Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - September 10, 2020, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A12 A 12 THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2020 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COMNEWS I COVID-19 PANDEMIC WASHINGTON — U.S. President Don- ald Trump talked in private about the “deadly” coronavirus last February, even as he was declaring to America it was no worse than the flu and insisting it was under control, according to a new book by journalist Bob Woodward. Trump said Wednesday he was just be- ing a “cheerleader” for the nation and trying to keep everyone calm. His public rhetoric, Trump told Wood- ward in March, was part of a strategy to deliberately minimize the danger. “I wanted to always play it down,” the presi- dent said. “I still like playing it down be- cause I don’t want to create a panic.” Trump, according to the book, ac- knowledged being alarmed by the virus, even as he was telling the nation that it would swiftly disappear. Coming less than eight weeks be- fore election day, the revelations in the book — accompanied by recordings Woodward made of his interviews with Trump — provide an unwelcome return of public attention to the president’s handling of the pandemic that has so far killed about 190,000 Americans. He is currently pushing hard for a resump- tion of normal activity and trying to project strength and control to bolster his political position in his campaign against Democrat Joe Biden. In a Feb. 7 call with Woodward, Trump said of the virus, “You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed. And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flus.” “This is deadly stuff,” the president re- peated for emphasis. Just three days later, Trump struck a far rosier tone in an interview with Fox Business: “I think the virus is going to be — it’s going to be fine.” Biden said Wednesday the book shows Trump “lied to the American people. He knowingly and willingly lied about the threat it posed to the country for months.” “While a deadly disease ripped through our nation, he failed to do his job — on purpose. It was a life or death betrayal of the American people,” Biden said at a campaign event in Michigan. Speaking Wednesday at the White House, Trump acknowledged he down- played the virus, insisting he was trying to buck up the nation and suggesting he was trying to avoid “gouging” on prices of needed supplies. “The fact is I’m a cheerleader for this country. I love our country and I don’t want people to be frightened. I don’t want to create panic, as you say,” Trump told reporters. “Certainly, I’m not going to drive this country or the world into a frenzy. We want to show confidence. We want to show strength.” Yet Trump’s public comments sug- gested he was steering people to ignore the reality of the coming storm. Wood- ward’s account details dire warnings from top Trump national security of- ficials to the president in late January that the virus that causes COVID-19 could be as bad as the devastating in- fluenza pandemic of 1918. On Feb. 25, just weeks before much of the country was forced to shut down be- cause of the pandemic, Trump declared the virus “very well under control in our country.” Though he restricted travel from China in January, Trump did not begin to devote extensive federal resources to procuring vital personal protective equipment, including face masks, or expand the production of ventilators until March. In fact, U.S. officials rec- ommended against widespread mask wearing until April in part because of a shortage of protective masks required by front-line medical workers. Trump aides and allies said at the time that he was aiming to prop up the economy with his rosy take on the virus throughout February, even as his ad- ministration took few concrete steps to prepare for the coming pandemic. The Washington Post, where Wood- ward serves as associate editor, re- ported excerpts of the book, Rage on Wednesday, as did CNN. The book also covers race relations, diplomacy with North Korea and a range of other issues that have arisen during the past two years. The book is based in part on 18 inter- views that Woodward conducted with Trump between December and July. “Trump never did seem willing to fully mobilize the federal government and continually seemed to push prob- lems off on the states,” Woodward writes of the pandemic. “There was no real management theory of the case or how to organize a massive enterprise to deal with one of the most complex emergencies the United States had ever faced.” In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, said Trump never “distorted” what he had advised the president. “Often he would want to, you know, make sure that the country doesn’t get down and out about things, but I don’t recall anything that was any gross dis- tortion in things that I spoke to him about,” Fauci said. “There is damning truth that Presi- dent Trump lied and people died,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schu- mer of New York. Schumer said that when he thinks about how many people in his state died, “It just makes me angry.” He added: “How many people would be alive today if he just told Americans the truth?” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D- Calif., said the president’s comments to Woodward showed weakness and a dis- dain for science. “What he was actually saying is, ‘I don’t want anybody to think anything like this happened on my watch so I’m not going to call any more attention to it,’” Pelosi said on MSNBC. Several Republican senators at the Capitol declined to comment on the new book, telling reporters they hadn’t yet read it, even when informed of key pas- sages about the virus. “I just can’t, can’t comment on it,” said Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio. “Could we all have done things dif- ferently? Yes, including Congress. We were all a little slow to recognize the severity,” Portman said. — The Associated Press EVAN VUCCI / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Bob Woodward’s new book says U.S. President Donald Trump privately acknowledged the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic while publicly downplaying it. KEVIN FREKING AND ZEKE MILLER Book reports Trump said of virus, ‘I wanted to always play it down’ T ANZANIA, Tanzania — Top UN officials warned Wednesday the COVID-19 pandemic has aggra- vated discrimination and other human rights violations that can fuel conflict, and its indirect consequences are dwarfing the impact of the virus itself in the world’s most fragile countries. UN political chief Rosemary DiCarlo and UN humanitarian chief Mark Low- cock painted a grim picture to the UN Security Council of the global impact of the pandemic that has blanketed the world, with over 26 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and more than 860,000 deaths. Lowcock warned the council that the indirect economic and health effects from the crisis in fragile countries “will be higher poverty, lower life ex- pectancy, more starvation, less educa- tion and more child death.” He said roughly a third of the cases and fatalities are in countries affected by humanitarian or refugee crises, or those facing high levels of vulnerabil- ity. But the full extent isn’t known be- cause testing in these fragile countries is very low and in some places many people are reluctant to seek help, per- haps fearing being quarantined or fear- ing they won’t get useful medical treat- ment, he said. “The better news is that it seems possible that the fatality rate from COVID-19 may be lower in these fragile countries than initially feared,” he said, but the indirect impact is greater. DiCarlo said Secretary-General An- tonio Guterres’ March 23 call for a global ceasefire to deliver life-saving aid during the pandemic had an encour- aging initial response, with temporary truces announced from Colombia and Ukraine to the Philippines and Camer- oon. “However, many expired without extensions, resulting in little improve- ment on the ground,” the undersecre- tary-general for political and peace- building affairs said. Still, UN envoys are pursuing Guterres’ call for peace negotiations and ceasefires in conflict-torn Yemen, Libya, Syria and elsewhere, DiCarlo said. She said another potential driver of instability is people’s perception that “authorities have not addressed the pandemic effectively or have not been transparent about its impact,” adding that “reports of corruption related to COVID-19 responses are accentuating this trend.” As for growing human rights chal- lenges during the pandemic, DiCarlo pointed to increased discrimination including in access to health servi- ces, surging violence against women particularly in the home during lock- downs, and “growing limitations being placed on the media, civic space and freedom of expression.” “Social media platforms are used to spread disinformation about the pan- demic,” DiCarlo said. “And there has been a rise in stigma and hate speech, especially against migrants and for- eigners.” During the pandemic, UN peace- keeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix said the UN’s far-flung missions, with over 100,000 personnel, “continued to prevent and respond to threats to civil- ians, which have unfortunately not de- creased in the past six months despite the secretary-general’s global ceasefire call.” He singled out continued violence in Mali, Central African Republic and Congo. Lacroix told the council the responses to COVID-19 have been criticized in some countries, “resulting in height- ened political tensions in the areas of operation of some peacekeeping mis- sions.” And he said the pandemic’s impact has slowed down the implementation of peace agreements and transitions, pointing to South Sudan as an example. Lowcock, the undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said the main indirect effects of the pandemic on fra- gile countries are economic — weak- ening commodity prices, declining remittances, disruptions to trade, and lock-down measures making it harder for people to survive, especially day labourers and many women. The humanitarian chief said another important impact is on health and edu- cation, because in the most fragile countries people are vulnerable to kill- er diseases like measles, malaria, tu- berculosis and HIV/AIDs, and because infant mortality and the numbers of women losing their lives in childbirth are much higher than in better off countries. Unfortunately, Lowcock said, “there is evidence of a significant crunch on health services as a result of the pan- demic.” As for education, he said, “more than half a billion children in humanitarian crises and fragile contexts have been affected by school closures” and “many girls now unable to go to school will never go back.” One example of the impact has been the disruption to vaccination campaigns in 45 countries facing humanitarian or refugee crises or high levels of vulner- ability from other causes, Lowcock said, stressing that this could put “more than 80 million children under the age of one at risk of vaccine-preventable diseases.” He said the UN World Food Program and Food and Agriculture Organization also report that “food insecurity is spik- ing as people lose their incomes and have to reduce consumption.” Lowcock said 27 countries “are now in danger of a sharp deterioration in food security” and without quick action “child wasting,” or acute malnutrition, could affect an additional seven million children in the first year of the pan- demic. — The Associated Press EDITH M. LEDERER UN fears pandemic could fuel global unrest THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES The United Nations has expressed concern the COVID-19 pandemic has aggravated discrimination and human rights abuses that fuel conflict in places such as Mali (above). A_12_Sep-10-20_FP_01.indd A12 2020-09-09 10:35 PM ;