Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - April 13, 2020, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A2 VOL 149 NO 153 Winnipeg Free Press est 1872 / Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 2020 Winnipeg Free Press, a division of FP Canadian Newspapers Limited Partnership. Published seven days a week at 1355 Mountain Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba R2X 3B6, PH: 204-697-7000 Publisher / BOB COX Editor / PAUL SAMYN Associate Editor Enterprise / SCOTT GIBBONS Associate Editor Operations and Engagement / STACEY THIDRICKSON Associate Editor Digital News / WENDY SAWATZKY Director Photo and Multimedia / MIKE APORIUS NEWSMEDIA COUNCIL The Winnipeg Free Press is a member of the National Newsmedia Council, which is an in- dependent organization established to determine acceptable journalistic practices and ethical behaviour. If you have concerns about editorial content, please send them to: editorialconcerns@freepress.mb.ca. 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GENERAL INQUIRIES 204-697-7000 The Free Press receives support from the Local Journalism Initiative funded by the Government of Canada CIRCULATION INQUIRIES MISSING OR INCOMPLETE PAPER? Call or email before 10 a.m. weekdays or 11 a.m. Saturday City: 204-697-7001 Outside Winnipeg: 1-800-542-8900 press 1 6:30 a.m. - 4 p.m. Monday-Friday.; 7 a.m. - noon Saturday; Closed Sunday TO SUBSCRIBE: 204-697-7001 Out of Winnipeg: 1-800-542-8900 Quickly, U.S. intelligence and public health officials began doubting China's reported rates of infection and death toll. They pressed China to allow in U.S. epidemiologists - both to assist the country in confronting the spread and to gain valuable insights that could help buy time for the U.S. response. U.S. of- ficials also pressed China to send sam- ples of the virus to U.S. labs for study and for vaccine and test development. On Jan. 11, China shared the virus' genetic sequence. That same day, the National Institutes of Health started working on a vaccine. Ultimately, the U.S. was able to get China's consent to send two people on the WHO team that travelled to China later in the month. But by then precious weeks had been lost and the virus had raced across Asia and had begun to es- cape the continent. ? ? ? BALANCING ACT For much of January, administration officials were doing a delicate balan- cing act. Internally, they were raising alarms about the need to get Americans on the ground in China. Publicly, they were sending words of encouragement and praise in hopes Beijing would grant the Americans access. Matthew Pottinger, Trump's deputy national security adviser, persistently urged more aggressive action in calling out China and sending teams there. But while word of the virus was in- cluded in several of the president's intelligence briefings, Trump wasn't fully briefed on the threat until Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar called with an update on Jan. 18 while the president was at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Trump spent much of the conversa- tion wanting to talk about vaping; he was considering a new policy restrict- ing its use. White House officials now believe Trump didn't fully grasp the magnitude of the threat to the U.S. in part because Azar, who was feuding with several members of Trump's inner circle, did a poor job communicating it. Azar was trying to walk a fine line between Trump's upbeat statements and preparing the government for what might lie ahead. "America's risk is low at the moment," he later told House law- makers. "That could change quickly." Moreover, the president was in the middle of his Senate impeachment trial and focused on little else, punctuating nearly every White House meeting with complaints about the Democrats out to get him, grievances he would continue late into the night on the phone from his private quarters. Trump also had little desire to pres- sure Beijing or criticize its president, Xi Jinping, with whom he wanted to secure co-operation on ending a year- long trade war before the re-election campaign kicked into high gear. When Trump fielded his first question about the virus in Davos, he enthusiastically praised Xi's response, going well be- yond the calibrated risk-reward messa- ging his aides were encouraging. ? ? ? INFIGHTING The West Wing was adrift. By late January, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney held the post in name only as rumours swirled of his impend- ing, post-impeachment departure. He was on the initial coronavirus task force, which was plagued with infight- ing. At the same time, the White House Office of Management and Budget was clashing with Azar's HHS over money to combat the virus. HHS wanted to send a special corona- virus funding request to Congress but the White House budget office resisted for weeks, insisting that HHS should instead repurpose $250 million of its existing budget to bolster the national stockpile by buying protective equip- ment. HHS, however, claimed that without congressional authorization it could not buy the needed quantities of masks, gowns and ventilators to rapidly bolster the national stockpile Eventually, an initial request went to Congress for $2.5 billion in virus aid, an amount that lawmakers of both parties dismissed as too low. The bill that Con- gress quickly passed and Trump signed - the first of three so far - was for $8 billion. Even as the two agencies fought, there was no influential voice in Trump's or- bit pushing him to act swiftly on the pandemic. Trump had surrounded him- self with loyalists and few in the admin- istration, including national security adviser Robert O'Brien, were able to redirect the president's attention. In mid-January, meetings were being held at the White House, but the focus was on getting U.S. government employees back from China, which was still play- ing down how contagious the virus was. A Jan. 29 memo from senior White House aide Peter Navarro accurately predicted some of the challenges faced by the U.S. from what would become a pandemic, though he was hardly the first to sound the alarm. But he, like Pottinger, was viewed by others in the White House as a "China hawk" and their concerns were rejected by others in the administration who did not bring them to the president. On Jan. 30, the WHO declared the virus a global health emergency while Trump held a packed campaign rally in Iowa. The next day, the Trump ad- ministration banned admittance to the United States by foreign nationals who had travelled to China in the past 14 days, excluding the immediate family members of American citizens or permanent residents. Trump styled it as bold action, but continued to talk down the severity of the threat. Despite the ban, near- ly 40,000 people have arrived in the United States on direct flights from China since that date, according to an analysis by the New York Times. The White House denied that it was slow to act. "While the media and Democrats refused to seriously acknowledge this virus in January and February," said spokesman Judd Deere, "President Trump took bold action to protect Americans and unleash the full power of the federal government to curb the spread of the virus, expand testing cap- acities, and expedite vaccine develop- ment when we had no true idea the level of transmission or asymptomatic spread." ? ? ? 'VERY, VERY READY' On Feb. 10, Trump stood before thou- sands of supporters packed into a New Hampshire rally and declared: "By April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away." The crowd roared its approval at Trump's unproven assertion. The Sen- ate had acquitted Trump on the im- peachment charges and the president shifted his focus toward reelection even as others in the administration keyed in on the virus. Federal officials put the CDC solely in charge of developing a test for the virus and left out private interests, a choice that cost precious time when the resulting CDC test proved faulty. Trump spent many weeks shuffling responsibility for leading his adminis- tration's response to the crisis. He put Azar in charge of the administration's virus task force before replacing him with Vice-President Mike Pence to- ward the end of February. Even as the virus spread across the globe, prevail- ing voices in the White House, includ- ing senior adviser Jared Kushner and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, urged the president to avoid big steps that could roil financial markets. The president had firmly linked his fate to Wall Street, and it took a tumble by the markets for Trump to ratchet up his response. In late February, while Trump was on a trip to India, the Dow Jones plummeted 1,000 points amid ris- ing fears about the coronavirus. Trump stewed about the collapse on his Feb. 26 flight back to Washington and lashed out at aides over comments made by a top CDC official, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, during a briefing the prior day, when she warned Americans that they would have to prepare for fairly severe social distancing. "It's not so much of a question of if this will happen anymore but rather more of a question of exactly when this will happen," she said. The White House announced that Pence would brief the media about the response that night. But Trump took the podium instead and has not relin- quished the stage much since. When Trump first took the lectern in the White House briefing room to speak about the virus, the U.S. had 15 corona- virus patients. "We're at that very low level, and we want to keep it that way," Trump said. "We're very, very ready for this." -The Associated Press TRUMP ? FROM A1 Among the other passengers, only one was wearing personal protective equipment. Earlier this week, Cana- dian public health officials began en- couraging citizens to wear homemade face masks while in public. The new transitway is a high-fre- quency corridor connected to feeder routes that funnel riders from nearby neighbourhoods into stations along the line. Since community spread of the virus began in the province, Winnipeg Tran- sit has announced it could be facing a loss of $25 million in fares by July. In addition, the city has been forced to funnel millions of dollars in extra funding to the service to sanitize buses and pay drivers overtime. Despite this financial shortfall, Win- nipeg has decided to operate the Blue Line on a high-frequency schedule. Allard said that while the Blue Line will run as originally planned for the time being, changes could be made in future. "The level of service in light of this situation is being examined right now on the (Blue Line) and elsewhere. Transit is working on making tactical decisions of how, when, and where. Those decisions haven't been made yet," Allard said. Functional Transit Winnipeg presi- dent Derek Koop said he's pleased the Blue Line is operating at high fre- quency, hoping that more buses on the route will encourage social distancing for those who have no choice but to use public transit. "Operating at a higher frequency, even with ridership being down, al- lows people to have greater distances between riders on the bus. We want people to still be able to travel safely throughout our city during this pan- demic," Koop said. "Keeping that amount of service helps with that, so people know they're not going to be packed in like sardines on those buses." While Koop said he is happy to see the transitway open, he's disappointed the infrastructure project has come at the cost of transit service in other areas of the city. Winnipeg Transit has added 14 routes, changed 10 routes, and shut down 18 others. Koop said that while he thinks public transit has improved in Winnipeg recently, city council is still operating with a misguided philosophy when it comes to the service. "When we look at the transit system, the analogy I always use is we're buy- ing a flat-screen (TV) for a house with a leaky roof. We have fundamental problems with our system and service, and we can't seem to come up with the money to increase that service," Koop said. "We're buying something new to help improve the service, but we haven't built our foundation yet. We're kind of putting the cart before the horse. We need to look at the foundation of the service, which is buses on the road." ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @rk_thorpe TRANSIT ? FROM A1 JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Functional Transit Winnipeg president Derek Koop says he's pleased the Blue Line is operating at high frequency, hoping that more buses on the route will encourage social distancing. Manitoba reports no new COVID-19 cases Sunday MANITOBANS were warned to remain vigilant as the province reported no new novel coronavirus cases on Sunday, and said one probable case was found to be a false positive. The latest bulletin issued by the province said there were 242 lab-con- firmed positive and probable cases of the COVID-19 virus in Manitoba as of Sunday. "Manitobans should not interpret current case numbers to mean the risk of COVID-19 is reduced. The current statistics may be a reflection of the ef- fect strict social distancing measures have had and (they reaffirm) that these measures must be continued," the state- ment said. "Manitobans are reminded this is not the time to let their guard down." On Sunday, eight people were being treated in hospital after testing positive for COVID-19; four of them in intensive care. In total, 96 people have recovered from the illness and four people have died. On Saturday, the Cadham Provincial Laboratory conducted 850 COVID-19 tests. Since early February, 17,221 tests have been done. "Actions taken today will affect case numbers in the weeks ahead. All Mani- tobans must remain vigilant to flatten the curve of this virus," the province said. "This weekend is normally busy with gatherings for Easter or Passover celebrations. However, families are reminded that gatherings with any- one from outside your household are strongly discouraged." During the long weekend, multiple community testing sites have changed hours of operations. Winnipeg's Mount Carmel Clinic test- ing facility, at 886 Main St., is closed Sunday. The other three testing facili- ties in the city, as well as the assess- ment clinic at the St. James Centennial Pool, continue to operate on regular hours. Testing sites in Thompson, Flin Flon and The Pas remain open, but have reduced hours of operation. They are open from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. throughout the long weekend. Testing sites in Selkirk, Portage la Prairie, Steinbach and Winkler con- tinue to operate as usual. ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca RYAN THORPE YURI GRIPAS / ABACA PRESS / TNS U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He at a trade-deal signing ceremony Jan. 13 at the White House. Was getting that deal signed more important than pressing the Chinese on details about the coronavirus? A_02_Apr-13-20_FP_01.indd A2 4/12/20 10:43 PM ;