90-Second Read: Amid growing concerns about Hantavirus, Trump haunted by repeated misjudgments

Last Thursday, during a presidential field trip to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a reporter asked Donald Trump whether he had received a Hantavirus briefing. Nevertheless, a day later, during another White House Q&A, he added that "very good people" have looked into the threat and concluded that Hantavirus transmission is difficult. Q: What do you say to infectious disease experts who are worried the country isn't prepared to deal with something like Hantavirus because of all the HHS funding and staffing cuts?TRUMP: Doc, you want to answer that?DR OZ: It's just not true. In hindsight, perhaps uprooting and destabilizing the nation's public health infrastructure wasn't such a good idea.

The Associated Press reported : No quick dispatching of disease investigators. Smith, a professor of epidemiology at Kent State University's School of Public Health, explained in a piece for MS NOW : Scientific expertise in virology, epidemiology, diagnostics, environmental sampling and basic medicine are critical to the response. Trump's decision to abandon the World Health Organization hasn't exactly helped, either.

Asked what he'd learned, the president said he and his team "hope" the matter is under control. For those with PTSD from the Republican's failure to respond responsibly to the Covid-19 crisis six years ago, his unscripted comments were hardly reassuring. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which has nothing to do with infectious diseases or federal responses to public health threats. This White House will tell you the risk to Americans is low.