- “Totally Under Control”, a documentary about the US government’s response to the coronavirus epidemic, premiered October 13.
- The film has been filmed mostly in secret for the past five months, and the Trump administration has been hit hard for failing to end the epidemic.
- Here are the film’s nine key takeaways.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
On Thursday, October 1, film directors Alex Gibney, Ophelia Harutyuan and Suzanne Hillinger completed their coronavirus documentary – U.S. The first major film about the epidemic to be released in.
The very next day President Donald Trump announced that he had a virus; The film also released its trailer, which has been viewed more than 6 million times. That week, more and more officials in Trump’s orbit tested positive for the disease.
The timing of Trump’s illness is a significant coincidence, with the film premiering on October 13 (he arrives in Hulu on October 20).
The “totally under control” – a reference to Trump’s claim that the White House was controlling the epidemic – created in the last five months of relative secrecy – failed to slow down the federal government’s coronavirus spreading in the U.S.
“While the current administration makes claims for well-done jobs, the fact is that the response to the U.S. Covid-1 to is one of the worst, with 21 percent of the world’s population and 21 percent of deaths.” Read the film distributor Neon.
President Trump held the Make America Great Again Campaign Rally on September 8, 2020 in Winston-Salem, NC, USA
Getty Images by Peter Z / Anadolu Agency
“If the federal government had done its job properly – following clear guidelines based on past epidemics – most deaths and destruction could have been avoided.”
Business Insider watched the film before its release. Here are the nine biggest takeaways.
In 2019, the U.S. The government created an epidemic with “strange similarities” to the coronavirus
Known as the “Crimson Quantum”, this scenario involves a highly lethal influenza virus that originated in China and spread around the world. The scenario was taken by the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services around January-August, 2019.
In a draft report later published by the New York Times, H.H.S. A detailed report of its results in October-October 2019 revealed that the government had not taken any action against PPE. And there is a lack of funding for antiviral drugs, conflicts over how federal agencies manage the response, and state governments received misleading messages about lockdowns and school closures.
In short, the report reads like a preview of next year.
The Trump administration ignored advice on how to deal with the epidemic
In 2001, Beth Cameron, former senior director of global health security and biodiversity at the National Security Council, briefed her team on how the federal government could coordinate its response to the epidemic with a one-page briefing.
The report was intended to “allow people in the White House to ask questions,” Cameron said in the film. “What should we do, and also, what do we need to do to move forward, so that we do not react constantly? ”
The Trump administration reportedly did not use the playbook. And in 2018, John Bolton, then NSC’s advisor, fired the global health protection and biodefense team.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also claimed that the Obama administration has not abandoned this administration to some kind of game plan. He later admitted he was wrong.
The first U.S. coronavirus tests were defective – and the CDC did not address the issue for 3 weeks
CDC’s laboratory test kit for COVID-19.
CDC / Associated Press
The original tests, which were sent to laboratories on February 5, had a defective defect: a test to measure the presence of a virus. Labs across the country notified the CDC of the problem almost immediately, but the agency did not address the issue until February 28.
Meanwhile, universities and labs could not quickly develop their own tests, as they had to shout slogans for weeks of FDA bureaucracy. So for the entire month of February, the U.S. conducted next-to-no-tests of its residents.
“It felt like we were flying blind, and we know that,” said Scott Baker, CEO of the film’s Association of Public Health Laboratories.
White House initial testing strategy “Community transmission was created to be missed”
U.S. The lack of testing in lasted for months, but at the beginning of the epidemic it was the worst; At the end of February, U.S. Less than 100 people were being tested in one day, while officials in South Korea were testing 10,000 a day.
To target their limited tests, the CDC banned testing for people who traveled from China or had contact with people who tested positive. But this strategy assumes that the U.S. Does not already have a “community transmission”, which refers to cases that spread in the community without known sources.
By the end of February, the U.S. The virus has spread to half the states in India. By focusing on people with well-known links to China, the CDC testing strategy was designed to “miss community transmission,” said Dr. John H. Snyder, an infectious disease specialist and critical care physician at the University of Virginia. Tyson Bell said in the film.
Trump officials say U.S. Most of the protective masks were sold to China in February
In February, the Trump administration created the “CS China COVID Procurement Service” to encourage American manufacturers such as 3C to sell full inventories of their N95 masks to China.
A month later, when American hospitals were in dire need of N95s, they were forced to import them – and American manufacturers would pay 10 times the price they would have paid, according to the document.
Pence’s coronavirus task force has more than twice as many industry representatives and politicians as scientists
U.S. Vice President Pence addresses reporters during his daily coronavirus task force news briefing at the White House in Washington on March 10, 2020.
Reuters
As of March, only six of Mike Pence’s 20 members of the Coronavirus Task Force had scientific skills – and one of them was Ben Carson, a surgeon by training, but with little public health skills.
Other task force members include Joseph Grogan, a former lobbyist for Gilead Sciences (the company behind Remdesivir); Stephen Beagan, a former Ford Motor Company lobbyist who served as Sarah Palin’s foreign policy adviser in 2008; And Ken Cusinelli, former Attorney General of Virginia and current climate change skeptic.
Jared Kushner’s PPE Task Force consists of mostly unpaid 20-something volunteers working 7 days a week
Jared Kushner.
Anna Moneymaker-Pool / Getty Images
When Max Kennedy, 26, volunteered to join Jared Jared Kushner’s coronavirus task force, he joined a group of other young unpaid volunteers in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Windless Conference Room. The walls of the room were covered in TVs that blazed Fox News 24/7; Kennedy and other volunteers, none of whom had experience with the supply chain, were recruited from PPEs in Chinese factories. Were not placed in an attempt to purchase.
In this film Robert F. “We think we’re going to be supportive,” said Kennedy, Kennedy’s grandson. “Instead, we were a team.” He said he and other volunteers used their personal Gmail accounts to communicate with the factories.
Kennedy left the task force in April. That month, he sent an anonymous complaint to Congress, detailing the task force’s incompetence.
“In my time on the task force, our team didn’t buy a single mask directly,” he said.
Kushner told California government Gavin News he publicly thanked Trump for the test supplies.
Gov. of California. Gavin News displays a bottle of hand sanitizer at the Capitol News Conference on Wednesday, March 4, 2020 in Sacramento, California.
Rich Pedronselli / AP
In April, when News asked the White House to change the 350,000 tests, Kushner told his advisers that “the governor would help the federal government in his favor.”
The favor was twofold: one, the news had to call Trump in person, and two, he had to thank him in public. The news allegedly did the former, and on April 22, he publicly thanked the president for a “significant increase” in test supplies during a press conference.
News has denied the allegations, saying “no one asked me to express my gratitude.”
State and federal governments bid eBay-style against each other for ventilator and PPE
Government of New York. Andrew Cuomo.
Jinnah Moon / Getty Images
“The shortage of equipment forced states to bid against each other for the right to purchase complex supplies such as ventilators and masks from the private sector,” said New York Governor C. Andrew Cuomo.
The bidding war lowered the price of those supplies, increasing profits for foreign producers at the expense of taxpayers. FEMA also surpassed several states, driving Massachusetts governmentman Charlie Baker to express frustration with Trump on the March 19 teleconference.
“I felt like if you had a chance to sell someone or I had a chance, I’d lose every one of them,” Baker said.
Trump laughed.
Trump said, ‘Well, we like you to go out and see if you can get it, if you can get it quickly.’ “And price is always a component of that. And maybe that’s why you’re lost in the feeds.”
