"Critics say Trump's representation of the numbers related to the spread of the disease is complicating the government's response. "'The focus on the numbers for numbers' sake just exposes... they're not looking around the next corner here,' said Lisa Monaco, a former homeland security adviser to former President Barack Obama. 'They're not preparing the public for what is going to be a substantial spike in the number of cases that we see...'" Read the full article here: Full Article

"We're seeing some good steps recently. One is [Pence] talked about getting test kits out to communities as a priority. That's a good thing. But we are woefully behind when it comes to our ability to test. As a country, we have done a mere fraction of the testing that other countries like the UK and South Korea have done... It's good to give people information, but people need to understand those numbers that [CNN] cited are very likely a substantial [...]

"On January 13, 2017, national security officials assembled in the White House to chart a response to a global pandemic. A new virus was spreading with alarming speed, causing global transportation stoppages, supply-chain disruptions, and plunging stock prices. With a vaccine many months away, U.S. health-care infrastructure was severely strained. "No, I didn’t get that date wrong. This happened: it was part of a transition exercise that outgoing officials from the administration of President Barack Obama convened for the benefit of [...]

"It's a whole of government effort—or ought to be. Homeland Security has a piece of this, but Health and Human Services, CDC, the State Department and Foreign Aid should come into this. The most effective thing we can do to protect ourselves from pandemic disease is to defend forward, as I've described it, which is to help and assist other countries to prevent those diseases before they get to our shores. So this has to be a whole of government effort [...]

"One of the problems is that the response has been chaotic with lots of mixed messages. On the one hand, you have the experts, our experts here in the CDC, telling us that spread is inevitable. Tony Fauci has said that we are likely on the cusp of a pandemic with this virus. And, on the other hand, political advisers in the White House and the chair of the National Economic Council said we've got this contained. I think we need [...]

"Lisa Monaco was Barack Obama's counterterrorism and Homeland Security advisor in the White House, and headed the Justice Department's national security division. Sophia Yan is a Beijing-based correspondent for the British newspaper The Telegraph. Lisa and Sophia may not seem to have a lot in common, but these days, they are both spending a lot of time thinking about coronavirus. Monaco managed epidemic and pandemic disease events for the Obama administration, and Yan is in the middle of covering the ongoing [...]