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Fareed’s Take- Blaming China fixes nothing
Fareed Zakaria: President Trump
now tells us China is to blame
for the havoc that the coronavirus
is wrecking across the world.
He's paused funding to the World Health
Organization because he says it colluded
with China and keeping the facts hidden.
To evaluate these claims, just
keep in mind one tweet from
the president on January 24th.
China has been working very hard
to contain the Corona virus.
The United States greatly appreciates
their efforts and transparency.
It will all work out well.
In particular on behalf
of the American people.
I want to thank president Xi.
What did the world including president
Trump know about the virus at that point?
While one day earlier on January 23rd
the World Health Organization warned
all countries should be prepared for
containment of the virus, including
active surveillance, early detection,
isolation, and case management, contact
tracing and prevention of onwards spread.
By this point, stories about the
virus were all over the news.
China had announced that the virus
was being transmitted between
humans and had begun locking
down parts of Hugh Bay province.
As for the U S government on January
18th a week earlier, health and human
services secretary, Alex Azar, had
briefed Trump on the dangers of the
virus, according to the Washington post.
By January 24th there were two confirmed
cases of the disease in the US and on
January 27th, the Centers for Disease
Control issued a Level three warning
to avoid non-essential travel to China.
On January 29th Trump tweeted,
just received a briefing on the Corona
virus in China from all our great agencies
who are also working closely with China.
That very day, one of Trump's most trusted
aides, Peter Navarro, wrote a memo warning
about a possible pandemic that could
kill up to half a million Americans.
Navarro noted that Chinese reports
indicated that the virus was likely
far more contagious than the flu, more
like the bubonic plague or smallpox.
The next day, January 30th the WHO
declared a global public health emergency.
Just hours after that,
this is what Trump said,
Donald Trump: We're working very
strongly with China on the Corona virus.
We think it's going to have
a very good ending for us.
Fareed Zakaria: So the question
is, was Donald Trump telling the
truth about China then or is he
telling the truth about it now?
Let me be clear with regard to COVID 19
China engaged in a coverup and the WHO did
not push back enough though both deny it.
Local officials in Wuhan knew about the
disease early, but chose to minimize fears
about it and punish doctors who spoke out.
Beijing for its part, kept a tight lid on
information, refused help from the CDC,
and gave the WHO limited access to Wuhan.
Some health experts say it is likely
that China is still giving us unreliable
data about the numbers of infected and
dead, and China's repressive regime
has always controlled and manipulated
information to serve its larger interests.
But none of that changes the fact
that Donald Trump was well aware
of the potential dangers of the
virus by late January at minimum,
and by mid February at the latest.
He made a judgment that the virus
would not be a big problem for
America, that it wouldn't go away
in April with warmer weather.
He apparently worried that taking
any strong actions against it
would spook the stock market.
It is those misjudgments that
have significantly worsened
the COVID 19 crisis in America.
Now, to deflect blame from himself,
president Trump has decided to bash China.
This compound's one bad
policy with another.
Whatever China's mistakes and missteps
and deceptions, the fastest way to defeat
this pandemic would be to build a broad
international alliance to pool resources,
share information, and coordinate actions.
Right now, Washington is doing the
opposite, restricting trade and
key supplies, allegedly outbidding
other countries for shipments
of PPE and acting without even
consulting with its closest allies.
China, meanwhile, has tried to
scrub its own record by floating
a conspiracy theory that the U S
military created the outbreak in Wuhan.
It has also tried to burnish its image
by doing undeniably good things like
lending its expertise to countries
around the world and sending supplies
to hard-hit places such as Iran,
Italy, Spain, and the United States.
During the cold war, when the
United States and the Soviet Union
were mortal rivals, they still
cooperated on a campaign to vaccinate
the world and eradicate smallpox.
Now we are in the middle of a global
pandemic, and the US and Chinathe
world's two leading powers, are
trading insults and one upping each
other in a childish blame game that
will not save one human life anywhere.
For more, go to cnn.com/fareed and read
my Washington post column this week.