George W. Bush in 2005: And one day many lives could be needlessly lost...

[Charles]

Who would have thought that one day we would look back on George W. Bush as the wise old man? Anyway quite telling:

President George W. Bush in 2005: "There is no pandemic flu in our country or in the world at this time. But if we wait for a pandemic to appear, it will be too late to prepare. And one day many lives could be needlessly lost because we failed to act today." https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1246854614584082439

No name calling in this thread, please.

[David Hayward]

Who would have thought that one day we would look back on George W. Bush as the wise old man?

I compliment you on your mastery of the snide back-hander. Consider yourself an honorary Englishman.

No name calling in this thread, please.

I judge you have set that ball rolling already, yourself. Twice over, no less.

[Mountain Man]

Yep, the latest liberal narrative is to use the words of a former president they loath in an attempt to smear the current president they loath.

But to President Bush's point, it's worth noting that a 2019 study found that the US was the country best prepared to handle a pandemic.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/us-...-found-in-2019

[Charles]

Yep, the latest liberal narrative is to use the words of a former president they loath in an attempt to smear the current president they loath.

But to President Bush's point, it's worth noting that a 2019 study found that the US was the country best prepared to handle a pandemic.

The United States was ranked the best-prepared country in the world to handle a pandemic in late 2019 by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (JHCHS) -- an assessment seemingly at odds with claims by Democrats that the Trump administration left the country vulnerable to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.

The Global Health Security Index was was "developed with guidance from an international panel of experts from 13 countries, with research by the Economist Intelligence Unit" from 2018 to 2019, The Washington Post reported last year. "More than 100 researchers spent a year collecting and validating publicly available data.”

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/us-...-found-in-2019

Going to Johns Hopkins Universtity's presentation of the study, we see:

"National health security is fundamentally weak around the world," the 324-page report concludes. "No country is fully prepared for epidemics or pandemics, and every country has important gaps to address." https://hub.jhu.edu/2020/02/27/trump...t1-dtd-health/

So, to make the claim that the USA was still vulnerable is not wrong. Being the best does not necesassarily mean you are doing good, only that you are doing better. The study clearly says there are important gaps. USA gets an overall score of 83,5 out of 100 possible. So, they were the best, and overall not a bad score. But that still left them with important gaps.

The study itself is rather interesting to read.

Unfortunately it turned out that though they were the best in the study, they did not do very good when they were tested for real.

[Mountain Man]

The overall US response has been fine, although some states have fared worse than others, but that's on the governors and not the federal government.

[Charles]

The overall US response has been fine, although some states have fared worse than others, but that's on the governors and not the federal government.

The "but that's on the governors" part of your statement reminded me of this:

https://www.theguardian.com/membersh...s-dc-reporting

[mikewhitney]

It is interesting that Bush made that remark in 2005. Just a year earlier, the CDC started inflating the numbers that they could call flu deaths. The real numbers in the US were 500 or less but then the CDC started a marketing campaign and included influenza-related deaths into the numbers to get 20,000 and more deaths into the figures. This same type of inflation of numbers is promoted by Birx during the pandemic

here is the start of the 2014 article in Huffington Post:

Source: https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/lawrence-solomon/death-by-influenza_b_4661442.html?guccounter=1

Don't Believe Everything You Read About Flu Deaths
The CDC's decision to play up flu deaths dates back a decade, when it realized the public wasn't following its advice on the flu vaccine. During the 2003 flu season "the manufacturers were telling us that they weren't receiving a lot of orders for vaccine,"Dr. Glen Nowak, associate director for communications at CDC's National Immunization Program, told National Public Radio.
01/24/2014 05:40 EST | Updated 03/26/2014 05:59 EDT

Flu results in "about 250,000 to 500,000 yearly deaths" worldwide, Wikipedia tells us. "The typical estimate is 36,000 [deaths] a year in the United States," reports NBC, citing the Centers for Disease Control. "Somewhere between 4,000 and 8,000 Canadians a year die of influenza and its related complications, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada," the Globe and Mail says, adding that "Those numbers are controversial because they are estimates."

"Controversial" is an understatement, and not just in Canada, and not just because the numbers are estimates. The numbers differ wildly from the sober tallies recorded on death certificates -- by law every certificate must show a cause -- and reported by the official agencies that collect and keep vital statistics.

© Copyright Original Source

History is repeating itself through the current policy of the CDC.

[Mountain Man]

The "but that's on the governors" part of your statement reminded me of this:

During wartime, yes, the "buck" stops at the president's desk since he is the Commander in Chief of our military forces.

Disaster preparedness, on the other hand, is the responsibility of individual states since there's no practical way for the federal government to take on that responsibility. As President Trump a patiently explained to Chuck Schumer in a recent letter, "the Federal Government is merely a back-up for state governments."

[Terraceth]

Who would have thought that one day we would look back on George W. Bush as the wise old man?

I'm not necessarily in agreement with this quote I once saw on Facebook, but it seems fitting:

"George Lucas has become the George W. Bush of Hollywood. At the height of his unpopularity he was supposed to be the worst thing of all time forever, but since a huge corporate monstrosity took over the job he used to have, everyone is now looking back and asking: "Was he really so bad after all?""

[Mountain Man]

I'm not necessarily in agreement with this quote I once saw on Facebook, but it seems fitting:

"George Lucas has become the George W. Bush of Hollywood. At the height of his unpopularity he was supposed to be the worst thing of all time forever, but since a huge corporate monstrosity took over the job he used to have, everyone is now looking back and asking: "Was he really so bad after all?""

Remember this billboard that appeared about 2-years into Obama's first term?

bush-miss-me-yet-billboard-021020104.jpg

[Starlight]

But to President Bush's point, it's worth noting that a 2019 study found that the US was the country best prepared to handle a pandemic.

Well that study hasn't aged well.

[carpedm9587]

Yep, the latest liberal narrative is to use the words of a former president they loath in an attempt to smear the current president they loath.

But to President Bush's point, it's worth noting that a 2019 study found that the US was the country best prepared to handle a pandemic.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/us-...-found-in-2019

Dig into the report. The areas where the U.S. was ranked as weak are pretty telling. And note that the score, while the highest, is basically a B-. If you're grading on a curve, we're amazing. If you're looking at actual preparedness...we're very strong in some areas, meh in others, and very weak in still others. For example, we get 0 out of 100 for "exercising response plans." And we get a 25.3 out of 100 for "healthcare access," ranking 175th in that category. We just happen to be strong or very strong in more areas than we are weak or very weak.

I wonder if anyone in the administration actually looked at this plan to target the weak spots?

[carpedm9587]

The "but that's on the governors" part of your statement reminded me of this:

Trump's motto is "the buck stops there, but credit for anything good can be given here."

[Mountain Man]

Well that study hasn't aged well.

It has aged just fine. The US response has been very good overall even if a handful of Democrat controlled states were inadequately prepared.

[Mountain Man]

Dig into the report.

I did. Thanks.

You do realize that if states like New York and New Jersey had their acts together, the US numbers overall would be better. Nearly 50% of all US cases and deaths attributed to the China flu are in those two states. Democrat controlled Michigan is another Wuhan virus hot spot with the third highest number of deaths, trailing New Jersey by less than a thousand. That's not your President's fault.