“It was heartbreaking to watch. If someone had been there, public health officials and governments across the world could have moved much faster.”

— Bao-Ping Zhu, a Chinese American, who, from 2007 to 2011, acted as resident adviser to the U.S. Field Epidemiology Training Program in China, a role designed to help detect disease outbreaks in China, and a role which was eliminated last fall by the Trump administration. The last person in the role, Dr. Linda Quick, who trained Chinese field epidemiologists to help track, investigate and contain diseases, left in July because of the Trump budget cuts. Via Reuters. 

Good fucking god. 

So far, I never blamed Trump for the COVID-19 pandemic; I just blamed him for the way he's ignored and mishandled it, and the misinformation he's spread, and how every day he's making it all about himself. But he's such a fuck-up he may actually be responsible for some part of it.

As of today, there are 2 million confirmed cases, 134,000 people have died, and we‘re all sheltering in place amid a certain worldwide Depression. 

Heartbreak is mild compared to how I feel right now.

 ADDENDUM: It’s actually worse than I thought. I assumed this article was recent but it's from ... March 22? And never got traction? How did that happen? How screwed up is everything that this story did not get traction?