The Only Class 4 Biohazard Containment Facility in The US Was Defunded by Trump
February 27th 2020
The "Dan Crozier Building", USAMRIID, Fort Detrick, MD, USA (USG)
By Da Schneib
By now everyone’s heard not only of Fthrump defunding the CDC, but covering up by bloviating about Coronavirus not being a problem. His appointees have been caught assigning HHS and DHS personnel completely untrained and unequipped to deal with it to the arriving 380-some-odd US citizens evacuated from a cruise ship under quarantine in Asia, and after face-to-face contact with them, 14 of whom were confirmed to have contracted the virus, allowed to spread out into the Solano County general population without precautions, then sent home to their government offices all over the US. The latest (thanks Rachel) is the detection of an index case (one for whom no source of infection has been established) in Solano County. It is of course extremely likely that one of these DHS or HHS people spread the virus, possibly through a contact chain, which is even scarier, to this index case. It is likely, in this case, that Coronavirus is now being spread through the US government.
This is all scary enough. Here’s something that’s probably about to hit the news for our members to think about.
First a little background: The USAMRIID (United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Disease) at Fort Detrick, Maryland, is the one and only place with a Class 4 biohazard containment facility in the US. Period. They are the institute assigned the task of protecting the entire US military from infectious diseases. They are in regular collaboration with the CDC, who are assigned the same task for the entire US population.
It turns out that about US$100 million has been withheld from funding for this vital institute.
So now the two US organizations most important for any Coronavirus response are being defunded. People who are totally incompetent and obvious political appointees are being tasked with dealing with this, and being sent into the field without briefing, training, or equipment. And apparently as a result, spreading the virus.
Now, I don’t know if this virus is going to really take off, or really turn out to be deadly, but given the state of healthcare in our country, and given that it appears to be highly contagious, it has the potential to overload our healthcare resources. Given 20% of cases become serious, this is really, really scary, and given the incompetent response at all levels, we may well be facing a pretty serious situation.
Two US Senators, Chris Van Holland and Ben Cardin, from Maryland, both (D), and four congresscritters toured the USAMRIID facility at the beginning of this month. (This has not hit the professional press yet; best link I could find). They sent a letter to SecDef Esper asking WTF he thinks he’s doing.
The people capable of doing the worst damage are in the place where the damage is waiting to be done. This is potentially the worst possible outcome of electing an incompetent pResident like Fthrump.
Posted with Permission