To Be Fair To The President - And we always should be

The President of the United States has been criticised for disbanding the Pandemic Response Team in the Federal Security Office. Further, when asked about this, he has criticised and been quite disparaging of the reporter putting the question.

The clear inference is the removal of the Pandemic Response team was a targeted action resulting in a valuable resource no longer being available to be lead the fight against Covid 19.

I am not one to defend the President.

I do however believe that criticism and praise should be fair and balanced and wanted to know if in fact this was a targeted action.   

It is beyond question that he did away with the Pandemic Response Team. It is also reported this was conducted contrary to advice from his medical policy advisers

I do however question this was a targeted action.

From what I can determine, this was merely one of many decisions to abolish or rearrange areas of responsibility previously considered valuable in the defence of the USA against non-military threats such as disease and public health. For example:

·        The Administration also did away with a specialist China based unit with specific responsibility for monitoring disease outbreaks in that country. The last staff were withdrawn at the end of 2018.

·        Also abolished was a scientific unit tasked with the responsibility of monitoring the evolution of animal-based viruses that may have the capacity to transfer to humans.

·       The providing of school meals is a significant operation in America and in far too many cases, are the difference between children being hungry or not. In 2012 amid growing concerns about childhood obesity and early adult onset of heart diseas, respiratory problems and diabetes, a healthy schools meals programme was implemented and then mandated. The improvement in student physical and mental health, concentration, learning capacity and general wellbeing measured over the following 6 years was outstanding. This programme was cancelled by the new Administration and school meals returned to being breakfast of pancakes and syrup followed by hotdogs for lunch.

There are very many examples but I will provide just one more in order to ensure a variety.

·       A US$30 billion Regional Development fund had been operating with huge success over several decades. Many innovations progressed after received loans on attractive terms and many new businesses were established and went on to be successful. Towns and communities prospered and in some cases were revived as employment opportunities grew. In addition, the Regional Development Fund was one of very few Government programs returning a real return on funds invested.

One notable achievement was the invention and bringing to market of the retractable syringe. This product is credited with preventing thousands of health care workers suffering needle prick injury and for preventing needle sharing among intravenous illicit drug users.

While this programme has not been abolished as such, its administration has been moved and the concern is, large corporation will now receive funding previously meant for Regionally based innovators.

I am inclined to declare the criticism of the President for targeting the disbanding of the Pandemic Response Team as being unfair. I do so on the basis this is just one of many, very many, often science based Federal Government operations that were summarily disbanded.

Further, to say the USA would be doing a better job of restricting and ultimately eliminating Covid 19 if the Pandemic Response Team still existed cannot be proven. To do so, we would have to have such a comparison and we can never have that. We will only ever know how it has been dealt with without a specialist Pandemic Response Team.

And there is more to consider when assessing the fairness of the criticism of the President.

Through the work of military intelligence, the Federal Administration was first made aware of the outbreak of a serious illness in Wuhan in mid to late December, and certainly before Christmas 2019. On 3 January 2020, a letter requesting a meeting or at least a phone call to discuss the concern this presented was sent to The President. A phone call took place on 17 January 2020. To be fair, the President had more pressing health related issues on his mind and was more interested (reportedly) in discussing the ban on flavoured vaping products.

The President’s first public response to Covid 19 took place on 31 January 2020.

One final point in defence of the timeline adopted by the White House. We need to respect that a Leader with immense responsibilities bestowed upon them has many and multiple demands on their time and any number of priorities to juggle. During this period, several golf games were already scheduled as were some campaign rallies.

Ultimately, we will never know if the response time would have been any different if indeed the team tasked with monitoring the evolution of diseases that jump form animals to humans had been left in place.

We also will never know if things would have been any different if the team based in China responsible for identifying outbreaks of disease in China had still been operative.

How can we know when we have nothing to compare too. Criticism should be fair and it should be evidenced.

And then there is the criticism of the President’s public commentary on the matter.

The President has been widely condemned for initially at least, playing down the potential threat of Covid 19. This was most notable when he said there are only 15 cases in America and likely to be zero or near zero by the end of the week.

Again, I ask if such criticism is fair?

The President does not claim to have high level medical qualifications. He does however, have access to the best minds in the country if not the world. It can only be assumed his comments followed extensive briefings from his key specialist advisers.

He often provides commentary on matters scientific and it should be assumed he does so after close and detailed consultation with specialist, highly qualified advisers.

It could be assumed that the specialists he based the comments about there being zero or near zero Covid 19 cases by the end of the week are equal in calibre, scientific standing and qualification as the advisers he relies upon when talking about climate science.

I have no reason to challenge the possibility that the advisers relied upon when suggesting zero or near zero cases by the end of the week hold the equivalent level of qualification and acknowledged expertise in their field, as the climate advisers do in theirs

Criticism should always be fair and should also be evidence based.

I will leave the reader to decide in this case.