But in the event of a pandemic, it is the President who must lead the country.
During Ebola, Trump issued a series of tweets that have sown doubts about how he would handle a true health crisis. One called for stopping American health care workers who had been infected with Ebola from returning to the U.S. “The U.S. cannot allow EBOLA infected people back. People that go to far away places to help out are great–but must suffer the consequences!” he wrote. Another tweet warned, without evidence, that “Ebola is much easier to transmit than the CDC and government representatives are admitting.” In the past he has raised doubts about the safety of vaccines, a long-discredited belief that is nonetheless shared by an increasing number of Americans, leading to a resurgence of preventable childhood diseases like measles.
Trump’s habit of making wild claims on Twitter could be especially dangerous in the event of a pandemic, when public confidence in government is critical to public safety. “The emerging climate of fake news and alternative facts leaves us worse off than ever before,” says Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at New York University. “I am very worried, because I’m certain that we will get an outbreak.”
On the campaign trail Trump said repeatedly that he would make America safe. But a multibillion-dollar wall at the border won’t keep out disease, and cutting aid to health systems overseas is akin to slashing the CIA’s budget in a time of war. If Trump is serious about protecting Americans, global health critics contend, he must embrace the soft power of pandemic preparation.
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