President Donald Trump claimed Thursday that ‘nobody’ knew there would be a pandemic and said he could not explain reports of a shortage of medical equipment – as an October government simulation was disclosed that foreshadowed some of the crises that have ensued with the coronavirus.
Trump was pressed repeatedly during a press briefing on the coronavirus Thursday about looming shortages of hospital beds and equipment, as front-line caregivers are reporting a lack of masks to deal with patients.
‘I cannot explain the gap. I am hearing good things on the ground,’ Trump said. ‘They had to ramp up they had an obsolete system a system simultaneously that was not meant for this. It wasn’t meant for this. Nobody knew there would be a pandemic or an epidemic of this portion. Nobody’s ever seen anything like this before,’ Trump said.
”I cannot explain the gap,’ said President Trump when asked why front line hospital workers were experiencing equipment shortages
Amid the mounting needs, the administration is dispatching Navy hospital ships, looking to convert facilities, and set up mobile hospitals. Trump was deliberately vague on whether he had ordered companies to produce more gear using defense powers.
‘I can tell you that what we are doing is we are working with local governments, with states’ governors even mayors on getting them to be able to get what they need. And the system is starting to work out very well,’ Trump said.
‘But we had to break a system like breaking an egg. Because the system we had was obsolete and did not work. And that was the system we inherited. Now we have something that’s been very good and certainly going to be great for the future, too.’
Trump made his comments where he repeatedly attacked the media as ‘fake news’ and even joked about removing reporters he doesn’t like under the social isolation procedures employed in the White House briefing room.
‘If we find that we need something, we will do that. Wou don’t know what we have done,’ Trump said response to a question about equipment. ‘You don’t know if we’ve invoked it or what’s been ordered,’ he said, of a defense powers authority. ‘I can only tell you that as an example masks, nobody ever heard of the number of masks that’s been ordered. They are being made now and many are available now. But people i think in the media don’t know that,’ he said.
Vice President Mike Pence speaks during a tour of the ‘secretary’s operation center’ following coronavirus task force meeting at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in Washington, U.S., February 27, 2020
The U.S. Strategic National Stockpile was started in 1999 to prepare for certain threats to national security. It includes about $8 billion worth of vaccines, medicine, protective gear, ventilators and other kinds of medical equipment
‘Nobody knew there would be a pandemic or an epidemic of this portion’
An October simulation forecast how a pandemic might play out
The draft ran a simulation for the ‘Crimson Contagion’
The simulation tracked the spread of a respiratory disease
‘Governors are supposed to get it. The states are suppose to get it. But w’ere helping the states. Look for years they bought them and now all of a sudden they’re coming to the federal government.
He bristled at suggestions the administration wasn’t prepared.
‘When you say I was not prepared, I was the first to do the ban and other countries are following what I did. The media did not acknowledge it. They know it is true but they don’t want to write about it.’ He was referring to the decision to block travel with China after the emergence of what he calls the ‘China virus.’
Soon after he spoke, the New York Times released a draft report – marked as not for distribution – that the Trump administration in October had run a simulation of what would happen in a respiratory virus pandemic like the one identified just two months later.
‘Confusion emerged as state governments began to turn in large numbers to Washington for help to address shortages of antiviral medications, personal protective equipment, and ventilators . Then states started to submit requests to different branches of the federal government, leading to bureaucratic chaos,’ according to the draft report.
Vice President Mike Pence told reporters Thursday that the administration has located ‘tens of thousands’ of ventilators that can be used to help victims of the coronavirus who need to be hospitalized.
Pence spoke alongside President Trump amid criticism that the U.S. health system is dramatically short of critical supplies amid the outbreak.
The nation has an estimated 62,000 ventilators, but could be dramatically short amid a crush of hospitalizations. Health officials are warning of a dangerous shortage of ventilators in hospitals across the United States that are bracing for an influx in coronavirus patients.
The shortage also applies to masks, gowns, and other equipment, including specialized N95 masks that can protect caregivers from the virus.
The World Health Organization has urged all countries to ‘optimize the availability’ of lung ventilation equipment, which are essential in treating critically-ill patients with COVID-19 by assisting or replacing breathing functions and pumping oxygen into the blood to keep organs functioning.