This might come as a surprise to you, but my hospital is run by a massive Trump supporter. Fox News plays on every TV in the ED. As recently as a week ago he said in a meeting that this was no worse than the swine flu. He has told admin people to take masks off if they wear them outside the ED (though I believe he has stopped that). We have PAPRs that we are not allowed to use because they don't want to scare patients. Customer satisfaction is paramount.
As for what I knew, I knew what was reported in the Press. As for what I could do, I'm a line level employee, essentially. I pushed and pushed to get my medical director to start getting our department prepared. I work at 2 facilities and one medical director was on top of it from the start and one wasn't. Now they both are and thank god. We haven't had any sick doctors yet. But if you want to blame me, go nuts.
As for the medical experts and the deep state, left-wing, traitorous press, they have been raising the alarm about this long before we had an outbreak in the States. They have been ridiculed by the administration and right wing press (see video above). Now they are reversing course but not admitting mistakes (except that one goofy guy on Fox News). The CDC and NIH were working on this since January as well. Almost all the things Trump claims he did on the virus in January was the work of the CDC.
Trump got warnings far before we did getting multiple briefings in January.
"The system was blinking red," a US official told The Washington Post, but Trump refused to take action against the coronavirus.
www.businessinsider.com
In late January, he restricted travel to China, that's about it. While downplaying everything and giving false information, he established a working group. Other than that, it wasn't until the end of February that he requested funds from Congress - $2.5 billion. Congress approved $8.6. It wasn't until the middle of March that we declared a National Emergency. That was 2.5 weeks ago.
So yeah, we fucked about for a month, more or less. So yeah, I'm pointing fingers. At the President, at Congress (who also got those briefings), at conservative media for their desire to be on the other side of issues that only have one side, at fucking China, and, to a lesser extent, to Reps voters who just don't seem to get that stupidity and incompetence looks just as bad in Red as it is in Blue. We can do better than this moron. Hell, we can do better than Biden for that matter. But people don't fucking pay attention so I guess we get the government we deserve.