In retrospect the admonition to “Beware the Ides of March,” is not an exact fit for the explosion of COVID-19 in America, but close enough. The 15th of March has a long history of being a bad day. In ancient Rome it was both a religious holiday and the day when debts were settled. It was also the day that Julius Caesar was assassinated in the Senate. In Shakespeare’s play Caesar had been warned to “Beware the Ides of March” by a soothsayer whom he fatally chose to disregard. 

 

Like Julius Caesar, Donald Trump ignored the warnings he received right up to the Ides of March, actually March 16, which is close enough. The “left leaning” website, justsecurity.org, in an article entitled “Timeline of the Coronavirus Pandemic and U.S. Response,” offers us a very informative progression of facts and significant moments of ignored warnings and strategic errors made by President Trump and members of his administration beginning on January 13, 2017 and running up to March 16, and beyond to May 7, its last entry.  It is a remarkable article covering a recent past that has become a blur for most of us. It is an excellent resource, if you want to know who knew what, and did what, when. 

 

I will leave it to your curiosity to get all of the dates and details by reading the article, but here are seventy four events and dates that may have slipped from our collective memory that I have extracted from the article leading up to March 16. Believe it or not, I left out several.  I lift only one event from the next forty three historical notes between March 16 and May 7, the current end of the chronology. It was a long article.The authors promise more to come. Like his more than 18,000 lies since taking office, that assumes he has not told a lie since April 18, this president’s propensity for error and denying responsibility are of such staggering  proportions that we are numbed and frozen like deer in the headlights of an eighteen wheeler. It seems his strategy for preservation is to fatigue us with his follies and rambling assertions of his perfection.

 

The tone of the article is serious. What is reported did happen. It’s not fake news. It’s worse; it is fatiguing, numbing news. It is collective torture. I apologize for the length of what follows. It is a long sad story. If you are pressed for time, just read what I have bolded.

 

• Friday, Jan. 13, 2017: The joint Obama-Trump transition teams run an exercise for pandemic preparedness.  

 

• Sometime in 2017: The Trump Administration is briefed on an Obama-era National Security Council Pandemic “playbook.” The brief is reportedly not adopted as an official Trump administration strategy. 

 

• March-May 2017: President Trump proposes cutting over $277 million in pandemic-preparedness funding. Congress, in bipartisan action, rejects the funding cuts. With bipartisan support…“Cutting the Centers for Disease Control, I think, leaves you very vulnerable and the American people very vulnerable,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) states in a House budget hearing. “Sometime in the president’s term, you will have a pandemic.”

 

• May 11, 2017: The Intelligence Community’s Worldwide Threat Assessment warns of major pandemic risks.

 

• September 2017: The Trump administration contracts with a company to create a prototype of a reusable (rather than one-time use) N95 mask. 

 

• December 2017: The Trump administration reportedly bans the CDC from using the terms “evidence-based” and “science-based.”

 

• February 9, 2018: President Trump signs bill that cuts $1.35 billion in funding for Prevention and Public Health Fund at the CDC.

 

• February 13, 2018: The Intelligence Community’s Worldwide Threat Assessment warns of major pandemic risks.

 

• April 9, 2018: John Bolton starts his first day as National Security Adviser.

 

• April 10, 2018: Bolton fires Homeland Security Advisor, Tom Bossert: …As White House Homeland Security Advisor Bossert “had called for a comprehensive biodefense strategy against pandemics and biological attacks,” reports the Washington Post.

 

• May 7, 2018: White House proposes cutting global health budge.

 

• May 7, 2018: The National Security Council’s director of medical and biodefense preparedness warns that pandemic flu is the top health security concern and that the country is not prepared for it.

 

• May 8, 2018: The National Security Council removes the top official responsible for pandemic response and disbands the global health security team. 

 

• May 15, 2018: Two members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee write to John Bolton, President Trump’s National Security Advisor, to express their concern over the recent actions “taken to downgrade the importance of global health security.” …“We fear these recent decisions will leave the United States vulnerable to pandemics and commit us to a strategy of triage should one occur,” …

 

• May 18, 2018: Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio sends the president a letter saying the decision to cut funding for global health programs and disband the global health team at the National Security Council could cost American lives. 

 

• September 2018: The Department of Health and Human Services diverts funding from the CDC to pay for housing detained immigrant children.

 

• The same month: The Trump administration fails to follow through with an Obama-era project designed to protect against medical supply shortages during pandemics.

 

• September 18, 2018: President Trump issues a Presidential Memorandum and National Biodefense Strategy designed to ensure a comprehensive and coordinated approach to biological incidents. 

 

• January 29, 2019:  The Intelligence Community’s Worldwide Threat Assessment warns that the U.S. is vulnerable to a global pandemic.

 

 

• April 2019: HHS Secretary Alex Azar says what keeps everyone in the Biodefense world up at night is the threat of a pandemic flu. 

 

• July 2019: The Trump administration eliminates an American public health position designed to detect disease outbreaks in China.

 

• End of summer 2019: The Department of Health and Human Services discontinues a maintenance contract for over 2100 ventilators in the federal government’s emergency supply. 

 

• September 2019: The President’s Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) warns that an influenza pandemic may cause tremendous health and economic losses. 

 

• October 2019: The Trump administration concludes a months-long simulation, code-named “Crimson Contagion,” designed to respond to a global influenza pandemic. The Department of Health and Human Services determines that the U.S. is underprepared, underfunded, and under-coordinated to fight an influenza-like pandemic.

 

• November 17, 2019: Possible first case of COVID-19 emerges in Hubei province, China.

 

• Late November-December 2019: U.S. intelligence agencies warn of a “cataclysmic” and “out-of-control” disease in Wuhan, China. 

 

• December 30, 2019: A whistleblower, Chinese doctor Li Wenliang, alerts more than 100 of his colleagues about a new disease in Wuhan in a widely circulated post on social media. 

 

• January-February 2020: U.S. intelligence agencies issue  over a dozen detailed warnings  about the threat of the virus in the President’s Daily Brief, and issue classified reports about the virus; senior U.S. officials begin to form a task force.

 

• January 3, 2020: Chinese colleagues alert the CDC Director about the virus, and he alerts Secretary Azar. 

 

• Sometime later in the month of January: FDA chief Stephen Hahn asks HHS if he can start contacting companies about possible shortages of personal protective equipment and other equipment. HHS tells him no. That decision causes weeks of delay.

 

• January 6, 2020: CDC Director Robert Redfield offers to send a CDC team to China. 

 

• January 7, 2020: The CDC creates an “incident management” system for the novel coronavirus. 

 

• January 9, 2020: China publicly identifies new “pneumonia-like” virus….that is the cause of the pneumonia-like outbreak in Wuhan. The same day: WHO issues guidance for other countries to detect and respond to the novel coronavirus. 

 

• January 10, 2020: Chinese officials announce the first known death from the new coronavirus.

 

• January 11: Chinese scientists publicly release the genetic sequence of COVID-19. 

 

• Mid-January 2020: HHS employees begin drafting contingency plans for enforcing the Defense Production Act to compel private companies to produce critical supplies. 

 

• January 14, 2020: The head of China’s National Health Commission confidentially informs other Chinese health officials that “the epidemic situation is still severe and complex … and is likely to develop into a major public health event.” 

 

• January 16, 2020: German researchers develop a diagnostic test for COVID-19. 
  

 

• January 17, 2020: The CDC implements health screenings in three U.S. airports for travelers coming from Wuhan, China.

 

• January 18, 2020: Alex Azar tries to speak to President Trump about the outbreak for the first time. President Trump ignores the warning. The same day: Dr. Rick Bright, Director of HHS’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), urges the administration to develop a coordinated government response group. 

 

• January 20, 2020: The United States and South Korea each announce their first case of COVID-19 on the same day. 

 

• January 22, 2020: China closes off the city of Wuhan. President Trump states that the United States has the pandemic “totally under control” and that he trusts China...The same day: An expert states that COVID-19 can be transmitted by asymptomatic carriers, “masking the true numbers infected and the extent of person to person transmission.” 

 

• January 25, 2020: Dr. Rick Bright, Director of HHS’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), warns others in the administration that there is a critical need for procuring surgical masks 

 

• January 27, 2020: Acting Chief-of-Staff Mick Mulvaney meets with other senior officials about how the Trump administration is handling the virus. The President’s Coronavirus Task Force begins daily meetings. 

 

• January 30, 2020: (1) A research paper published by the New England Journal of Medicine confirms the existence of asymptomatic transmission of the coronavirus. (2) Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross says the virus will be good for the U.S. economy in a Fox News interview. (3) Secretary Azar directly warns President Trump that the virus could morph into a pandemic, a warning the president discounts as alarmist. 

 

• January 30, 2020: President Trump states that the U.S. has the virus “under control” and hosts a campaign rally in Iowa.  

 

• Early February 2020: White House officials call for more forceful response to the novel coronavirus, but Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin resists. 

 

• February 2, 2020: President Trump restricts entry into the United States from China. 

 

• February 5, 2020: Senators urge the administration to take the virus more seriously. 

 

• February 7, 2020: Dr. Rick Bright, program leader at BARDA, insists that the federal government increase N95 production for healthcare workers and first responders. 

 

• February 9, 2020: Peter Navarro, President Trump’s economic advisor, submits an emphatic 2-page memo to the coronavirus task force urging the government immediately to stop exporting N95 masks abroad and ramp up production, to secure existing doses of a therapeutic drug Remdesivir, and to focus on developing a program to fast track a vaccine. 

 

• February 13, 2020: Secretary Azar announces that the government will establish a “surveillance” program in five cities which will then be expanded nationally, but the plan is delayed for weeks.

 

• Mid-February: The coronavirus begins to spread in New York from Europe, according to recent studies. 

 

• February 19, 2020: Trump assures the public against worrying about the coronavirus. 

 

• February 21, 2020: Dr. Kadlec (HHS) reportedly convenes an urgent meeting of the White House coronavirus task force in an effort to determine not if but when the country would need to be in lock down to prevent the spread of the virus.

 

• February 23, 2020: In an internal communication, Economic Advisor Peter Navarro urgently requests immediate supplemental appropriation to combat the crisis. He warns that the virus “could infect as many as 100 million Americans, with a loss of life as many as 1-2 million souls” and “inflict trillions of dollars in economic damage.” 

 

• February 23, 2020: Dr. Eva Lee informs HHS official Robert Kadlec in the Red Dawn email chain that COVID-19 can be transmitted asymptomatically. Kadlec replies, “Eva, is this true?! If so, we have a huge whole[sic] on our screening and quarantine effort.” Lee confirms the reports and adds, “People are carrying the virus everywhere.” 

 

• February 24, 2020: Dr. Kadlec (HHS) gives President Trump a plan titled “Four Steps to Mitigation.”  Alarmed by reports that healthy people could be asymptomatic carriers and spreading the virus, Dr. Kadlec, a top disaster response official at HHS, gives President Trump a plan. His group’s  report is titled, “Four Steps to Mitigation,” and they tell the president that the administration needs to begin preparing the public for historically extraordinary measures.

 

• The same day: President Trump gives false assurance that the stock market is “starting to look very good” and the coronavirus is “very much under control.” Stock markets decline sharply following news of the spread of the novel coronavirus.

 

• February 25, 2020: The US Army’s National Center for Medical Intelligence raises the warning level that it is likely and imminent COVID-19 will become a pandemic. A CDC director [Dr. Nancy Messonier] says that community spread in the United States is inevitable and Americans should prepare for severe disruption of everyday life. Senior White House officials deny Messonier’s statements.

 

• February 26, 2020: President Trump falsely assures the public that the number of cases will go down.

 

• February 27, 2020: HHS Secretary Alex Azar tells lawmakers that it’s unlikely that large numbers of Americans will need to be hospitalized. The same day: Senator Burr [now being investigated for insider trading for selling stock based on information from the Senate Intelligence Committee] informs a private luncheon that the coronavirus is “much more aggressive” than the United States has seen in recent history and is probably “more akin to the 1918 pandemic.” On the same day: President Trump privately complains that senior CDC official’s public warning is scaring the stock markets, and threatens to fire her. He publicly remarks that the number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. should be “close to zero” in a couple of days. 

 

• February 28, 2020: Dr. Carter Mecher emails the Red Dawn email chain and warns that the United States has a narrow window to implement nonpharmaceutical interventions (such as social distancing). The same day: President Trump says that the virus “like a miracle” will disappear. 

 

• February 29, 2020: Fauci says that Americans do not need to change their daily practices and the current risk is low, but could change. 

 

• Late February: the CDC rejects using the WHO’s Covid-19 diagnostic test. 

 

• Three lost weeks: It takes three more weeks for the administration’s top health experts, among the rising number of COVID-19 cases, to persuade the President. 

 

• March 1, 2020: Dr. Mecher warns the Red Dawn email chain that the United States “should have pulled all the triggers for NPIs [nonpharmaceutical interventions] by now.” 

 

• March 2, 2020: President Trump claims that a vaccine will be readily available. 

 

• March 3, 2020: Vice President Pence announces that the CDC will lift federal restrictions on testing for the coronavirus. 

 

• March 6, 2020: President Trump falsely claims that any American who wants a COVID-19 test can get a test. 

 

• March 10, 2020: Vice President Pence announces that over 1 million tests have been distributed and that 4 million would be distributed by the end of the week. 

 

• March 11, 2020: The World Health Organization (WHO) declares that COVID-19 is a global health pandemic. Later that same day: President Trump announces new travel restrictions from Europe.

 

• March 13, 2020: President Trump declares a national emergency and promises a new website to link Americans to testing sites. [It was a lie.]

 

• March 16, 2020: The President announces Social Distancing Guidelines to be in place for two-weeks.

 

 

There are many events and moment on the tragic march to the “Ides of March” that I have omitted and that you may well remember, like the cancellation of the NBA season, or the announcement that Tom Hanks and his wife had contracted COVID-19, but the travelogue from 2017 to the Ides of March is meant to show the lack of attention that the president displayed in reference to his responsibility to defend the nation. His failure to appropriately fulfill the duties of his office may explain why with five percent of the world’s population, we have twenty five percent of the cases and twenty five percent of the deaths. He is not alone. There has been a worldwide failure of leadership, but were we not, before Trump, the leaders of the world? What has happened is quite a surprise since his goal was to Make America Great Again. It suggest to me that he does not understand what constitutes greatness.

 

We tell ourselves that we are the smartest, the richest, and the most innovative society that the world has ever known. Our president frequently tells us that he is smart, even a genius. Some say he is the “chosen one.” Those claims and the record will stand in history. Will they be the beginning words of the last chapter in the book on the “greatness” of America?

 

I will leave the rest of the timeline for you to study except to remind you that in exactly one month after “the Ides of March” the president was done with worrying about the pandemic even as more than one thousand people a day were dying as a result of all of the missed opportunities to avoid the “Ides of March.” 

 

April 16, 2020: President Trump announces his Guidelines for Opening Up American Again. 

 

The truth is that he ran out of “focus” in less than ten days. Remember that on March 24 he announced that he wanted full churches on Easter.

 

Caesar ignored the warnings of a soothsayer, and paid a personal price. Trump has ignored the advice of scientists and physicians from around the world, and the advice of earnest members of his own staff, plus the experience and advice that the Obama administration responsibly tried to pass on to him, and we are paying the price. None of the science and none of the advice interested him. He considers himself to be a “perfect genius” and there are enough like minded individuals who are willing to follow his example to make “herd immunity” the default strategy that ends this pandemic. Herd immunity requires that at least 40% of a population be immune to the disease, but to effectively stop its spread 80 to 90% is more likely to be effective. 

 

Let’s do the numbers:

 

The current estimated population of America is a little north of 330,000,000. Forty percent would be 132,000,000. We are told that about one percent of those infected die, that is over a million deaths. Currently we have a little over 2 million positive cases with about 120,000 deaths. That is strange, because current numbers are suggesting that our mortality rate is 6% [120k/2 million]. The most likely explanation is that there are 10 million people who have been infected, but haven’t been tested. It is also true that there are probably many false negatives. Either way there is a world of hurt ahead. And what do we see going on now with the president’s encouragement? We see crowded beaches, political rallies and conventions being planned, and some schools and colleges planning for “in person classes” in the fall. For many “pandemic fatigue” or denial seems to be driving their dangerous behavior, and their cheerleader is the president. 

 

His long shot strategy is the rush to an effective vaccine. I am suspicious and cynical enough to surmise that he is hoping that rosey vaccine predictions are an effective election strategy. If nothing else the stock market gets a lift every time there is a hint that we are getting closer to a treatment or a vaccine. 

 

Americans value self reliance and individual freedom. My conservative, libertarian, evangelical father put everyone else’s individual freedom into a neighborly perspective when he would say, “Your freedom ends where my nose begins!” These days that saying may still be true, but it would be foolish to expect everyone to honor that philosophy and realize that their unmasked face and willingness to join the crowd having drinks at the local bar are threats to my well being. It would be even more naive to expect this president will ever accept his responsibility to protect human life as his highest priority. Economists suggest that a second wave of infection will negate any benefit from prematurely opening the economy in an irresponsible way. The only recourse for a thoughtful person is to assume that many will not recognize, or care, that the exercise of their freedom will threaten the health of another, and take steps to continue to defend one’s self. “Self defense” is the only plausible strategy as we “emerge” from sheltering at home and see the number of cases and hospitalizations in many states begin to rise, and be simultaneously ignored by the public officials who not so long ago promised to vigilantly follow the numbers and respond effectively at the first sign of an increase in cases. 

 

My governor has relaxed the restrictions on church attendance, and last Sunday, after several weeks of careful planning we resumed services. Normally our sanctuary can seat about 300 people. Two out three pews were blocked, and the flow into church was carefully controlled to insure that at all times there were six feet between every individual or family unit. The musicians were in the balcony. There was no group singing, and no choir, just one soloist. The minister was behind plexiglas. There were two services instead of one. Both services were offered online. The process was explained in a detailed letter to all who are on our mailing list. The letter contained the following advice for individual consideration which I authored as the church moderator:

 

A list of questions to consider about yourself that may help you decide if there is increased risk for you, if you attend church: 

 

Are you over 70? 

Do you have a chronic medical condition like heart disease, COPD, asthma, cancer, or diabetes? 

Has your doctor ever told you that you have a compromised immune system, or are susceptible to infections? 

Do you vape or smoke? 

Do you take several prescription medications? 

Have you been hospitalized for a medical condition in the last year? 

Do you live alone, or are you the primary caregiver of someone who would be compromised if you were to become ill? 

 

If the answer to any of questions was “yes,” I suggested that they stay home and continue to watch online. The results were interesting. We had about thirty people attend each of the two services. One hundred and sixty, myself included, opted to attend online. I am told that there were at least two who did attend who were over 70, the oldest being 90. I do not know if either of these older members had read the letter.

 

I believe that there are ways to safely relax some of the stay at home restrictions, in some places. What is needed is responsible leadership, and a public that trusts the advice of leadership at all levels, because they believe that the number one priority of those leaders is the health and safety of every member of the community. As I look around and look forward, I am sad to say that the best personal strategy for a long time to come is to continue to exercise self control and the willingness to delay many gratifying experiences until the storm has finally passed. Any other behavior would be akin to Caesar’s error of ignoring the soothsayer.