The last post showed the figures for coronavirus in Australia and the US. It is clear that Australia is doing better than the US. They are both neoliberal governments, but the neoliberal government in the US is Donald Trump who appears incompetent. This demonstrates that there are different types of neoliberalisms and it is not accurate to say all neoliberalisms are the same. Some are actively harmful.
President Trump did close flights from China (announced 31st Jan, in place 2nd Feb), as he boasts, but originally this closure only referred to foreign nationals, and had so many exceptions that another 40,000 people entered the country from China after it was in place. Yes, that does not make sense at all. Two weeks after the flight ban he was saying the pandemic will be over by April. On the 27th Feb he was saying:
we have done an incredible job. We’re going to continue. It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear. And from our shores, we — you know, it could get worse before it gets better. It could maybe go away. We’ll see what happens. Nobody really knows
Remarks by President Trump in Meeting with African American Leaders
and there appears to have been more or less no federal preparation before March. There are reports that hospital workers are still (April 11) massively under-equipped in the US, and still at risk, which will compound problems as medical support is removed by the virus.
For example, a week ago, the New York Governor was expressing gratitude for ventilators donated by the Chinese Government as New York was running out and there was no sign of availability from the US.
Louisiana, which has also been hit hard by the virus, has requested or ordered 14,000 ventilators from the federal government and the private sector. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards told NPR on Friday that the state had only received 553 so far.
Time Magazine 6 April Gov. Cuomo Says Chinese Government Delivering 1,000 Ventilators to New York
We now know that Trump’s medical advisers were asking him to issue physical distancing guidelines in the 3rd week of February, but apart from acting as a bad example, he delayed action until the 16th March.
By comparison, in Australia, on 21 Jan, Australia’s chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy, stated that “additional proportionate border measures” are in place. The same day health Minister Greg Hunt declared coronavirus a “disease of pandemic potential.” Biosecurity and border security staff were meeting passengers from Wuhan to Sydney. The next day flights from Wuhan stopped. On the 29th Jan, the Queensland government requested quarantine of everyone coming from China, and the federal government released its stockpile of facemasks so hospitals would be equipped in advance. 31st Jan the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency. On the 1st of Feb Australia’s air ‘borders’ with China were effectively closed. Peter Dutton suggested Australians about to leave for any overseas holiday should reconsider their travel. Australians evacuated from Wuhan were quarantined on Christmas Island. There were immediate efforts at quarantining all people travelling in from overseas, even if it was largely voluntary. On the 18th Feb the government released its Emergency Response Plan. On the 27th February, the Prime Minister announced that:
based on the expert medical advice we’ve received, there is every indication that the world will soon enter a pandemic phase of the coronavirus and as a result, we have agreed today and initiated the implementation of the Coronavirus Emergency Response Plan…
So while the WHO is yet to declare the nature of the coronavirus and it’s moved towards a pandemic phase, we believe that the risk of a global pandemic is very much upon us and as a result, as a government, we need to take the steps necessary to prepare for such a pandemic….
we need an even greater abundance of caution to ensure that should the coronavirus move to a very extreme level or there is any particular risk that is associated with children, particularly those attending school, that we have the preparedness and the arrangements in place with states and territories. And I want to thank all of the state and territories for their engagement, whether it’s on this issue on schools or the many other issues, the health issues, that are associated…
we’re effectively operating now on the basis that there is… a pandemic.
27th Feb: Press Conference – Australian Parliament House
The Australian government’s approach was nowhere near perfect, by any means, there are many criticisms which could be made. For example, after advising a ban on large crowd events on the 13th March, the Prime Minister announced he would be attending a football match on the day before the ban came in. However, they had a somewhat different and more constructive approach to Trump, which has continued. For example while Trump has been trying to suggest a back to normal date is soon, Morrison has been saying:
We have seen what’s happened in Singapore most recently, we’ve seen what happened in Sweden and other countries. If you take your eyes off of this thing, and it gets away from you, it writes its own rules, so we do need to understand what the prerequisites are, the things that we have to achieve before we can start to ease some of those restrictions…
I do want to caution Australians that we’re not in that phase yet we’re many weeks away I think from being in a phase like that.
Interview on Sunrise 14th April 2020
Right wingers often say, no doubt inspired by Trump, that there were howls of ‘racism’ from the left, about his blocking of flights from China. I did not hear those howls personally, and some reports seem exaggerated by those being criticised. I did hear people saying that banning flights was not enough, which is true, and perhaps Trump should have done more than think he could wall off trouble? People, such as the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine and others did make requests for politicians to stop encouraging people to avoid or scream at Chinese Australians, or not go to Chinese Restaurants. That kind of internal disunity and pointless conflict is not helpful in containing a pandemic, although it does allow deflection of blame, which is why Trump loves it. People have also criticised his use of the term ‘Chinese virus’ when the virus has a proper name, and is not the only virus originating in China, but again I guess using the term serves to imply that Trump’s bad performance can be blamed on the Chinese, and that the threat is insidious and cunning – and it also feeds into the laregely right wing narrative that the virus is a Chinese bioweapon, that they decided to test in their own country rather than just release in the US (imagine how much worse the US response would have been if they had no warning there was a problem).
Closing borders as much as possible is a standard response to pandemics, and, apart from when bringing people home from foreign shores, is exactly what you would expect. Queensland has tried to close its borders to the rest of Australia as has Western Australia. That is difficult but not unreasonable. It is normal. It is routine, but it needs other backing as well.
There have also been attempts to say that virus is so bad in the US, because ‘the left’ has sabotaged Trump’s attempts to make firm borders. However, Trump had two years with a friendly congress to do whatever he wanted like make stronger borders or fix Obamacare etc. If he didn’t do it then, he either was not capable, uninterested, or there were good reasons for not doing it, which he is ignoring to now try and build political capital by blaming other people (as usual) for his inabilities. I could suggest that the demand for cheap labor by US business was one reason the borders were not closed. Anyway, the virus seems to have come into Mexico from the US, rather than the other way around. So the issue is irrelevant, and nobody has attempted to prevent him from preparing for a pandemic.
Trump continually says no one could have expected this situation. This is clearly not true. The world has been preparing for a pandemic for years. The possibility is glaringly obvious, and many of us were fearing a much worse event than the current one. Mass globalised air traffic, is an invitation for pandemics and, if you don’t know that, then you should not be in politics.
I quote a comedian – because we are in that realm in which comedians have better political knowledge than presidents. I guess the fools have always known more than would be kings:
“First, Obama officials walk Trump aides through a global pandemic exercise in 2017. Then, in 2017 and 2018, threat assessment intelligence analysts even mentioned a close cousin of coronavirus by name, saying it had pandemic potential. Then in 2018, the director for medical and biodefense preparedness at the national security council told a symposium that the threat of pandemic flu is our number one health security concern. Then, top administration officials said last year that the threat of a pandemic kept them up at night. Then, White House economists warned in 2019 a pandemic could devastate America. Then, intelligence reports warned of a coronavirus crisis as early as November. And then, US intelligence reports from January and February warned about a likely pandemic.”
The Guardian 10 April Colbert interviews Sanders
Then:
The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hosted Event 201, a high-level pandemic exercise on October 18, 2019, in New York….
Experts agree that it is only a matter of time before one of these epidemics becomes global—a pandemic with potentially catastrophic consequences. A severe pandemic, which becomes “Event 201,” would require reliable cooperation among several industries, national governments, and key international institutions.
http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/
Furthermore, on the 29th January Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro, circulated a memo warning the administration that a coronavirus pandemic that could wipe out hundreds of thousands of jobs, erase trillions of dollars in economic activity. “The lack of immune protection or an existing cure or vaccine would leave Americans defenseless in the case of a full-blown coronavirus outbreak on U.S. soil,.. This lack of protection elevates the risk of the coronavirus evolving into a full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans.” He also argued that “the clear dominant strategy is an immediate travel ban on China.”
Truly no one could possibly be prepared if they didn’t want to listen.
I have heard right wingers say that Event 201 is suspicious, and shows some deep state planning to run a pandemic to undermine Trump. But that just shows you that they can escape any reality. This was a public event, warning of the possibility of pandemics. If Trump had listened he might have been better prepared, no matter how Machiavellian the organisers were. But he did not listen, and it does help the US to be unprepared if you cut CDC funding by 80%, disband the National Security Council’s global pandemic team, opt to discontinue the “Predict” program which monitored the threat of animal-born diseases crossing over to humans, which is the probable origin point of the current coronavirus, or allow stockpiles of respirators to break down because you cut maintenance contracts. That’s life.
Donald Trump has not had good relations with many States in the US, so coordinating responses has not been wonderful. He has gone so far as to argue the Federal government should not take responsibility for action, and largely left it to the States to do it by themselves.
we had to go into the federal stockpile, but we’re not an ordering clerk. They have to have for themselves.
Rev: Donald Trump Coronavirus Briefing Transcript April 3
He also decided to end federal support for coronavirus testing sites, leaving the States with the responsibility for testing – although that move may be being reconsidered. He has also blamed the States for failures. So presumably his primary strategy is to end his responsibility and shift it, and the blame, elsewhere. He has helped create a toxic political environment, by this refusal to take responsibility, ‘forgetting’ what he said the day before, saying that he would not have contact with governors who were critical of him, and blaming everyone else for his own mistakes.
The context for Trump’s relationships with the US states is provided by the resentment of aid to Puerto Rico, and his blaming of California for its fires and his twitter threat to order Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to cease helping victims of those fires, despite the fires starting on Federal land. During the pandemic, on 27 March Trump declared when asked about his responses to the Governors,
I think we’ve done a great job for the State of Washington and I think the governor, who is a failed presidential candidate as you know, he leveled out at zero in the polls, he’s constantly chirping, and I guess complaining would be a nice way of saying it. We’re building hospitals. We’ve done a great job for the State of Washington. Michigan, she has no idea what’s going on. And all she does is say, “Oh, it’s the federal government’s fault.” And we’ve taken such great care of Michigan…..
All I want them to do, very simple, I want them to be appreciative. I don’t want them to say things that aren’t true. I want them to be appreciative. We’ve done a great job…
You know what I say? If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call.
Rev: Donald Trump Coronavirus Task Force Briefing Transcript March 27
According to some reports the friendly governor of Florida received 100% of its requested medical supplies including 430,000 surgical masks and 180,000 N95 respirators while Massachusetts, which is not so flattering, received a mere 17% of what it requested.
It appears that the only way, that Trump could see the toxic environment ending is if everyone keeps telling him that he is the best president ever.
Other accusations seem more serious:
the White House seizes goods from public officials and hospitals across the country while doling them out as favors to political allies and favorites, often to great fanfare to boost the popularity of those allies. The Denver Post today editorialized about one of the most egregious examples. Last week, as we reported, a shipment of 500 ventilators to the state of Colorado was intercepted and rerouted by the federal government. Gov. Jared Polis (D) sent a letter pleading for the return of the equipment. Then yesterday President Trump went on Twitter to announce that he was awarding 100 ventilators to Colorado at the behest of Republican Senator Cory Gardner, one of the most endangered Republicans on the ballot this year. As the Post put it, “President Donald Trump is treating life-saving medical equipment as emoluments he can dole out as favors to loyalists. It’s the worst imaginable form of corruption — playing political games with lives.”
Talking points: PPE and Ventilators Becomes Patronage in Trump’s Hands
See also: https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-04-07/hospitals-washington-seize-coronavirus-supplies
Australia’s Prime Minister has been much better, despite similar political views, and despite the support of the Murdoch Empire. The Australian PM may have tried to model himself on Trump but he appears never to have been in that league and, he seems to have improved since the bushfire debacle, which is a good sign he can learn to be better.
Our main source of infection in Australia seems to have been people from the Ruby Princess cruise ship. There are questions as to why they were allowed to dock, including allegations that it could dock because it had Hillsong Church friends of the Prime Minister’s on board, and because home affairs intervened to let them dock. Whatever the results of the current police investigation, it should never have been allowed to dock once, never mind twice. But anyone can make a mistake. So it could be a mistake. A severe one, but a mistake.
We now know that unfortunately, many Qantas flights into the country had infected crews, because apparently crew have not had to quarantine if it turns out there were infected passengers on board. Another mistake, but its not sure whether that is the regulator or the business’ fault. Again another mistake.
Border force, or whoever is responsible, should also have been doing the kind of temperature checks in Australia that you get at overseas airports by distance, or forehead, thermometers. I’ve no idea what has been happening in the US. These thermometers have been available for years. The government has now finally started to take temperatures (I know people who came into the country two weeks ago, and they were checked everywhere other than at Sydney). Apparently the new temperature checks are being done manually – which does risk transmission without extraordinary care, and anecdotally this care is not happening. IF this is the case, and has been for more than a day or so, then it is monumentally stupid as well.
It also would have been good for the Government not to encourage queues of people at Centrelink offices, as that was not helpful, but again that was a mistake anyone could have made – initially. It helps you to make that mistake if you think Centrelink’s prime purpose is to punish people on welfare, but this could be changed. How long the mistake lasted or whether it is still happening, seems to be a subject of dispute and its not like the Republicans in Wisconsin forcing people to queue to vote, despite any rational person knowing at this stage this would be a problem and increase the seriousness of the epidemic. But then Republicans apparently ‘know‘ that mailing the votes in, which allows better checking for voter fraud, would mean no Republicans would be elected. I personally think that some Republicans would be elected, but the fear and the preference to sacrifice voters to power is extraordinary. Let us hope this event was just massive incompetence, instead.
It is probably a good idea to argue for random temp checks of the populace, as well as as much coronavirus testing as possible, although to excuse the PM we have not yet built up supplies of reliable checks (it’s not easy, and you need a decent sample size, and duration of testing to find if a test is working properly). Certainly this action is better than the current chorus of righteous demands for old people to die so the economy can get going. People over 60 have lived their lives don’t you know – but even Trump seems to realise that is probably not a vote winner – especially if older people are his main voters, and they all die off.
The Australian prime minister has been incredibly fortunate. If it had been a Labor person acting as he has done, we would be hearing nothing but screaming about how the party was sacrificing Australia’s economy and prosperity and how it was all financially irresponsible, a suppression of liberty, and an encouragement of dole bludging. But he isn’t, so thankfully he can be largely be left to get on with what is necessary. He has also been lucky that Peter Dutton has been sick with coronavirus and Tony Abbott is outside parliament and that Abbott has only been trying to take credit for it all, which is pretty mild for him.
I’d personally would have preferred it if Morrison had not tried to shut parliament so that there was no supervision or questioning of the government. There are many ways around the contagion problem, as nearly every office based workspace has discovered, and we could still function as some kind of participatory democracy.
So the US and Australia are different, and we are left with the proposition that all neoliberalisms are not equally deadly in every situation.
Tags: Disinformation, disorder, pandemic, politics
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