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I'm afraid this just muddies the waters. > Amid warnings from public health officials that a 2020 outbreak of a new coronavirus could soon become a pandemic in

by aazaa 7y ago

I'm afraid this just muddies the waters. > Amid warnings from public health officials that a 2020 outbreak of a new coronavirus could soon become a pandemic involving the U.S., alarmed readers asked Snopes to verify a rumor that U.S. President Donald Trump had “fired the entire pandemic response team two years ago and then didn’t replace them.” Even though Snopes rates this as "true", the article itself only cites the departure of General Ziemer. It doesn't seem feasible that this one man was "the entire pandemic response team." The tweeter cited by the article also makes the claim: "Trump also cut funding for the CDC, forcing the CDC to cancel its efforts to help countries prevent infectious-disease threats from becoming epidemics in 39 of 49 countries in 2018." https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1232051346796371968 https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1232051346796371968 Snopes goes on to say that this claim is only partly true. I'm just as shocked as anyone by the abysmal response from the administration, but putting out half-truths doesn't help the cause. Edit: the Washington Post article includes this phrase: > The top White House official responsible for leading the U.S. response in the event of a deadly pandemic [Ziemer] has left the administration, and the global health security team he oversaw has been disbanded under a reorganization by national security adviser John Bolton. The Snopes article would be clearer if it quoted or otherwise cited this passage because the departure of a head of a team doesn't necessarily mean that the team was disbanded. The Washington Post article later confusingly notes: > Another administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly, acknowledged it was only one of many administration priorities. “In a world of limited resources, you have to pick and choose,” he said. “We lost a little bit of the leadership, but the expertise remains.” If the team is gone, how does the expertise remain?

nate_meurer 7y ago
The snopes article says almost exactly the same thing as your WaPo snippet: > "Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer abruptly departed from his post leading the global health security team on the National Security Council in May 2018 amid a reorganization of the council by then-National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Ziemer’s team was disbanded. Tom Bossert, whom the Washington Post reported “had called for a comprehensive biodefense strategy against pandemics and biological attacks,” had been fired one month prior." > "It’s thus true that the Trump administration axed the executive branch team responsible for coordinating a response to a pandemic and did not replace it, eliminating Ziemer’s position and reassigning others, although Bolton was the executive at the top of the National Security Council chain of command at the time." Seems pretty clear to me.
- aazaa 7y ago
  You're right, I missed it. But I'm still not clear on what exactly happened here. Take this article from the Atlantic: > With Ziemer gone, oversight of the strategy [national biodefense] now falls to Andrea Hall, the senior director for weapons of mass destruction and biodefense, according to an administration official with knowledge of the matter. Hall had already been working side-by-side with Ziemer, both figuratively and literally—they sat in neighboring offices. Both testified before the bipartisan Blue Ribbon Panel for Biodefense in November last year, during which Hall said that, “Making America safer in the biosphere is a ... key priority for this administration.” > ... > She also oversees the remaining members of Ziemer’s now-defunct directorate of global health security and biodefense—many of whom carry substantial expertise in pandemic preparedness. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/05/white-house-loses-global-health-security-lead-as-a-new-ebola-outbreak-hits/560195/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/05/white-hou... These details don't appear to be in the Snopes article. Nor does the Atlantic's discussion of how previous administrations have tried, in fits and starts, to (re)organize the team. > When Obama became president, the responsibility for thinking about epidemics and biological threats was initially split between two other teams—one focusing on resilience, and another on weapons of mass destruction. But over time, that duty was once again packaged into its own directorate—one that lasted into the Trump administration, and that Ziemer took over. “Eliminating it as its own explicit function is definitely a danger,” says Inglesby.

by aazaa 7y ago

nate_meurer 7y ago

The snopes article says almost exactly the same thing as your WaPo snippet: > "Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer abruptly departed from his post leading the global health security team on the National Security Council in May 2018 amid a reorganization of the council by then-National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Ziemer’s team was disbanded. Tom Bossert, whom the Washington Post reported “had called for a comprehensive biodefense strategy against pandemics and biological attacks,” had been fired one month prior." > "It’s thus true that the Trump administration axed the executive branch team responsible for coordinating a response to a pandemic and did not replace it, eliminating Ziemer’s position and reassigning others, although Bolton was the executive at the top of the National Security Council chain of command at the time." Seems pretty clear to me.

aazaa 7y ago
You're right, I missed it. But I'm still not clear on what exactly happened here. Take this article from the Atlantic: > With Ziemer gone, oversight of the strategy [national biodefense] now falls to Andrea Hall, the senior director for weapons of mass destruction and biodefense, according to an administration official with knowledge of the matter. Hall had already been working side-by-side with Ziemer, both figuratively and literally—they sat in neighboring offices. Both testified before the bipartisan Blue Ribbon Panel for Biodefense in November last year, during which Hall said that, “Making America safer in the biosphere is a ... key priority for this administration.” > ... > She also oversees the remaining members of Ziemer’s now-defunct directorate of global health security and biodefense—many of whom carry substantial expertise in pandemic preparedness. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/05/white-house-loses-global-health-security-lead-as-a-new-ebola-outbreak-hits/560195/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/05/white-hou... These details don't appear to be in the Snopes article. Nor does the Atlantic's discussion of how previous administrations have tried, in fits and starts, to (re)organize the team. > When Obama became president, the responsibility for thinking about epidemics and biological threats was initially split between two other teams—one focusing on resilience, and another on weapons of mass destruction. But over time, that duty was once again packaged into its own directorate—one that lasted into the Trump administration, and that Ziemer took over. “Eliminating it as its own explicit function is definitely a danger,” says Inglesby.