Watch the video. A year to a year and a half for a vaccine.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/01…-column-galant/index.html

Trump meets a new enemy

Opinion by Richard Galant, CNN

Updated 9:39 AM ET, Sun March 1, 2020

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(CNN)How bad will it get? That was the question this week, but it applied to several things: the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus around the world, the resulting stock market plunge and the concern about whether America's political leaders are up to the challenge.

An outbreak of the disease is inevitable in the US, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters Tuesday: "It's not so much a question of if this will happen anymore, but ... a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness."
Dr. Leana Wen, Baltimore's former health commissioner, wrote that the disease "will test our government's response and resiliency. How we weather the outbreak also hinges on our trust that the government has our best intentions at heart." She added that, "we don't yet know if the trajectory of COVID-19 will be mild, moderate, or severe" but it makes sense to prepare for the worst case.
Wall Street apparently agreed, with the Dow plunging 3,583 points, making it by percentage terms the worst week since October, 2008. In the Perspectives section of CNN Business, Paul La Monica recalled covering that financial crisis. "That was a terrifying time — but this seems a lot scarier," he wrote. "Yes, the Fed can do lots of things to help soothe frayed nerves when stocks are in free fall, but there is little that the Fed — or President Trump and Congress, for that matter — can do to solve this biological crisis for the markets and the economy."

"There is no chance the virus will leave America's economy unscathed," wrote Frida Ghitis.

close dialog Make sense of the news Sign up for CNN Opinion’s Provoke/Persuade weekly newsletter. Provoke/Persuade Me By subscribing you agree to our privacy policy. "Even if all the cases were limited to China, the rest of the globe would feel it. That's because China has become a global economic powerhouse." And by now the virus has gone well beyond the borders of China. "The best advice for Americans now is to wash your hands often and listen to the experts -- not to the President. He's not telling the truth. He's gaslighting, muddling and contradicting the urgent public health advice from experts," Ghitis wrote. She noted, "It's not out of the question that coronavirus could become Trump's 'black swan,' the low-probability, high-impact event that changes everything, even his prospects for reelection." In the Washington Post, David Ignatius wrote that, "one of President Trump's failings is that he thinks he knows better than his experts — more about the military than his generals, more about the economy than his Fed chairman, more about intelligence than his spymasters and now, we fear, more about public health than his doctors...Trump made a bad mistake when he seemed to endorse a questioner's suggestion that the CDC was 'exaggerating' the threat." Taking it further, at a South Carolina rally Friday, Trump said, "the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus" in what he called "their new hoax." Presidents are called upon to reassure the nation in the wake of traumatic events, wrote Joe Lockhart -- Reagan after the Challenger explosion, Bill Clinton after the Oklahoma City bombing, George W. Bush grabbing the bullhorn after the 9/11 attacks. So far, Trump is failing that leadership test, Lockhart said. "He has consistently underplayed the potential for a serious public health crisis here at home." Chelsea Clinton and the co-author of her book on global health, Devi Sridhar, noted that, "President Donald Trump has taken actions that many doctors and experts agree will leave the US less prepared to respond to COVID-19. He has eliminated the position of Global Health Czar and has repeatedly proposed cuts important to global health funding -- thankfully that have failed to pass in Congress."