Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley wants to investigate coronavirus cover-up? Yes, please
A few weeks before he died three years ago in July, my dad, who never talked about his service in World War II, told the young doctor who was doing rounds in the hospital that day, “My generation saved the world from the Nazis. What is yours going to do?”
Well, Daddy, we know the answer now: That guy’s generation of not just doctors and scientists but also truck drivers and every one of those absolutely life-saving minimum-wage workers who are delivering medicine and groceries? They are all on the front lines in the war to save the world from the global coronavirus pandemic.
Unfortunately, more than two months after the first case of COVID-19 was reported in the United States on Jan. 21, our country is still no more prepared than we were on the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. And while some of us can’t even summon the self-discipline to try and flatten the curve by staying at home, those working in American hospitals either already are or soon will be living in this century’s version of the first 27 minutes of “Saving Private Ryan.”
This fight is just getting started, but Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley wants to cut straight to the war crimes investigation. In a Senate resolution, he’s asking the world to look into the failure of the Chinese government to level with the rest of us during the early weeks of the outbreak in Wuhan.
Normally, you fight on the beaches first and hold the tribunals later. He’s right that the cover-up in Beijing lost us valuable time and cost us precious lives, though intelligence briefings soon alerted the White House to what was really going on. Calling it “the Chinese virus,” as the president continues to do, or the Wuhan virus, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has tried unsuccessfully to get other world leaders to do, seems like politically-motivated race baiting, as well as a diversionary tactic.
But if you think Hawley’s right that the world should investigate the Chinese government’s perfidy right this minute, then what’s the argument for stopping with them?
When will we get the Hawley news release demanding that our own government come clean about the coronavirus testing debacle that’s lost us time and lives, too? We now lead the world in COVID-19 cases, the death toll has zoomed past 1,000, and we still don’t really know why the federal government turned down those coronavirus tests from the World Health Organization.
We keep hearing from President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar that testing is going great, but almost none of what they’ve said on this subject has been accurate. Hopefully, now that we’re supposed to be getting help from South Korea, the situation really will improve.
But why the most prosperous and powerful country in the world has lacked tests, transparency and leadership for months is a question that matters a lot more than when President Xi Jinping will fork over damages. (Never, of course.)
The Washington Post columnist David Von Drehle, who lives here in the Kansas City area, wrote a horrifying account of his coronavirus symptoms this week. “I don’t know for sure that I have COVID-19,’’ he said in the column, “because there is no testing where I live.’’ In New Jersey, people are camping out to get tests, and around the country, some are only getting the results back after they’ve died. Former Kansas Governor and Obama Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says we’re flying blind, not knowing where to put scarce resources.
In an interview with The Star Editorial Board on Friday, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said that “the idea everybody’s got all the tests we need is just false. We do not,” and in other states, “I don’t think anybody else does, either.”
For now, I’m going to swat away the temptation to wonder whether the lack of testing has stemmed from any ambivalence about seeing the number of cases shoot up. “I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship,” Trump said of passengers stuck offshore on the Grand Princess cruise liner on March 6.
But at what point would our president’s cascade of misstatements on the response to this crisis qualify as a cover-up? From “It’s one person coming in from China,” on Jan. 22 to it’s “very well under control” on Jan. 30, even after what should have been sobering intelligence briefings and multiple op-eds by scientists arguing that the U.S. should waste no time in gearing up for what was coming.
A full month later, Trump tweeted that the spread of coronavirus was “very much under control in the USA,” and on March 4, he claimed that he had initially been hamstrung by but then had reversed Obama restrictions on testing. (These never existed, and so were not reversed.) On March 6, he said, “Anybody who wants a test can get a test.” And on and on.
“Since day one, the Chinese Communist Party intentionally lied to the world about the origin of this pandemic,” Hawley said in a news release. “The CCP was aware of the reality of the virus as early as December but ordered laboratories to destroy samples and forced doctors to keep silent.”
These statements are true. So are these: Since day one, Donald Trump intentionally lied to the country about the risk of a pandemic, misstating what his government was doing about it and underplaying how seriously the public should take the threat. The White House was aware of the reality of the virus as early as January, but showed more concern for the stock market than for the Americans who we can only hope put no stock in his misstatements.
Did the Chinese government try to mask reality? Definitely, as is its habit. That’s why it “must be held to account for what the world is now suffering,” Hawley says. And as I think about it, maybe he’s right that with our survival at stake, propagandists really should be made to answer for their fabrications.
This story was originally published March 27, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
