b'EditorFrom January 11th to 17th, the Communist Party provincial conclave was takingNOBODY KNEW THERED BE A PANDEMIC OR AN EPIDEMIC OF THIS PRO-place in Wuhan, and local authorities had no interest in publicizing the mysteryPORTIONNOBODY WOULD HAVE EVER THOUGHT A THING LIKE THIS virus that was clearly spreading person-to-person and was starting to take livesCOULD HAVE HAPPENED. PRESIDENT TRUMP, MARCH 19THin the citys two largest hospitals. It was in the middle of this period that ChineseAdmiral Hyman J. Rickover was the father of Naval nuclear propulsion, and would misinformation about the outbreak was formally broadcast throughout the worldshare his lifes lessons with the young officers in training under him, Success teach-with the help of the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations officiales us nothing; only failure teaches.health agency. On January 14th, the WHO posted a Tweet echoing Chinas official as- That said, before offering our analysis of how the Trump Administration has sessment that no clear evidence existed that the novel coronavirus (still unnamed)handled the Covid-19 crisis, I will first apologize to the die-hard Trump supporters, was being transmitted human-to-human.those who believe he has never told a lie and that he has never made a mistakea On the ground in Wuhan, Chinese authorities were already backing off theirbona fide Stable Geniusbecause there is legitimate criticism to be levied.own assertion, issuing a bulletin stating, The possibility of limited human-to-hu- The more meaningful apology, however, is to those most familiar with the gen-man transmission cannot be excluded, but the risk of sustained transmission is low.eral political leanings of this editorial staff, and those who are reflexively opposed Six days later, on the 20th, the Chinese government finally admitted that the virusto every word and every action of the President of the United States. We are found was spreading among people, and a few days after that, Wuhan, a city of 11 millionauthentically patriotic to the success of our country in the same way we all werefor people in Central China, was locked down. The next week, WHO director Dr. Tedrosa while at leastafter September 11, 2001. In the weeks since the pandemic came to Adhanom Ghebreyesus visited China and praised its government for setting a newAmerica, more people have died than in fifteen 9/11s. If at this moment in our histo-standard in outbreak response. He did not specify whether he was referring to ary you cannot hope for the success of the President, which equals the success of the high standard or a low one, but his comments were taken as praise. country, then your hate for Trump has overtaken your love for America.ThequestionmustWHO Director with President Xi of China For all our sake, however, it cannot be acceptable for the President to ignore, or be begged, Who is run- not hear, one warning after another about this exact crisis. On April 17, 2019, speak-ning the WHO? ing at a biodefense conference, Trumps Health and Human Services Secretary, Alex Dr. Tedros took of- Azar,said,Ofcourse,the fice as Director Generalthing that people ask: What of the WHO in 2017 andkeeps you most up at night in is the first chief of thethe biodefense world? Pan-agency to not be a phy- demic flu, of course. On Jan-sicianhewasheadofuary 29th, economic advisor healthcare in his nativePeter Navarro issued a memo Ethiopia, where he wasto the President warning him accusedofcovering-upof a potential pandemic that three malaria epidemics.could wreck the U.S. econo-China is the biggest for- my. The next day, Secretary eigninvestorinAfrica,Azar voiced the same warn-and Ethiopia, not exact- ing to Trump on a call to Air ly known for its bountyWuhan was quarantined from travel withinForce One but was told to not ofnaturalresourcesorChina, but international flights continued. be alarmist.scientificachievement,Tohisgreatcredit, is home to the third most Chinese projects of all countries on the continent. In hisPresidentTrumpstopped January 31st declaration of a world health emergency in response to the epidemic inmost air travel from China to the U.S. on January 31st, a move the WHO criticized at China, Tedros said, The main reason for this declaration is not what is happening inthe behest of China and that presumptive Democratic nominee for president, former China but what is happening in other countries. He further expressed his concernVice President Joe Biden, called xenophobiche has since acknowledged that it was that the disease would spread to countries that have weaker healthcare systems thanthe right move at the time. A relentless salesman, Trump seemed to be trying to talk the Chinese. Covid-19 out of reality, saying:That wasnt enough for the WHO in fulfilling their role as propagandists for theWe pretty much shut it down coming in from China. Its going to be fine.Communist Party of China. When the novel coronavirus (a type of virus that has spikesWere going very substantially down, not up.on its surface) had spread widely enough to be assigned its own name, a function del- One day its like a miracleit will disappear.egated to the WHO, they chose SARS-CoV-2 due to its genetic similarity to the 2002And this is [the Democrats] new hoax!SARS-CoVbut thats the virus that causes the disease, which gets another name:It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.Covid-19 in this case. The WHO stated that they chose a name that would neitherAfter the Dow Jones, along with every other stock market on earth, crashed by a scare Asian populations by using the term SARS, nor would link the disease to thethird of its value in less than ten days, the Covid-19 pandemic finally spoke to Presi-geographic location where it originated, so as not to stigmitize any country. dent Trump in a language he understood. The time for denial was over.Were not making this s*** up. While Trump and members of his cabinet made hopeful predictions and claims Sadly, we also could not make up the level of chaos and incompetence of theof success that didnt really exist, they were in the company of just about every one United States Government, whose failure to effectively respond to the Covid-19 pan- of their political opponents in failing to take the Covid-19 threat seriously. Until demic puts them in the company ofeveryone. The failure is universal, with pre- mid-February, prominent Democrats like New York Mayor Bill De Blasio, Speaker of cious exceptions, but our agenda as news media it to tell it how it really happened,the House Nancy Pelosi and others voiced mild concern, parroting the soothing words and what we must learn if we are to avoid this level of self-induced pain again. repeated on every, major TV news broadcast through early Februarythat many more As it becomes clearer and clearer that the cure is worse than the disease, aspeople die of the seasonal flu each year than would be threatened by Covid-19. The the President was lambasted for saying, our news media, writ large, deserves a highGovernor of Louisiana and Mayor of New Orleans, both Democrats, allowed Mardi level of criticism and scrutiny along with the elected officials who followed them. Gras to go forward, as did the very pro-Trump, Republican Governor of Florida allow 16 THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINEFEATURED: The Stories that Mattered TheCoastalBend.com'