Under pressure for his actions in the United States as the Coronavirus death toll rises alarmingly, the US President Donald Trump has tried to deflect the blame onto China and the World Health Organization (WHO) for being too slow to sound the alarm in its tackling of the pandemic, saying 'The WHO really blew it' although in response the WHO has rejected the Trump criticisms and released it's reports showing the timeline of events revealing who knew what and when.
On 31 December 2019, China alerted the World Health Organisation who reported it to Global Health Officials on the same day, the USA National Security Council was informed and 3 days later Donald Trump was advised in his Daily Briefings.
Taking the 4th of January as the day Donald Trump was alerted, he was then warned 6 days later by the WHO that there was a global threat and they suggested isolation procedures to curb the spread.
17 days later on January 21st the first reported case of Covid-19 in the US.
January 28th, 24 days later, the President is urged act to prevent an Epidemic and to build a team for the issuing of medical supplies and on Day 25 is warned that the Government should be developing a containment strategy, a call backed up by the WHO on January 30th who declared a 'public health emergency of international concern' repeating their earlier call for all governments to pursue containment and testing. The same Day US medics warned about a critical shortage of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).
29 Days after becoming aware, US Health Officials call on the administration to dramatically expand testing and on Day 30 Intelligence officials advised the Trump administration they would need to take containment actions that could disrupt Americans daily lives.
61 Days after being told by the WHO, and 35 days after being told there is a shortage of PPE, the Health and Human Services System tell the Government that they need equipment and have 1% of the respirator masks needed.
On March 16th, 67 days after being advised by WHO to isolate citizens, the Trump administration advocates social distancing and school closures to slow the spread of the contagion and on April 2nd, President Trump announces a team to handle the logistics and supply chain for providing medical supplies to the states, 90 Days after first being told of the virus and 66 days after being asked to gather a team to distribute the medical supplies.
The breakdown is then after being alerted by the WHO, it took Donald Trump and his team 67 Days to announce the isolation and social distancing measures required and 90 days to organise the distribution of the PPE which looks very much like a failing of Donald Trump rather than a failing of the World Health Organisation.
As of today 11 April 2020, more than 503,177 cases of COVID-19 had been confirmed in the U.S. and the virus had killed more than 18,800 Americans which explains why Donald Trump is desperate to find a scapegoat and deflect blame for his awful management of this crisis.
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