Trump had extreme reaction to Ebola 6 years ago.

When the Ebola epidemic hit the US coast in mid-2014, Trump was still an ordinary citizen. But he had strong opinions about how the US government should act.

At the time, Trump, who publicly admitted he had a fear of germs, closely followed the developments of the epidemic and made angry comments about what he thought was a dangerous reaction from the President Barack administration. Obama. He demanded strong measures such as canceling flights, conducting mandatory quarantine and even preventing health workers from the epidemic region from Africa from returning.

"Ebola patients will be brought back to the US in a few days. Now I know for sure our leaders are incompetent. Keep them away from here," Trump tweeted on July 31, 2014 after learning. An American medical staff will be evacuated from Liberia to Atlanta. "The US cannot allow people with Ebola to return," he wrote the next day, adding: "People who go to faraway places to help are great, but they have to bear the consequences!"

In nearly 50 tweets and television appearances, Trump has voiced support for the prohibition of flights and strict isolation, and called President Obama's army to West Africa to fight the epidemic. "moral injustice".

Many medical experts have said Trump overreacted, noting that medical staff would most likely face a painful death if they were not evacuated to a US hospital. Obama administration officials accuse him of causing media panic and spreading fear in the public.

Now, Trump, as the president of the United States, faces Covid-19, an epidemic that is spreading rapidly in China and around the globe, which has killed nearly 1,900 people and killed more than 73,000. The virus has not infected so many people in the US, but health officials fear it may soon spread.

Although Trump is still at a distance from this issue, public health experts fear his excessive fear of germs, an attitude of disregard for scientific expertise and psychological suspicion of foreigners. He became a dangerous general in the event he had to deal with a dangerous outbreak of Covid-19 in the United States.

"Having a reliable leader who is capable of delivering the right, consistent messages in disclosure and evidence is extremely important," said Jennifer Nuzzo, senior scholar at the Johns Center. Hopkins on Health Security, comment. "There is so much inaccurate information out there, so the central role of the leader is to become a reliable source of information."

To date, Trump has refrained from commenting on nCoV, partly perhaps for fear of aggravating the problem and disrupting financial markets, observers said. Instead, he primarily delegated the responsibility to provide responses to health officials.

Late last month, Trump formed a 12-member anti-nCoV task force run by the National Security Council. The team included Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex M. Azar II, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Infectious and Allergy Diseases and Dr. Robert R. Redfield, director of China Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

All three have experience dealing with infectious diseases, especially Dr. Fauci, who has been involved in dealing with a range of diseases such as AIDS, SARS or Ebola.

In many comments, Trump praised Chinese President Xi Jinping, even when the Chinese government was criticized for accusing it of hiding initial information about Covid-19 that caused an outbreak of uncontrollable outbreaks.

"They have worked very hard. I think they are working very professionally," Trump said on February 7.

Speaking at a meeting with state governors on February 10, Trump predicted the virus would stop growing in the spring, while continuing to mention the president of China.

"The virus we all care about, many people think it will disappear in April, with the heat," Trump said. "We are in excellent condition. We have 12 cases, 11 cases, and many of them are in good condition."

"I had a long talk with President Xi two nights ago," Trump added. "He was very confident. He was also confident, as I said, that by April or that month, the heat would kill the virus. So that's a good thing."

Public health experts are skeptical of the accuracy of Trump's comments.

"I think we still have a lot of unknowns about nCoV and I don't think we can say with certainty that it will dissipate as the weather gets warmer," said Dr. Rebecca Katz, director of the Center for Science and An Health Security at Georgetown University, review.

"Based on the fact that the weather will be warmer in April to determine that the virus will be controlled is a controversial argument," said Dr. James M. Hughes, emeritus professor of medicine at Emory University. .

Trump's other comments about the epidemic were also inaccurate and criticized.

In late January, he wrote on Twitter that 5 cases of nCoV infection were recorded in the US hours after the sixth case was announced. Referring to nCoV in an interview with Fox News on February 2, he stated: "We almost stopped them from spreading from China and the US".

The word "deterrent" Trump uses is probably related to an executive order he issued two days earlier, banning foreign nationals who had been to China in the past two weeks into the United States.

Some health experts are concerned that Trump's excessive optimism will make him neglect his efforts to prevent the disease.

Trump's way of putting out facts has long been a source of criticism in the scientific community. The last time the White House had to respond to a national emergency was in September of last year during Super Typhoon Dorian, when Trump misleaded the official forecast of the storm's path.

"Trump has a good but wrong instinct and wrong structure," said Ronald Klain, who led the effort to deal with the Ebola crisis in 2014 under Obama. "Our government has the best medical professionals, scientists and medical leaders in the world. But Trump's instincts, unscientific, anti-professional, isolated and xenophobic, create risks for him. it will evade advice at critical moments. "

Another factor that may influence the decisions Trump makes in response to the epidemic lies in his obsession with personal hygiene. The US president frequently mentioned his extreme fear of germs.

In his 2004 book, "How to Get Rich," Trump also identified himself as a "person obsessed with germs".

As a result, he tends to avoid shaking hands with crowds after every speech or campaign, and regularly uses hand-washing liquid.

In an interview in January 2017, Harold N. Bornstein, Trump's personal physician, said he always "changed his own tissue paper" at the health examination room.

In this regard, President Trump has at least one temporary ally, President Xi. On February 10, speaking to people during a visit to a frontline facility against Beijing's anti-nCoV, Xi suggested that people should skip the greeting ritual by shaking hands normally. "Should not shake hands at the present time," he said.