From the article:
“As the coronavirus pandemic sweeps across the U.S., claiming more than 23,600 lives as of Tuesday, the Trump administration has come under fire for disregarding guidance from past administrations on combating a pandemic and for pushing for funding cuts to some core public health programs on which the country now depends.
But the administration has also failed to meet the goals laid out in its own pandemic plan, which was developed in the first year of Trump’s presidency and released in December 2017. That plan, an update and rework of previous’ administrations’ strategies, is focused on preparing for a virulent strain of influenza rather than the novel coronavirus. That means that some flu-specific goals, such as the development of a vaccine in just a few months, can’t be applied to the current crisis. But nearly all of the objectives for preparing for and responding to emerging diseases are applicable -- from how to communicate effectively with the public to how to develop, stockpile and distribute enough respirator masks to keep health workers safe.
‘It’s a fine plan and hits a lot of the right notes,’ said Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development who led efforts on global disaster response under the Obama administration. ‘The failure was a leadership and execution failure…’”
