Asked about NY Times report, Director of Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security tells Fox that delayed federal action hurt the COVID-19 response
Dr. Tom Inglesby: “If we had acted on some of those warnings earlier we would be in a much better position in terms of diagnostics and possibly masks and personal protective equipment and getting our hospitals ready”
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From the April 12, 2020, edition of Fox's Fox News Sunday
CHRIS WALLACE (ANCHOR): Joining us now from Baltimore, Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of the Center for Health Security at John Hopkins -- Johns Hopkins University. Doctor, let's start with that New York Times report that from January on, top public health officials were warning the president about the threat from the pandemic, and that he did not take action until mid-March. One, what's your reaction to the report, and how much did those lost weeks cost us?
DR. TOM INGLESBY (DIRECTOR, JOHNS HOPKINS CENTER FOR HEALTH SECURITY): So, Chris, I can't say who in the administration knew what and when, but I would say that that article reinforces what we've heard along the way, which is that many in the administration were very worried about this as early as January and February. That seems pretty clear now. And I'd also say that if we had acted on some of those warnings earlier, we would be in a much better position in terms of diagnostics and possibly masks and personal protective equipment and getting our hospitals ready.
WALLACE: When you say "be in a much better position," if we had imposed social distancing, stay-at-home, at the end of January, and early February, would there be a dramatically less number -- smaller number of cases and deaths?
INGLESBY: I'm not sure we would've been able to get the collective political will to do it as early as January and February because we didn't really know when we had cases, but if we had done a lot of diagnostic testing earlier it's possible we would have seen enough disease to get the will to do that in February and, yes, the earlier we put in place social distancing, the earlier we would have gotten to a peak and to a better place where we can start to think about responding.