By Lee Cary ——Bio and Archives--April 18, 2020
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Big, cataclysmic events seldom come out of nowhere. Though, granted, they occasionally do. Particularly when the earth acts unexpectedly.
On March 27, 1964, the Great Alaskan Earthquake, also known as the Good Friday Earthquake, was a magnitude 9.2 megathrust quake; the most powerful earthquake recorded in North American history. Second most powerful in world history. Unexpected.
“It is vital that our nation discuss and address the threat of pandemic flu now. 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. Our strategy is designed to meet three critical goals. First, we must defeat outbreaks that occur anywhere in the world. Second, we must protect the American people by stockpiling vaccines and antiviral drugs. And improve our ability to rapidly produce new vaccines against a pandemic strain. And third, we must be ready to respond at the federal, state, and local levels in the event that a pandemic reaches our shores.”Dr. Anthony Stephen Fauci was in the audience. He had served, since 1984, as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases within the NIH. It’s reported that “He has turned down several offers to lead his agency's parent, the NIH, and has been at the forefront of U.S. efforts to contend with viral diseases like HIV, SARS, the 2009 swine flu pandemic, MERS, Ebola and COVID-19”. In 2014, then President Barack Obama delivered a similar speech on the need to prepare for a pandemic. Therein Obama said:
“We have to put in place an infrastructure, not just here at home, but globally, that allows us to see it quickly, isolate it quickly, respond to it quickly. So that if and when a new strain of flu, like the Spanish flu, crops up five years from now, or a decade from now, we’ve made the investment and we’re further along to be able to catch it. The funding we’re asking for is needed to strengthening our capacity here at home so we can respond to any future Ebola cases. It’s needed to help us partner with other countries to prevent and deal with future outbreaks before they become pandemics.”
Fauci heard that speech, too.
At the 3:19 mark in the video of Obama’s speech, the narrative suddenly shifts to a criticism of Trump that alleges he received briefings on the COVID-19 virus “as early as January but continued to downplay the threat into March”. That’s what fake news looks like on YouTube.
This spin represents the anti-Trump meme that will play out over-and-over against Trump as the general election approaches. Thankfully, there are enough facts accurately chronicled, in word and video, to debunk the assertion that Trump downplayed the threat.
Here’s just one example of exculpatory evidence testifying against that fake meme:
“During a February 29 broadcast on NBC's ‘Today Show,’ Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that at that time the government was still not advising people to change their daily habits to avoid the coronavirus pandemic.”
On the video from February 29, Fauci says,
“Right now the risk is still low but this could change. I’ve said that could change. I’ve said that many times, even on this program. You’ve got to watch out, although the risk is low now, you don’t need to change anything you’re doing. When you start to see community spread this could change, and force you to become much more attentive to doing things that would protect you from spread.”
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