As you’ve probably heard by now, one of the key reasons the United States has become the global epicenter of the coronavirus crisis is because of the federal government’s refusal to take the pandemic seriously (in addition to a criminal lack of testing and an outrageous shortage of medical supplies including masks and ventilators). Of course, Donald Trump’s months-long insistence that the virus was no big deal came despite dire warnings from the World Health Organization—which classified COVID-19 as an international health emergency on January 30—public health experts, other countries, and his own intelligence briefings. And, as we now know, the West Wing was also warned of mass deaths and catastrophic economic costs as early as January, by someone on the inside.
The New York Times reports that in late January, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro wrote in a memo that the virus then engulfing China could stand to kill half a million Americans due to the “lack of immune protection or an existing cure or vaccine,” a situation that elevated the risk of the coronavirus “evolving into a full-blown pandemic.” At the time, he called for an “immediate travel ban on China.” (The memo was dated January 29; more than six weeks later, Trump was still claiming the “fake-news media” was doing everything in its power to “inflame the Coronavirus situation,” and that “the risk is low to the average American.”)
In a second memo a month later, Navarro reportedly warned that as many as 2 million Americans could die from COVID-19. At this point, he urged the administration to ask Congress for billions to fight the pandemic, writing, “This is NOT a time for penny-pinching or horse trading on the Hill.” He noted that over a four-to-six-month period, the U.S. would likely need “at least a billion face masks, 200,000 Tyvek suits, and 11,000 ventilator circuits, and 25,000 PAPRs (powered air-purifying respirators.)” Noting the history of pandemic flus, he added: “This historical precedent alone should be sufficient to prove the need to take aggressive action to contain the outbreak.”
Unfortunately for Navarro, his reputation preceded him. While his stark warnings actually turned out to be rather prophetic, and probably should’ve been heeded by the White House—or at least more heeded than the alternative, which was basically doing nothing—they were viewed through the lens of his ongoing hatred of China. Navarro has long viewed Beijing as the enemy, wrote a book called Death by China, and, according to former National Economic Council director Gary Cohn, used dirty tactics to start a trade war with the nation. “The January travel memo struck me as an alarmist attempt to bring attention to Peter’s anti-China agenda while presenting an artificially limited range of policy options,” a senior administration official who received the memos at the time told Axios. Health care editor Sam Baker notes that the memos placed “a very big emphasis on banning travel specifically from China,” though by the time the first one was issued, there were confirmed cases of COVID-19 in 15 countries, including the U.S.
Fast-forward several months and, obviously, the situation Stateside has become dire. At present, Navarro has been tasked with expediting the production of medical equipment needed to address the crisis—which would obviously be a welcome development given the lack of necessary supplies—and has simultaneously been pushing for use of the drug hydroxychloroquine, which health officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, have warned is nowhere near ready to be declared a miracle cure.
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