Matt Boente MD: Please Listen to Dr. Fauci!
How many lives were lost with the delayed response of the US government to the Covid-19 virus outbreak? Matt Boente MD knows the final tally might not be known for some time but it’s clear this number might be in thousands, or tens of thousands before it’s over. If there are continued delays because of the partisanship in Washington more lives will be lost. How was the most powerful and wealthiest nation on the planet caught unprepared.
Just as a quick review, President Trump dismantled the National Security Council’s (NSC) Directorate for Global Health, Security, and Bio-Defense in May, 2018. This was an important task force of experts assembled by the Obama administration to monitor and prepare for pandemics. John Bolton, the President’s National Security Advisor disbanded the NSC’s Directorate of Global Health, Security and Bio-Defense as part of a budget cut. According to Anthony Fauci MD, the Director of the Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the National Institute of Health (NIH), the Covid-19 virus will return in the fall but is uncertain on the if and when questions. He was recently quoted in the most eloquent and gentlemen-like way; “It would be nice if the office was still there.” Obviously, this office couldn’t have prevented the outbreak, but when functioning correctly it did align the CDC and POTUS and coordinate their efforts to improve the response time.
Imagine de Gerd Altmann de la Pixabay
Next, the President conservatively delayed enacting the Defense Production Act (DPA) by 2-6 weeks based on intelligence reports, explains Dr Matt Boente. Joe Biden in his national television debate on March 15th said that that if he were the President would invoke the DPA immediately. The law was not endorsed by the President until March 27th. Do the math. Even today the DPA is not fully enacted. These were crucial days lost where private industry could have been making ventilators, N-95 masks and other PPE.
In addition to the above reasons for a slow Covid-19 response, another is that the President cut funding to the CDC with each of his budgets. The CDCs budget has been sliced by over 1 billion dollars from 7.6B in 2018 to 6.59B in 2020. Our best method of defense, the CDC, had been financially ravaged well before the outbreak and, is another reason for a slow response to the pandemic. The CDC is the leading organization in the world to predict and combat these types of problems. They were underfunded when we could least afford it.
The slow response to establish a national shelter-in-place order effectively is because of the initial comments at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. “It’s not that bad” or “everything should be ok by Easter”. Nobody wants to “shelter-in place” but it’s the President’s job to convince folks to stay at home. Mr. Trump needs to tell the truth, enforce the rules, and next time tell Mr. Pence to wear a mask at the Mayo Clinic on national TV.
Finally, the President should take the muzzle off of Dr. Fauci and stop calling him Tony. He is the single most authoritative and well-published doctor on the planet in this arena. He’s a first ballot Hall -of-Famer for doctors. He deserves a lot of respect. Yesterday I think he told the truth to the Senate about the Covid-19 pandemic. They heard his unadulterated opinion, I hope. Did Mr. Trump really try to censor Dr. Fauci’s testimony (censored testimony-oxymoron)? Maybe. He’s certainly trying to discredit Dr. Fauci in the post-hearing reports, that’s clear.
Please listen to Dr. Fauci!
Matthew Boente MD
San Francisco
[…] and patience. He has been a beacon of hope for the nation panicking in a catastrophic pandemic. He has consistently spoken the truth when the truth wasn’t always good news in an environment, which spewed only vitriol, lies and […]
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