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. A related report from The New York Times added, "To some public health experts, the alarming thing about this situation is not the Hantavirus, which they note spreads among people rarely, and only with close contact over a period of time rather than casual interactions. 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. Nevertheless, a day later, during another White House Q&A, he added that "very good people" have looked into.

Trump's decision to abandon the World Health Organization hasn't exactly helped, either. Public health under this administration is a sinking ship, and Trump keeps firing the crew," Schumer concluded. The very CDC inspectors and port health workers we need to track this virus, the people whose entire job is to keep deadly diseases off cruise ships and out of our country, Donald Trump fired them. 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.

In hindsight, perhaps uprooting and destabilizing the nation's public health infrastructure wasn't such a good idea. When a reporter quickly followed up, "Should Americans be concerned it's going to spread?" Trump replied, "I hope not." The exchange didn't exactly inspire confidence. I've never seen that before." In hindsight, perhaps uprooting and destabilizing the nation's public health infrastructure wasn't such a good idea. 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. Other weaknesses in our federal agencies include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention having no permanent director, and the interim head, Jay Bhattacharya, being busy running the National Institutes of.

But more important than what Trump has said is what he has done. The Associated Press reported : No quick dispatching of disease investigators. 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. That is incompetence." Kennedy and Rubio have not yet responded to the Democratic leader's request for information.