Second, the president’s characterization of the government’s response does not match reality. If anything, the response to H1N1 was swift in comparison to the current administration’s handling of the coronavirus.
“I assume what he’s trying to say is somehow he’s doing a much better job,” Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of health and human services under Obama, said in an interview Wednesday. “I just find that totally baffling. Anybody who looks at the comparisons very quickly understands that this is not the case.”
Though the H1N1 virus had begun spreading in Mexico, the first case in the United States was detected on April 15, 2009, in a 10-year-old patient in California. Two days later, CDC laboratory testing confirmed a second infection in an 8-year-old also living in California. Within one week, the CDC had
activated its Emergency Operations Center to respond to what it had identified as an emerging public health threat.
Before the end of April, the government had
declared a public health emergency and started releasing medical supplies and drugs from the CDC’s Strategic National Stockpile. “The real-time PCR test developed by CDC was cleared for use by diagnostic laboratories by FDA under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) on April 28, 2009, less than two weeks after identification of the new pandemic virus,” the
CDC notes on its website.
Sebelius remembers that date well. It was the day she was sworn in as HHS secretary.
The test developed by the CDC was created quickly. It was accurate. And it was shared with governments around the world, she said. “The capacity of CDC at that point to make and develop and quickly turn out a test was vastly different than what we saw occurring” with the coronavirus, Sebelius said.
In an interview, Dr. Tom Frieden, who was CDC director under Obama, said testing for H1N1 and the United States’ willingness to share its test with other countries was a success. “I traveled all over the world and for years afterward even very hostile governments were saying thank you for sending it to us.”
Coronavirus testing, on the other hand, remains mired in delays. Though the first person in the United States was confirmed to have the virus on Jan. 20, a series of problems have kept testing out of reach for many patients with telltale symptoms of the virus. The CDC designed a flawed test for COVID-19, then it took weeks to figure out a fix so state and local labs could use it,
ProPublica found. Trump
said on March 6 that “anybody who wants a test gets a test,” but many doctors, patients and public health leaders say that is not the case.
Trump doesn't bronze his eyelids. Dude has AGED hard within a few months. 
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