Consequences: Heather Cox Richardson Feb 25

… And yet, the U.S. seems to be unprepared (for the Corona virus). In May 2018, under then-National Security Advisor John Bolton, the administration got rid of the official in charge of overseeing a U.S. response to a pandemic and disbanded his global health security team.

Today Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli went on Twitter to ask people if they, too, were having trouble accessing the coronavirus map maintained by Johns Hopkins University. “”Has the Johns Hopkins map of the coronavirus stopped working for other people, or just me?” Cuccinelli tweeted. “I just tried again, and it looks like Johns Hopkins put the information behind a membership wall of some kind. Seems like bad timing to stop helping the world with this (previously) useful resource. Here’s hoping it goes back up soon.”

Newspaper columnist Max Burbank shared the popular outrage: “Thanks for inspiring confidence. Shouldn’t YOU GUYS have a map of this? Shouldn’t the CDC? You know who they are, right? Isn’t there anyone in charge of response to this? Or did someone colossally stupid eliminate that position?”

American historian L. D. Burnett tweeted: “there is literally an ENTIRE FEDERAL AGENCY working for you that you could ask to provide you and all Americans with the latest information on the Coronavirus.”

Health policy professor Howard Forman begged: “PLEASE can someone tell me that this is a parody account and that our Executive branch has a CLUE of what is going on? PLEASE!?”