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We should have been better prepared PERIOD. We knew when the Pandemic Team ran a simulation 3 years ago and predicted the needs and shortages we currently have. The President then disbanded and defunded the Pandemic Response Team and made zero efforts to build the stockpiles identified in that simulation.

GW Bush called for a coordinated effort to domestically produce and stockpile protective gear during his 2nd term. Unfortunately, the stockpile was largely depleted during the H1N1 flu pandemic and was never replenished. Why? Where's trump's preparedness plan?

Yes, China lies, but for the last 3 years this administration has made little effort to fill positions in our diplomatic corps. Instead he relies on twitter, tariffs and his most remarkable instinct to manage international affairs.

We knew in January that we needed more test kits. Where are they?

We KNEW by February that the virus was spreading quickly in places where social distancing wasn't taken seriously. You failed to link any video footage of trump telling people to go to work sick -- that it's nothing more than a common cold. Now we're trying to manage this county by county and our leadership continues to give misleading or outright false information. States are competing among themselves and the federal government for life-saving equipment while trump threatens governors and other state leaders who refuse to stroke his ego. We have the worst infection and death rates because we have thus far mounted the worst response.

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Well put, thank you. Changing our behavior meant we changed the end result. Now we just have to hang in there till it's safe to go outside.

Re climate change, I've often wondered whether the early relentless focus on the worst that could happen was meant to alarm Congress and get more funding. It had to compete with the war on terror and then the financial crisis. Drama gets results.

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It does not mean that only 0.3% of the population is affected. It means that only 0.3% of the population has been detected with it. Our testing per capita still lags, dramatically. Who cares what the real number in China is. We’re facing a problem the size of which we do not know because in large part the administration sat on its hands and then bungled the testing.

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