There was an untimely elimination of an epidemiologist position in China back in July of 2019. You know how much Mr. Trump liked to exclaim “you’re fired” back when he hosted “The Apprentice”. It’s Reuters and four of their sources who expose this stunning revelation. The key post administered through the American Centre for Disease Control was bestowed the duty of identifying disease outbreaks in China. Dr. Linda Quick served in the role prior to it being extinguished. This woman actually trained Chinese field epidemiologists in concert with monitoring the public health landscape. Chinese American Bao-Ping Zhu who served in the role from 2007 to 2011 expressed his dismay to Reuters. The four sources also confided to Reuters that no other foreign disease experts were embedded in China after the departure of Dr. Quick.

Who would have thought during the taping of “The Apprentice” that the term “you’re fired” by one, Donald Trump would one day come back and haunt hundreds of thousands of people around the world whose health depends on the early detection of deadly viruses? Were there other variables associated with the outbreak? Yes. One very important variable would have been the strength of the relationship between countries and the goodwill of China in communicating issues around public health to the U.S. and the World Health Organization. I’ll leave it to you to speculate whether Trump fostered trustworthy relations with the Chinese. If these sources are correct, the World Health Organization may have also failed in its duty to deploy resources inside China. 

The matter of corporate interests in the aviation sector, the “travel bug”, and duties of repatriating citizens, and limitations of airports in dealing with crowds have also been key elements associated with this pandemic of COVID-19. The aviation industry as we see it today and the negative consequences we’ve come to realize were likely unimaginable to the Wright Brothers as they pioneered motorized flight.