And now, before this is all over, we will all know someone that died, or was seriously damaged from this incompetence…

And hopefully remember those that made this tragedy a certainty.

As bad as this is, it gets far worse over the next year. Not only the disease, but the authoritarian impulses of this president will become more insane and erratic as he flails to improve his image… Congressional Republicans blocked a bill that would ensure workers could take 2 weeks sick leave so they can isolate and not infect co-workers, slashed safety standards for health care workers, then wanted to take a recess, the administration is demanding that CDC discussions on the virus be classified, and suppressed the CDC recommendations.

The administration had to walk back numerous lies and misstatements the president made in his national address last night…

Don’t worry- Trump will be back on the golf course soon… once he makes another tweet comparing himself to Nero….

The sick can go to work….

The true number is probably much higher, since the test kits have been faulty and in short supply.

But when Trump took to the lectern for a news conference intended to bring transparency to the spiraling global crisis, he made no explicit mention of the California case and its implications — and falsely suggested the virus might soon be eradicated in the United States.

“And again, when you have 15 people — and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero — that’s a pretty good job we’ve done,” he said.

Trump’s playing down of the California patient at his news conference underscores the administration’s slapdash and often misleading attempts to contain not just the virus, but also potential political damage from the outbreak — which has tanked financial markets, slowed global commerce and killed some 3,000 people worldwide, including the first U.S. death, announced Saturday.

Since Trump touched down from a two-day trip to India early Wednesday morning, the administration struggled to cope with the fallout from the crisis — shaking up and centralizing its coronavirus response team under the leadership of Vice President Pence, floating plans to stabilize the markets and publicly seeking to minimize the threat posed by the potential pandemic.

Interviews with nearly two dozen administration officials, former White House aides, public health experts and lawmakers — many speaking on the condition of anonymity to share candid assessments and details — portray a White House scrambling to gain control of a rudderless response defined by bureaucratic infighting, confusion and misinformation.

“It’s complete chaos,” a senior administration official said. “Everyone is just trying to get a handle on what the [expletive] is going on.”

But don’t worry, Pence is in charge!

They are silencing the experts and punishing those that state the facts

The vice president’s move to control the messaging about coronavirus appeared to be aimed at preventing the kind of conflicting statements that have plagued the administration’s response.

The latest instance occurred Thursday evening, when the president said that the virus could get worse or better in the days and weeks ahead, but that nobody knows, contradicting Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, one of the country’s leading experts on viruses and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.

At the meeting with Mr. Pence on Thursday, Dr. Fauci described the seriousness of the public health threat facing Americans, saying that “this virus has adapted extremely well to human species” and noting that it appeared to have a higher mortality rate than influenza.

“We are dealing with a serious virus,” Dr. Fauci said.

Dr. Fauci has told associates that the White House had instructed him not to say anything else without clearance.

And having a proper plan of action in place means nothing if that plan is not practiced in times that it is not required and not properly implemented when it eventually is required. During my Infantry days I did a lot of hazmat training and I invaded a lot of beaches in Panama — and fired a few thousand pounds of bullets at lifeless targets. Training and practice go hand in hand.

Things might have been done right if those in charge were the ones meeting and greeting the possibly-infected repatriation flights. Good thing they had some fodder to throw out in front of themselves. It’s much easier to just send someone — really anyone — rather than to think and plan out the proper response.