Summary: The COVID-19 crisis tests affected nations. It tests America as it has not been for generations. It shows our strengths and weaknesses, giving a picture of our ability to prosper – and perhaps even survive – the greater challenges that lie ahead in this century. Clear vision is the first step, which is why briefings like this by Dr. Fauci are essential. Otherwise, we will be lost in a sea of misinformation.
The media (the press and others) each day flood America with trivia about COVID-19. Some true, some exaggerated, some fiction – with essential data and insights mostly lost in the flow. The most exciting stories propagate the fastest, and we become more ignorant – less connected with reality – as the epidemic rages on. The misinformation is a failure of our ability to Observe. The resulting confusion and ignorance is Disorienting (a failure of Orientation). So of course our ability to collective make effective Decisions is diminished. Our ability to effectively Act degrades. This is our OODA loop in action, describing America’s ability to respond collectively to a crisis.
A fast effective OODA loop makes a powerful nation. A broken one makes a weak nation, no matter how many tanks we have. No matter how much gold we have in Fort Knox.
The first step is to find useful sources of information. Unfortunately, these tend to become rarer as a crisis runs on. For example, the daily WHO briefings no longer say much. Experts and officials become more cautious in what they say. But there is good material out there. Such as this transcript of CNN’s Jake Tapper interview of Dr. Anthony Fauci on March 29 (slightly paraphrased for clarity). Fauci is the Director of the National Insitute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force.
This is one of the best briefings I have seen about COVID-19 in the US. Unfortunately, that’s a low bar. Clear and fequent communication to the public of the situation and responses is an essential element of crisis management. There has been little of it so far in America.
Tapper: Dr. Fauci, it’s always good to see you. I want to ask you about the latest development, the CDC {said in their March 17 press release} …
“Due to extensive community transmission of COVID -19 in the area, CDC urges residents of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut to refrain from non-essential domestic travel for 14 days effective immediately.”
This came after President Trump considered an enforceable quarantine, as he put it, for those states. So, why did the administration go with this travel advisory instead? And will this help stop the virus?
FALUCI: I think it ultimately will help stop the virus, Jake. We had very intensive discussions last night at the White House with the president. As you know, the original proposal was to consider seriously an enforceable quarantine. After discussions with the president, we made it clear, and he agreed, that it would be much better to do what’s called a strong advisory. And the reason for that is that you don’t want to get to the point where you’re enforcing things that would create a bigger difficulty, morale and otherwise, when you could probably accomplish the same goal.
One of the issues is that about 56% of all of the new infections in the country are coming from the New York City area. That’s terrible suffering for the people of New York, which I feel myself personally, as a New Yorker. So what was trying to be done is to get all nonessential travel to just hold off, because what you don’t want is people traveling from that area to other areas of the country, and inadvertently and innocently infecting other individuals.
We felt the better way to do this would be an advisory, as opposed to a very strict quarantine. And the president agreed. And that’s why he made that determination last night. And I believe he tweeted it out last night.
TAPPER: So, Dr. Fauci, the U.S. now has the most officially reported coronavirus cases on the entire globe. Of course, that requires that you believe all the other countries reporting, including China. But let’s just for now assume that the U.S. numbers are the largest. Do you believe that the U.S. is now the epicenter of this outbreak?
FALUCI: It’s certainly is the focus of what’s going on right now. We have a very difficult problem here. We have areas of the country, such as the New York area.
We have places like Detroit and other cities starting to get into trouble, where the curve did what exactly I said on this show and other shows some time ago. It putters along a while, and then it just goes way up. And when it does that, you’re really in full mitigation. It’s very difficult to do containment.
We want to strongly do mitigation in those areas like New York City and the surrounding metropolitan area, at the same time that we don’t neglect other areas of the country, where it looks like there are just relatively few infections, because we have a window of opportunity there, as Speaker Pelosi said, to get out there and test. If we do testing, identification, isolation, getting people out of circulation who are infected, and contact tracing, we might be able to prevent those areas from getting to that stage where we’d have to do mitigation, which is much more than difficult and much more frustrating than trying to contain.
TAPPER: Dr. Deborah Birx {response coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force) said yesterday, as you know, that she doesn’t think any city will be spared from this virus. {See her interview on “Meet the Press.”} How many cases do you think the U.S. will reach? A million cases, 10 million cases? Or do we not even have any idea?
FAUCI: You know, Jake, the honest — to be honest with you, we don’t really have any firm idea. There are things called models. And when someone creates a model, they put in various assumptions. And the model is only as good and as accurate as your assumptions. And whenever the modelers come in, they give a worst-case scenario and a best-case scenario.
Generally, the reality is somewhere in the middle. I have never seen a model of the diseases that I have dealt where the worst-case scenario actually came out. They always overshoot. So, when you use numbers like a million, a million-and-a-half, two million, that almost certainly is off the chart. Now, it’s not impossible, but very, very unlikely. So, it’s difficult to present.
I mean, looking at what we’re seeing now, I would say between 100,000 and 200,000 deaths. We’re going to have millions of cases. But I don’t think that we really need to make a projection, when it’s such a moving target, that you can so easily be wrong and mislead people.
What we do know, Jake, is that we got a serious problem in New York, we have a serious problem in New Orleans, and we’re going to be developing serious problems in other areas. So, although people like to model it, let’s just look at the data of what we have, and not worry about these worst-case and best-case scenarios.
TAPPER: Dr. Fauci, we’re about to hit the last day of the 15 days to flatten the curve. Everybody watching at home wants to know how long you think it’s going to last. What steps does the United States need to take right now in order to be able to see some light at the end of the tunnel? And when might that be?
FAUCI: I want to see a flattening and a turning down to the curve. So, if somebody asked me a question, what about New York, should we be pulling back on New York, obviously not. New York is doing this. New Orleans is doing this. When we start to see a daily number of cases, instead of increasing and escalating, they start to flatten out, turn the corner and then start coming down, when we see that, then you could start doing the modification of the intensity of your mitigation.
As I have said before, it’s true the virus itself determines that timetable. You can try and influence that timetable by mitigating against the virus, but, ultimately, it’s what the virus does.
When I start seeing this happen, then I will come back on the show and tell you that I think we’re at that point now where we can start pulling back a little, but not right now in several of the places that I just mentioned.
TAPPER: Well, there’s this discussion out there about loosening the social distancing guidelines in some parts of the country. CNN is reporting that some federal health officials are preparing a recommendation where some parts of the country will be able to open schools and open businesses. I hear that. Then I hear what you’re saying – that there are these hot spots that we know of, New Orleans, New York – and that we don’t really have an idea of where other hot spots might be.
FAUCI: Right.
TAPPER: You just agreed with what Speaker Pelosi said. Because of the lag in testing, there could be hot spots in all sorts of cities that we don’t know.
FAUCI: Right.
TAPPER: So, what do you think about the recommendations that some parts of the country might be able to loosen the guidelines, given the fact that we, at least according to you, don’t even know where these next hot spots will be?
FAUCI: Great question, Jake. If you look at an area, any area – take one that has moderate degree of activity – you can’t just empirically say, I’m going to loosen restrictions there. You can do it, but you absolutely must have in place the capability of going there, testing, testing in an efficient way. Not take a test, come back five days later, and find out if you’re infected. But testing, knowing in real time if a person is infected, and then getting them out of circulation. And contact tracing. Because if you release the restrictions before you have a good eyeball on what’s going on there, you’re going to get in trouble.
I’m not against releasing the restrictions. I’m actually for it in an appropriate place. But I don’t recommend it unless we have the tools in place in real time to do the things I just said. If we can do that, we can keep things contained without slipping into the need of having to mitigate, the way they are in New York and New Orleans and other places now. So, it’s doable, but it’s only doable if you put the tools in place.
TAPPER: Do we have those tools? Vice President Pence said that there had been more than 600,000 tests across the country, which is certainly an improvement from where we were a month ago. But there are 330 million Americans. How many tests need to be done before you will feel comfortable knowing where the hot spots are, so then some restrictions can be loosened in the future?
FAUCI: Jake, I don’t think it’s quantitative – how many tests you need. I mean, obviously, you want to get tests out there that one can get a test easily, in real time, with a result right away. If you compare a couple of weeks ago to where we are right now, we have an amazingly larger number of tests than we had before. But what I want to see and I want to be satisfied is that those tests are being implemented on the ground where we need them. That’s the connection I want to make sure, not just tests out there, but are the tests being able to be implemented?
If we can do that, Jake, I think we could reasonably, with the safety of the American people in mind, pull back on some of the restrictions. But you got to have all the players and all the material in place. That’s what we’re trying to do.
TAPPER: Right, but it doesn’t sound like those tools are in place right now?
FAUCI: You know, Jake, in some places, they are, and, in some places, they’re not. We have to be honest and realistic, because you go to a place, and people say, I still can’t get testing as quickly as I want to. But that situation is being less and less common as the days and weeks go by, because the more we’re hearing of people who maybe could not get tests before are getting them now.
It still is not a perfect situation, because I’m sure people will be calling up and saying, I needed to get a test, and I couldn’t get it. Hopefully, that’s much, much less frequently than we saw a week or two ago.
TAPPER: When do you think you will be comfortable with the amount of testing being present, so that restrictions can be lifted in some parts of the country?
FAUCI: I think it’s going to depend a lot on the availability of those rapid tests that you can get really quickly, 15 minutes or so, where you will know right away. So that when you identify someone who’s infected, that person doesn’t go out into society for a few days, infect a bunch of people, and then you bring them back because the test is positive. When we get those tests, then I think we’re going to be closer. To put a time on it, Jake, I don’t know. It’s going to be a matter of weeks. It’s not going to be tomorrow. And it’s certainly not going to be next week.
I think {answers} the question you asked me. When are we going to get that material, those tests, and the PPEs and other things that people can utilize with that? When we get it out there, that’s when we’re going to be able to do what you’re talking about.
TAPPER: What you’re saying makes it very clear that, when the 15 days to flatten the curve campaign is up – and that will be over early this week – you don’t think that we’re ready to lift guidelines yet?
FAUCI: We’re going to obviously seriously discuss and consider that. My own opinion, looking at the way things are, I doubt if that would be the case. But we’re a group. We’re a task force. We’re going to sit down and we’re going to talk about it. But, obviously, what you see me describe, it’s a little iffy there. So we will take it as it comes. We will look at it. And if we need to push the date forward, we will push the date forward.
TAPPER: Governor Cuomo has been talking about needing 30,000 ventilators. They’re not using them right now, but he says that his experts are telling him that he needs to prepare for that. Do you have any reason to doubt that 30,000 ventilators for New York is what his health officials are recommending?
FAUCI: You know, there’s a lot of different calculations. In my experience, I tend to believe Governor Cuomo. There are some that say there are ventilators that are there in a certain place that’s accessible. We just need to connect the dots to get them accessible. So, there are two issues here. Are there ventilators there that you can use that you need better access to? And, if so, get them. If not, then give them to him.
One way or the other, he needs the ventilators that he needs. Hopefully, we will get him the ventilators that he needs. They may be closer to him than is realized. But if they’re not, we will get them there. And if they are, we will try to help him get access to the ones that are there. Bottom line, he’s got to have the ventilators, period.
TAPPER: Last question for you, Dr. Fauci. I have to ask you about something that the president said at his press conference on Friday. Take a listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: “When they’re not appreciative to me, they’re not appreciative to the Army Corps, they’re not appreciative to FEMA, it’s not right. I say, Mike, don’t call the governor of Washington. You’re wasting your time with him. Don’t call the woman in Michigan. You know what I say? If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call.”
TAPPER: Dr. Fauci, can you assure the American people that whether or not they get the help they need from the federal government, it does not depend on whether their governors are appreciative enough of the federal help or flattering enough of the Trump administration?
FAUCI: No, Jake, I think the reality, not the rhetoric, but the reality is that the people who need things will get what they need. I know the spirit of the task force, and when people need things, it doesn’t matter who they are. We try to get them what they need.
TAPPER: All right, Dr. Fauci, God bless you. Thank you so much for all the work you’re doing. We really appreciate it.
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A reminder of the key fact
Epidemics, depressions, and wars are natural aspects of life. If we become weak, one of these ills eventually will destroy our society. For America to survive, each of us must stay connected and committed to our communities and nation. As the Director-General of WHO has said since the beginning, we can survive this well if we support each other. We have the resources. We need only the standard virtues of compassion and courage plus some wit and willpower.
It’s easy to follow the COVID-19 story
The World Health Organization provides daily information, from highly technical information to news for the general public. These are the best sources of information.
- There is their daily situation report, with detailed numbers.
- The Director-General of WHO gives frequent briefings, which are quite insightful.
- Their daily press briefings have more information. An audio goes up afterwads. They post a transcript the next day.
Also, see the wealth of information at the CDC website, especially their situation reports.
Posts about effects of COVID-19
- Hidden news about the epidemic sweeping across America! – Fake news drives out good news.
- A devastating epidemic spreads across America – An epidemic of panic and ignorance.
- COVID-19 will hit the world economy hard. Here’s how.
- Prepare now in case they close the stock market.
- The key to surviving the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The info superhighway makes us stupid about COVID-19.
- Prepare now for a coming COVID-19 depression.
- Blaming China soothes an America fighting COVID-19.
For More Information
Ideas! For some shopping ideas, see my recommended books and films at Amazon. Also, see a powerful and disturbing story about “Birth of a Man of Steel …for the Soviet Union.”
Please like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Also, see these posts about epidemics…
- See the ugly cost of the next big flu pandemic. We can do more to prepare.
- Stratfor: The superbugs are coming. We have time to prepare.
- Posts debunking the hysteria about the 2009 swine flu in America.
- Posts debunking the hysteria about the 2015 ebola epidemic in America.
- Important: A vaccine against the fears that make us weak.
A medieval city defeats a plague
Florence Under Siege:
Surviving Plague in an Early Modern City
By John Henderson (2019), professor of Italian renaissance history at U of London.
I strongly recommend reading this fascinating review of it in the London Review of Books, with its great excerpts. From the publisher …
“Plague remains the paradigm against which reactions to many epidemics are often judged. Here, John Henderson examines how a major city fought, suffered, and survived the impact of plague. Going beyond traditional oppositions between rich and poor, this book provides a nuanced and more compassionate interpretation of government policies in practice, by recreating the very human reactions and survival strategies of families and individuals.
“From the evocation of the overcrowded conditions in isolation hospitals to the splendor of religious processions, Henderson analyzes Florentine reactions within a wider European context to assess the effect of state policies on the city, street, and family. Writing in a vivid and approachable way, this book unearths the forgotten stories of doctors and administrators struggling to cope with the sick and dying, and of those who were left bereft and confused by the sudden loss of relatives.”
