Under Obama, the pandemic response team that Trump disbanded stopped SARSv1 (COVID is also known as SARSv2) from spreading out of China under essentially identical circumstances.
They also stopped Ebola from spreading, which is at least an order of magnitude worse than COVID.
That team operated internationally with the cooperation of local governments. When it was disbanded, many people warned the administration that it was leaving a huge public health gap, and that the decision would result in unchecked pandemics.
We’re lucky to have ended up with a COVID pandemic, and not something much worse.
Many problems with your comment. First SARS occurred in 2003 before Obama. It was stopped primarily because it does not spread asymptomatically. SARS-COV-2 does. That is the difference.
There are many countries that have completely contained COVID, on multiple continents. It is not "wishful thinking" to follow in the footsteps of many other countries. If we could do as well as the African countries that we assisted with past Ebola outbreaks, we would have saved so many lives.
To stop the virus, we need to treat it as a bigger enemy than we do each other. And it may be too late now, the easy time to stop it was at the beginning, when it would have taken far less mobilization and resources. Now, no matter how hard we clamp down it will remain in pockets.
I do not believe that Biden is capable of enacting any policy that will lead to the (simple) social behaviors that can stop the disease in its tracks. He can do some policy on the edges.
But if we do stop the virus, it won't be because of Biden, it will be because of the actions of a huge number of people, across the political spectrum, and a grand unification of people. We will need to build a massive virus stopping machine, and such projects are never the result of one person, anymore than the space shuttle being attributable to a single person.
I think it's possible, but I do not think it's likely.
I really don't get this constant "he didn't do anything" and "it's too late" talking points.
Nancy Pelosi was walking around Chinatown in SF after it was well known that there was an outbreak going on overseas.
The NYC department of health advised that it was perfectly safe to attend Chinese New Year celebrations shortly after.
When POTUS stopped international travel earlier than the media decided it was a legitimate issue, his political opponents called him a racist. Then you'll argue, "but but the nyc outbreaks trace to Europe!!" And I'll argue back that China has industrial factories in Italy, and ask you how the virus got to Italy/Europe in the first place. And you still won't get it. It's like the left just constant ignores common sense and hides behind reddit-teir "you got a source for that" nerdery.
All of this happened less than a year ago. It is well within living memory.
As a scientist, it causes me immense pain to see these types of points trotted out as having any sort of relevance to stopping the spread of Covid19.
Literally nothing you said here has any relevance to effective policy for stopping Covid19. Nothing. Somehow, in our modern society, you have been able to consume a very large diet of information, and have been misinformed about its basic suitability as information.
There's only one way to stop this thing: by paying attention to evidence and our best understanding, and to put aside our silly political games that have not bearing on reality. Or worse, political games that think they are the reality.
I hope that as part of the healing process, science starts having a seat at the table in these discussions.
Seems like the claim that this pandemic response team would have made a difference is the assertion that needs to be proven. I'm not terribly convinced that a bit more beurocracy would have made any difference at all.
You're not sure a team full of scientists who are experts in infectious diseases could've come up with a better plan than doing absolutely nothing? Or lying to the public about the severity of the disease? Or refusing to issue a national mask mandate? Or shutting down travel... only to China, not Europe who was also having a massive outbreak? Or flying people home on a commercial flight without any sort of precautions taken to separate them from the rest of the passengers?
You really think that would've all played out the same? I assume you didn't vote for Trump, and your opinion is based in facts and logic, and not a misguided attempt at defending his laughably embarrassing attempts at downplaying a pandemic ravaging our nation.
PS: Where's that vaccine he promised? Or were you one of the ones that thought the virus was just going to "magically disappear" after the election?
Well the WHO did such a great bang up job on letting the world know the severity, I'm sure this team would have also "followed the science" and decided it wasn't a threat either. This is government employees you are thinking that are going to do a competent job.
