Michael Schaffer

“Whatever was happening in the White House was happening without the benefit of the people Bossert felt qualified to advise the president.”
― Michael Lewis, The Premonition: A Pandemic Story

“The glitch was in his mental model of his own country, and its leadership. Every day brought him more evidence of their unwillingness to act on what he’d seen. On February 26, President Trump announced at a press conference that only fifteen Americans had been infected with the virus, and that “when you have fifteen people, and the fifteen within a couple of days is going to be down close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.” The next evening, taking questions after a White House meeting with African American leaders, Trump had simply declared, “It’s going to disappear. One day—it’s like a miracle—it will disappear.” The CDC, for its part, lagged about five steps behind where it should be.”
― Michael Lewis, The Premonition: A Pandemic Story

“I’m seeing comments from people asking why WHO and CDC seem to be downplaying this,” wrote Carter. “I’m certainly no public health expert . . . but no matter how I look at this, it looks bad.” On January”
― Michael Lewis, The Premonition: A Pandemic Story