That is BS. They had this data over a month ago from our own CDC, showing as many as 1.7 million Americans could die from the unchecked spread of the coronavirus.

These models showing potential U.S. fatalities, prepared by the CDC, and described last week in the New York Times, were completed by mid-February. By their terms, they projected data through February 28 (although the data were confirmed by the Times as valid in mid-March). All of the models were shared with “50 expert teams.” Are U.S. officials now claiming they never had this data, which, again, the Times reported on as recently as Friday?

Officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and epidemic experts from universities around the world conferred last month about what might happen if the new coronavirus gained a foothold in the United States. How many people might die? How many would be infected and need hospitalization? One of the agency’s top disease modelers, Matthew Biggerstaff, presented the group on the phone call with four possible scenarios — A, B, C and D — based on characteristics of the virus, including estimates of how transmissible it is and the severity of the illness it can cause. The assumptions, reviewed by The New York Times, were shared with about 50 expert teams to model how the virus could tear through the population — and what might stop it. The C.D.C.’s scenarios were depicted in terms of percentages of the population. Translated into absolute numbers by independent experts using simple models of how viruses spread, the worst-case figures would be staggering if no actions were taken to slow transmission. Between 160 million and 214 million people in the United States could be infected over the course of the epidemic, according to a projection that encompasses the range of the four scenarios. That could last months or even over a year, with infections concentrated in shorter periods, staggered across time in different communities, experts said. As many as 200,000 to 1.7 million people could die.

(emphasis supplied)

That is the same basic information that this new “British report” conveys. And buried deep in the March 13 Times article is this completely inexplicable nugget:

The C.D.C. declined interview requests about the modeling effort and referred a request for comment to the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Devin O’Malley, a spokesman for the task force, said that senior health officials had not presented the findings to the group, led by Vice President Mike Pence, and that nobody in Mr. Pence’s office “has seen or been briefed on these models.”

We’re supposed to believe that no one from these 50 teams with this critical data at their fingertips shared it with a member of the administration? Not a single person? As the pandemic spread? They all just sat around and twiddled their thumbs? That just does not pass the smell test.

And what was Trump doing during that time frame? He was downplaying the pandemic, every day.

Trump seemed largely uninterested in the global virus statistics during this period, but there were other indicators — stock-market indexes — that mattered a lot to him. And by the last week of February, those market indexes were falling. The president reacted by adding a new element to his public remarks. He began blaming others. He criticized CNN and MSNBC for “panicking markets.” He said at a South Carolina rally — falsely — that “the Democrat policy of open borders” had brought the virus into the country. He lashed out at “Do Nothing Democrat comrades.” He tweeted about “Cryin’ Chuck Schumer,” mocking Schumer for arguing that Trump should be more aggressive in fighting the virus. The next week, Trump would blame an Obama administration regulation for slowing the production of test kits. There was no truth to the charge. Throughout late February, Trump also continued to claim the situation was improving. On Feb. 26, he said: “We’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up.” On Feb. 27, he predicted: “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.” On Feb. 29, he said a vaccine would be available “very quickly” and “very rapidly” and praised his administration’s actions as “the most aggressive taken by any country.” None of these claims were true.

And nobody from CDC said, “Hey, you know, we did this little workup where we concluded that if left unchecked, without strong precautions, 1.7 million people could die.”

They knew exactly how many people would die if this thing was left unchecked. They had the data. And they knew what needed to be done to stop it. And still, they did nothing.

For a month and a half.