Given that the WHO just declared a Public Health Emergency
of International Concern on the novel coronavirus, does President Trump still
harboring a “cavalier attitude” towards the coronavirus emergency?
By: Ringo Bones
Given that his so-called inner circle often advises anyone
who approaches to within talking range of President Trump – like foreign
dignitaries and reporters from major news outlets – that he is a “germophobe”, Trump
really has a track record of harboring a cavalier attitude towards pathogens of
public health concern. I mean since 2018, on average, the Trump Administration
had been slashing the annual budgets of the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and
Human Services by almost 15-percent on an annual basis since 2018.
President Trump enacted an executive decision to slash the
budget of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention back in 2018 focused on
eliminating the funding of Obama era disease security programs and also of the
Health and Human Services. Back in 2018, the White House eliminated a position
on the National Security Council tasked with coordinating a global pandemic
response. During a federal government budget proposal meeting for the 2020 US
Government Budget held back in 2019, the Trump Administration sought to cut the
CDC’s annual budget for the fiscal year 2020 by as much as 16-percent.
President Trump’s rather cavalier attitude about the novel coronavirus even raised a furor of criticism by the American public that raises
an impression that President Trump is more concerned about the health of Dow
Jones than the health of Joe Public. Given the March 9, 2020 declaration of the
World Health Organization that the spread of the novel coronavirus across China
and to a growing list of international locations constitute a Public Health
Emergency of International Concern will prompt the Trump Administration to be
concerned with the American public’s health – as opposed to the financial
health of Wall Street.
