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Watchdog to Remind Public of Admin’s Critical Failures in Pivotal Month of March in the COVID-19 Crisis

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Tomorrow marks one hundred days since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. Since that day — and even before it — the Trump administration delivered failure after failure in its pandemic response, wasting critical time bungling the opportunity to mitigate the impact of the virus. As a result of that action, thousands may have needlessly been infected and succumbed to COVID-19.

As COVID-19 cases continue to climb across the U.S., nonpartisan watchdog Accountable.US is launching “100 Days Since…,”  a reflection on the pivotal month of March 2020 and the administration’s failures that continue to put Americans’ health and well-being at risk.

When the WHO declared a global pandemic on March 11th, President Trump took to the Oval Office to appear before the nation in a widely panned public address. Stocks on the Dow fell more than nearly 1,500 points, fewer than 10,000 COVID tests had been administered in the country and shortages of vital medical supplies became apparent. 

Today, more than 110,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, more than 2.1 million have fallen ill, the U.S. economy has taken a nosedive, and unprecedented levels of unemployment — particularly disastrous in communities of color — have paralyzed the workforce.

“The Trump administration failed the American people, and in the 100 days since the global pandemic was declared it has done little to instill confidence,” said Jenna Kruse, spokesperson for Accountable.US. “Instead of establishing an effective pandemic response plan in the early days of the crisis, Trump opted to downplay, ignore, mislead, and delay at every turn. Today as cases spike in states across the country, we continue to deal with the aftermath of the administration’s missteps.”

Follow along as Accountable.US tracks day-by-day the Trump administration’s failures 100 days ago on its website and on social media.

100 DAYS AGO FRIDAY: March 11, 2020

  • The WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic.
  • President Trump delivered an Oval Office address that led to a steep drop in the markets and a fall to bear territory while chaos for overseas U.S. travelers as they thought their country was closing its borders on them.

100 DAYS AGO SATURDAY: March 12, 2020

  • Only about 10,000 people in the U.S. had been tested up to this point.
  • Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci told Congress that testing in the United States was a “failure.”

100 DAYS AGO SUNDAY: March 13, 2020

  • Nearly two weeks after the first death in the U.S., the Trump administration finally declared a national emergency.
  • Meanwhile, President Trump tweeted, “For decades the @CDCgov looked at, and studied,  its testing system, but did nothing about it. It would always be inadequate and slow for a large scale pandemic, but a pandemic would never happen, they hoped. President Obama made changes that only complicated things further […] Their response to H1N1 Swine Flu was a full scale disaster, with thousands dying, and nothing meaningful done to fix the testing problem, until now. The changes have been made and testing will soon happen on a very large scale basis. All Red Tape has been cut, ready to go!”

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