Wait so he screwed this up so bad, but was blasted by democrats for shutting down travel to China? Way before any mask mandate or The Democrats would even acknowledge that the virus was a concern for us.
The virus doesn't care about political association, but lets review some important facts and dates for the fun of it. On
February 7 Trump knew how deadly the virus likely was, because the leader of China called him personally to explained it. That's the date and details in Trumps own recorded words.. However 3 days later he was telling Fox News that it was no big deal and would go away very soon.. So there is your answer about Congress not doing anything... Then he continued to allow travel from all other countries besides China, and now we know, besides the first few cases noted in CA, the strain of the virus that spread throughout the US was actually from Europe.
From CDC Website:
From January 21 through February 23, 2020, a total of 14 cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) were diagnosed in six U.S. states, including 12 cases in travelers arriving from China and two in household contacts of persons with confirmed infections. An additional 39 cases were identified in persons repatriated from affected areas outside the United States.
Continued introductions of SARS-CoV-2 from outside the United States contributed to the initiation and acceleration of domestic COVID-19 cases in March. After Chinese authorities halted travel from Wuhan and other cities in Hubei Province on January 23, followed by U.S. restrictions on non-U.S. travelers from China issued on January 31 (effective February 2),
NYTimes Article: On March 19, the State Department issued a Level 4 “do not travel” advisory, recommending that United States citizens avoid any global travel.
The following day,
March 20, Australia closed it boarder and "banned" ALL international travel, which mostly remains in effect today.
Australian DOH Website:
By this date, Australia had already implemented a mandatory quarantine of anyone arriving from outside the country. I know this because my friends daughter was on one of those late flights home from NY, and was forced to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival. However, did the US ever enact a mandatory quarantine period for those arriving by air ?
Point remains, we have 200k dead today, Australia has 859 total. So who got it right, who got it wrong? Yet Trump preached yesterday at UN general assembly that China mislead us all, and should be held accountable. Because they allowed people to leave their country, even though there was no spread outside Hubei Province. Well the same could certainly be said about the US by any other country now. We never actually "stopped" anyone from traveling anywhere...
On March 6th I was setting on a beach in FL with my Australian buddy, who had full intentions of hanging out there for another month or two, while I returned to Ohio for a week or so tops. The first case of Covid in that county was reported just a day before. My buddy had a flight home scheduled the 11th, and I told him to get on that airplane because I didn't like how this was looking. I told him " I don't like what I'm hearing coming out of DC compared to rest of the world, and if anyone can screw this up, it's the U.S..." Somehow my spider senses smelled a coverup way back then. And now I'm trying to obtain a Visa to get into Australia...
Well, I can now say I survived COVID. I never officially tested positive, but I was in very close contact with 3 people who did test positive and showed just about every symptom associated with the virus. The symptoms started the Wednesday before Labor Day, and by Friday, I was feeling pretty bad. I was already starting to feel much better by Tuesday, but I still haven't fully regained my sense of smell. The 3 people I was exposed to have all recovered and seem to be doing ok also (ages are 40, 62, and 71).
Glad to hear your doing better now. My wife tested negative 3 times, me twice, but we never lost smell or taste. To this day no idea if we had it or not, but your symptoms certainly match 90% of the confirmed cases she's worked so far.
I listened to a good interview with Dr Fauci on Comedy Central last night, and he spoke about the "Covid fog" that many report lasting weeks after main symptoms are gone. That one I had. So will be intersting to see what you notice. My worst deal was multiple days with smoking hot temps of 104f, which might have also toasted a few extra brain cells. Hard to say after all the ones I've cooked off normally...
