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Larry Brilliant, who worked to eradicate smallpox and warned of a terrifying pandemic in 2006, blasted Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus outbreak in a new interview.
“All we got were lies,” the doctor said Wired on Mr. Trump’s response to the global pandemic. “Saying it’s wrong, saying it’s a Democratic hoax. There are still people today who believe this, to their detriment.
He went on to describe the president’s public statements suggesting the virus was a “hoax” as “the most irresponsible act by an elected official that I have ever witnessed in my life,” and told the magazine that the The White House administration had failed to provide good advice in the early weeks of the pandemic.
The doctor was apparently referring to comments Mr Trump made at a rally on February 28, during which he claimed the Democratic Party was “politicizing” the pandemic and said the virus had become “their new hoax”.
“Democrats will always say horrible things,” he said at the time. “The Democrats want us to fail so badly.”
The president has begun to shift his tone around the virus somewhat in recent weeks, alleging his administration has “total control” over the outbreak during a press conference while warning that the US economy will likely suffer as the company effectively shuts down in most states across the country. .
As health officials urged tens of millions of Americans to self-isolate and practice social distancing and the stock market continued to plunge amid growing concerns surrounding the coronavirus, Wired noted how the new reality was doing echo the predictions made by Mr. Brilliant during a TED talk.
The doctor said of a potential pandemic: “A billion people would get sick.”
He added: “As many as 165 million people would die. There would be a worldwide recession and depression, and the cost to our economy of $1 trillion to $3 trillion would be much worse for everyone than the death of just 100 million people, because many more people would lose their employment and their health care benefits, that the consequences are almost unthinkable.
The United States has faced significant hurdles in testing after confirming its first official case of the new coronavirus on January 20 – the same day South Korea reported its own first case of the mystery disease.
However, South Korea managed to test 274,000 citizens in two months, while the United States tested only around 25,000 people during the same period. Analysts said those weeks were a window of time in which health officials could have prevented countless deaths by testing patients with flu-like symptoms and slowing nationwide transmission.
Mr Brilliant said the latest advice from US health officials and the Trump administration to isolate and limit gatherings to no more than 10 people was better advice than the president’s previous comments. He also described the epidemic as “the most dangerous pandemic of our lifetime”.
“If you’re not worried, you’re not paying attention,” he said. “But I’m not afraid. I firmly believe that the measures we are taking will extend the time it takes for the virus to go around. I think that, in turn, will increase the likelihood that we will have a vaccine or have a prophylactic antiviral in time to cut off, reduce or truncate the spread.
