser’ Over NYT Coronavirus Column

President Donald Trump is well-known for punching back at his critics, and he stuck to that pattern this week regarding a New York Times op-ed by Gail Collins that criticized his administration’s response to the coronavirus threat, calling Collins a “stone cold loser” in an interview with Eric Bolling.

Collins’ column, published on Thursday, was titled, “Let’s Call It Trumpvirus,” and took the White House to task for putting more effort into “praising the gloriousness of our commander in chief” than intelligent strategic efforts to combat the spread of the disease. Collins highlighted Trump’s tweets and comments that sought to blame the disease on the Democrats and the media, who he argued were unnecessarily stoking fear about the coronavirus in order to hurt his re-election chances.

Collins also specifically listed by name a number of Trump appointees she viewed as lacking in credentials, and credibility, to tackle coronavirus, including acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, acting Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli, and Vice President Mike Pence, recently tapped to head up the White House’s coronavirus task force.

Trump’s comments came during an interview with Sinclair’s Eric Bolling — which is set to air tonight, but Mediaite obtained an exclusive clip from — that was taped while the president was in South Carolina for a rally.

Bolling asked Trump about Collins’ article calling the coronavirus “Trumpvirus,” and the president responded that he had known Collins for a long time, but was unimpressed with her:

You know, a stone cold loser. This woman is just a woman that is just so untalented, and they want to write that in the New York Times, I call it the failing New York Times. Before I ran, that paper was going out of business and it will go out someday, let’s say in five years.

Trump reiterated previous comments where he expressed his faith in the economy and that the U.S. would get through this crisis “fine”:

But the country is doing really well, we got hit with this unexpected situation from China and it will all work out, it will all work out fine.

Bolling and Trump also discussed the latest developments in the Democratic presidential primary.

[Mediaite]

Trump Goes After ‘Very Disreputable’ CNN For Coronavirus Coverage: They’re Trying to ‘Instill Fear in People

President Donald Trump, in comments to reporters Friday, targeted CNN over the network’s coverage of coronavirus.

Mick Mulvaney said Friday that the media is using the coronavirus news to hurt the president, saying at CPAC, “The press was covering their hoax of the day because they thought it would bring down the president.”

Trump was asked today if he thinks “this is a hoax.”

Trump responded by going after CNN in particular, calling it a “very disreputable network” that’s “doing everything they can to instill fear in people and I think it’s ridiculous.”

“Some of [the Democrats] are trying to gain political favor by saying a lot of untruths,” he claimed.

Trump touted the success the U.S. has seen so far and added, “Some people are giving us credit for that and some people aren’t, but the only ones that aren’t — they don’t mean it, it’s political, it’s politics.”

Earlier today CNN media reporters called out Fox News for comments similar to the president’s, with Brian Stelter saying, “They feel the need to protect the president from potential political damage by saying the Democrats and the media are out to get you. I think most will see through it, but it is still reprehensible.”

[Mediaite]

White House chief of staff claims press covering coronavirus to take Trump down

White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on Friday downplayed the threat of the coronavirus but acknowledged likely school closures and disruptions to public transportation in the United States as a result of the outbreak.

He also accused the press of peddling a false narrative about the administration “scrambling” to contain the virus, saying he briefed Congress with other top health officials six weeks ago. He accused the media of ignoring the coronavirus until now because publications were too preoccupied with Trump’s impeachment before that, which he called a “hoax.”

“Why didn’t you hear about it?” Mulvaney told an audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Friday morning in a discussion with Stephen Moore, an economic expert at the Heritage Foundation. “The press was covering their hoax of the day because they thought it would bring down the president.”

Trump has similarly accused the media of stoking panic.

Mulvaney claimed that the press is only covering the virus now because they believe doing so will “take down the president.”

“Is it real? It absolutely is real,” Mulvaney said. “But you saw the president the other day — the flu is real.”

“Are you going to see some schools shut down? Probably. May you see impacts on public transportation? Sure,” Mulvaney said, adding, “We know how to handle this.”

Mulvaney’s remarks came as the Trump administration’s efforts to combat the virus are coming under increasing scrutiny. He argued that the administration is well-prepared while asserting that the virus is less severe than past illnesses because it has a lower fatality rate, describing it as less deadly than Ebola, SARS and MERS.  

Mulvaney’s appearance at CPAC comes as President Trump has downplayed concerns about the virus, telling reporters at a news conference Wednesday that he didn’t believe the spread of the virus was inevitable.

The virus has been contained in the U.S. thus far, but health officials have said that its spread is likely. State and local officials may order school closures or otherwise limit public gatherings if the virus begins to spread communities.

The U.S. stock market has experienced sharp declines over the past week amid concerns about the virus, which originated in China and has spread quickly in other countries across the globe.

“What I might do to calm the markets is turn the television off for 24 hours,” Mulvaney told the crowd at CPAC Friday, mentioning a note he received from a reporter about what the administration’s plans were to ease concerns.

Trump on Wednesday tapped Vice President Pence to lead the government’s response efforts, and Pence has since tapped a career health official at the State Department, Debbie Birx, to coordinate those efforts.

“Congratulations and thank you to our great Vice President & all of the many professionals doing such a fine job at CDC & all other agencies on the Coronavirus situation,” Trump tweeted late Thursday. “Only a very small number in U.S., & China numbers look to be going down. All countries working well together!” 

[The Hill]

Media

Trump disagrees with his own health experts on whether US faces severe illnesses from coronavirus

Donald Trump has disagreed with his own health experts who have warned it was inevitable that coronavirus would spread within the US.

In a briefing to the media on Tuesday, officials from the centres for disease control and other health experts, said communities in the US should start planning for “social distancing measures”.

“It’s not so much of a question of if this will happen anymore but rather more of a question of exactly when this will happen,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of the national centre for immunisation and respiratory diseases.

But in his own press conference on Wednesday, Mr Trump appeared to play down such certainty, while insisting his government was ready for whatever came.

“I don’t think it’s inevitable. I don’t think think it’s inevitable because we’re doing a really job at the borders and checking people coming in,” he said.

“I think there is a chance there could a substantial increase. But nothing is inevitable.”

“Wash your hands, stay clean, you don’t have to necessarily grab every handrail unless you have to.

Mr Trump went on to dismiss concerns over the risk the virus poses to the public. 

“View this the same as the flu,” he said: “When somebody sneezes, I mean, I try and bail out as much as possible when they’re sneezing.”

Turning to one of the health experts stood behind him, Mr Trump added: “I really think, doc, you want to treat this like you treat the flu, and, you know, it’s going to be fine.”

Flanked by vice president Mike Pence, who he has appointed to head the government’s response to the disease, and other officials, Mr Trump said: “The risk to the American people remains very low.”

He added: “We’re ready to adapt and we’re ready to do whatever we have to as the disease spreads, if it spreads. It probably will, it possibly will. It could be at a very small level, or it could be at a larger level. Whatever happens we’re totally prepared.”

There are currently 15 cases of coronavirus detected among individuals inside the United States. In addition, 40 American passengers brought back from a cruise ship in Japan also tested positive for the virus. 

The administration has proposed $2.5bn in additional funding to address the coronavirus, a sum politicians from both parties have said may be insufficient.

On Wednesday, public health officials warned Americans to prepare for more coronavirus cases and New York City announced plans to provide up to 1,200 hospital beds if needed stock markets fell for the fifth consecutive day.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the head of the national institute of allergy and infections diseases, said that while the virus was contained in the United States, Americans must prepare for a potential outbreak as transmissions spread outside of China.

“If we have a pandemic, then almost certainly we are going to get impacted,” he told CNN.

[The Independent]

Coronavirus-infected Americans flown home against CDC’s advice

In the wee hours of a rainy Monday, more than a dozen buses sat on the tarmac at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. Inside, 328 weary Americans wearing surgical masks and gloves waited anxiously to fly home after weeks in quarantine aboard the Diamond Princess, the luxury liner where the novel coronavirus had ­exploded into a shipwide epidemic.

But as the buses idled, U.S. officials wrestled with troubling news. New test results showed that 14 passengers were infected with the virus. The U.S. State Department had promised that no one with the infection would be allowed to board the planes.

A decision had to be made. Let them all fly? Or leave them behind in Japanese hospitals?

In Washington, where it was still Sunday afternoon, a fierce debate broke out: The State Department and a top Trump administration health official wanted to forge ahead. The infected passengers had no symptoms and could be segregated on the plane in a plastic-lined enclosure. But officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention disagreed, contending they could still spread the virus. The CDC believed the 14 should not be flown back with uninfected passengers.

“It was like the worst nightmare,” said a senior U.S. official involved in the decision, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. “Quite frankly, the alternative could have been pulling grandma out in the pouring rain, and that would have been bad, too.”

The State Department won the argument. But unhappy CDC officials demanded to be left out of the news release that explained that infected people were being flown back to the United States — a move that would nearly double the number of known coronavirus cases in this country.

The tarmac decision was a pivotal moment for U.S. officials improvising their response to a crisis with few precedents and extraordinarily high stakes. Efforts to prevent the new pathogen from spreading have revealed the limits of the world’s readiness for an unprecedented public health emergency. In the worst-case scenario, covid-19, a flulike respiratory infection, could become a full-blown global pandemic.

Navigating the crisis has required delicate medical and political judgments. The decision to evacuate the Americans from the Diamond Princess came only after infections on the cruise ship spiked and passengers revealed their grim living conditions.

One lesson from that debacle is that cruise ships are like petri dishes.Thousands live in close quarters on a vessel never designed for quarantines. The crew continued to deliver food, and health workers moved throughout the ship. More than 600 of the 3,700 passengers and crew members have now tested positive for the virus and two older Japanese passengers have died.

With Japanese authorities isolating the passengers for weeks off the coast, the ship, operated by Princess Cruises, quickly developed the second-largest number of coronavirus cases on the planet outside of China — more than in Japan, Singapore, Thailand, the United States or all of Europe. Avoiding “another China” has been the goal of the World Health Organization for weeks, and then it happened anyway, in Yokohama harbor.

The treatment of the Diamond Princess passengers stands in stark contrast to what happened to those on another cruise ship, the Westerdam, who were greeted by the Cambodian prime minister with handshakes and flowers, and who later traveled widely. Only later did news come that one of the Westerdam passengers had tested positive for the virus.

That situation spurred fears that Westerdam passengers would spread the virus around the world. But no additional passengers have tested positive, and so far, no evidence has emerged they have widely seeded the virus.

The coronavirus (officially, SARS-CoV-2) is extremely contagious. Experts estimate that without protective measures, every infected person will spread it to an average of slightly more than two additional people. The disease has been fatal in roughly two out of 100 confirmed cases.

Travelers have already spread it to more than two dozen countries, where it has infected more than 75,000 people and killed more than 2,000.

[Washington Post]

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