Oh, Say Can You CDC

As has been widely reported, the Trump administration shut down the Pandemic Response unit in 2018.  And not longer after, they didn't renew the cuts of $8.5 billion to the CDC's budget for infectious diseases.  You may have thought that that was about as bad as it could get and couldn't get any worse.  Though, in fairness, at this point with the Trump administration, you probably are well-past that kind of limited thinking.

Yes, it can get worse.  And did.  Of course.  This is TrumpLand.

It turns out that the CDC had an epidemiologist on the job in Beijing, Dr. Linda Quick, who work it was, specifically, to detect disease outbreaks in Asia.

The Trump administration fired her in July, 2019, just months before the coronavirus broke out.

You can read the full story here from Reuters.