In 2014, Rush Limbaugh accused President Obama of being an utter failure at containing the Ebola breakout. On his website, Limbaugh changed the CDC to CDR for Centers for Disease Redistribution as an attack on how Obama handled the outbreak.
Obama sent troops to battle the disease while it was still outside our borders. We had four cases diagnosed in the United States, with two deaths. A far cry from what is happening today.
We were first warned about COVID-19 in December. Public health officials started warning the government that we needed to prepare for a pandemic.
The president’s son said that the Democrats were hoping for a pandemic that would kill millions of people so they can end Trump’s streak of winning. President Trump himself proclaimed the coronavirus a hoax created by the Democrats to undermine his term in office, and told people to buy stock.
It was all about how the virus affected his presidency and no thought of how it would affect the people.
Now it is here, and people are battling it with bottled water and toilet paper. Our nurses on the frontlines are wearing scarves because there are not enough face masks. People with symptoms who want to be tested for the virus are told that they are not sick enough to be tested as we have a shortage of test kits.
China is sending medical supplies to Italy to help them battle their pandemic while we cannot take care of their own.
Our current government was too busy worrying about the stock market to care about the people. The CDC reduced its efforts of combating disease outbreaks overseas by 80% because of budget cuts by this administration. In the latest budget proposal, the Trump administration has sought to cut the CDC funding by another 16%, even as it is combating the coronavirus.
Take a look around. Is this the way our country handles a problem? It looks like pure chaos to me.
It is time for a change.
Patricia Nelson, West Jordan