The United States Sent Tons of Medical Supplies to China Even as Senators Warned of Virus Threat Here

From Mother Jones : written by Fernanda Echavarri     29 March 2020

Now the Trump administration is begging other countries to send us masks and respirators.
   The United States government sent nearly 17.8 tons of donated medical supplies to China - including masks, ventilators, and respirators - almost three weeks after the first case of COVID-19 was reported in the state of Washington.
   In a press release from the State Department dated February 7, the agency announced it was prepared to send up to $100 million to assist China as the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths continued to rise there. The day the press release went out, Trump tweeted that he spoke with China's President Xi Jinping and that China would be "successful especially as the weather starts to warm & the virus hopefully becomes weaker and then gone."
   At the time, sending supplies overseas may have seemed like the right thing to do.  But it's worth noting that this release of vital medical supplies came two days after several senators, including Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy, offered to allocate congressional emergency funding for preventative health measures and research to ward off the virus in the United States - and President Donald Trump turned it down.  On 5 February, at 9:09 am, Senator Murphy Tweeted: "Local health systems need supplies, training, screening staff, etc....  ... and they need it now."

Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy

   Trump would go on to call the virus the Democrats'  "new hoax" and deny that it posed a risk to Americans for weeks after that.
   How the tables have turned.  As of Saturday afternoon, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports 103,321 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States and 1,688 deaths, the highest number of confirmed cases worldwide.  Hospitals across the country are now experiencing an unprecedented shortage of ventilators, respirators, and masks.  Desperate nurses and doctors are taking to social media to show their need for protective equipment with the hashtag #GetMePPE, as they treat patients who are dying of the virus.
   On Wednesday, the Trump administration asked the international community for donations of equipment, including N-95 masks, gloves, respirators, and hand sanitizer.  But even as his officials ask for foreign aid, as CNN points  out, Trump has a very different public message. As he boasted during Tuesday's COVID-19 briefing at the White House: "We should never be reliant on a foreign country for the means of our own survival."
   Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California) told CNN's Jake Tapper Sunday morning that Trump's response at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic ultimately cost American lives.  "His denial at the beginning was deadly," Pelosi said.  Trump's continuous delay in "getting equipment to where it's needed, is deadly."