A Disparity in COVID Numbers: Simulation of Trump v. Obama

Authors

  • Ethan Lee Crescenta Valley High School
  • Brian Oh

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47611/jsrhs.v10i4.1805

Keywords:

COVID-19, Playbook, Trump, Obama

Abstract

Previous studies of excess deaths and infections have come out about the coronavirus during President Donald J. Trump’s administration. With President Trump’s inactions, funding cuts, and statements underestimating the impact of COVID, there have been criticisms about how President Trump handled the coronavirus throughout his presidential term. It brings about the question -- What would the case number of COVID deaths and infections be like if President Barack H. Obama, the prior president, was in office? This study uses an open source Python simulation in order to estimate the number of COVID deaths and infections estimated under Trump and Obama’s administration. By doing a case study between the two, these results provide information regarding the number of lives that could potentially have been saved along with potential insight into finding preventative measures to save lives.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References or Bibliography

Abelson R. (2020, November 28). How US Hospitals Are Stretched Way Too Thin Due to Covid-19. The New York Times. (Accessed at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/health/covid -hospitals-overload.html)

Aizenman N. (2020, February 20). New research: Bats harbor hundreds of coronaviruses, and spillovers aren't rare. NPR. (Accessed at https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/02/20/807742861 /new-research-bats-harbor-hundreds-of-coronaviruses-and-spillovers-arent-rare?

Ansari T. (2021, February 23). U.S. Covid-19 Death Toll Exceeds Half Million. WSJ. (Accessed at https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/covid-2021-02-22/card/AqyUIjgaxETIrN5s2iRs)

Angulo, F. J., Finelli, L., & Swerdlow, D. L. (2021). Estimation of US SARS-CoV-2 INFECTIONS, Symptomatic Infections, hospitalizations, and Deaths Using Seroprevalence surveys. JAMA Network Open, 4(1). doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.33706

Areddy JT. (2020, May 26). China Rules Out Animal Market and Lab as Coronavirus Origin. Wall Street Journal. (Accessed at https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-rules-out- animal-market-and-lab-as-coronavirus-origin-11590517508)

Austen I. (2020, September 14). Two Medical Systems, Two Pandemic Responses. The New York Times. (Accessed at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/01/world/canada/ america-canada-coronavirus-comparison.html)

Azralon T. (2020, August 10). What the rest of the world can learn from South Korea's COVID-19 response: Researcher investigates how South Korean policy enabled the country to flatten the curve without economic disaster. ScienceDaily. (Accessed at www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/ 200810141006.htm)

Baccini, L., Brodeur, A., & Weymouth, S. (2020). The COVID-19 pandemic and US presidential elections. doi:10.31222/osf.io/sxajv

Baker P. (2020, May 15). Trump Turns to an Old Ploy During Coronavirus Pandemic: Blame Obama. The New York Times. (Accessed at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/ 14/us/politics/trump-obama.html)

Beauchamp Z. (2020, May 4). US versus Canada on coronavirus: Trump failed, Trudeau succeeded. Vox. (Accessed at https://www.vox.com/2020/5/4/21242750/coronavirus- covid-19-united-states-canada-trump-trudeau)

Bennett B. (2020, November 18). COVID-19 Is Spiking—and Donald Trump Has Pulled a “Disappearance Act.” Time. (Accessed at https://time.com/5912675/donald-trump- president-covid-19/)

Beusekom M. (2020, July 1). About 30% of COVID deaths may not be classified as such. CIDRAP. (Accessed at https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/07/about-30-covid- deaths-may-not-be-classified-such)

Boyle P. (2021, February 18). How are COVID-19 deaths counted? It’s complicated. AAMC. (Accessed at https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/how-are-covid-19-deaths-counted-it -s-complicated)

Bruggeman L, Margolin J, Mosk M. (2020, July 29). “They didn’t run the plays”: Ex-officials say Trump administration didn’t use pandemic “playbooks.” ABC News. (Accessed at https://abcnews.go.com/Health/run-plays-officials-trump-administration-pandemic-playbooks/story?id=71999769)

Carvajal N. (2020, May 15). US coronavirus update: Latest on cases, deaths and reopening. CNN. (Accessed at https://edition.cnn.com/us/live-news/us-coronavirus-update-05-15-20/ h_5987b61087f263efd96fd433de24f0a4)

Cases, Data, and Surveillance. (2020, February 11). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Accessed at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/ about-epidemiology/identifying-source-outbreak.html)

CDC. (2020, March 28). COVID Data Tracker. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Accessed at https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_totalandratecasestotalrate)

Chehrehgosha M. (2020, June 6). The Unpreparedness of the Healthcare System for the Management of COVID-19 Pandemic Leading to the Mistreatment of the Elderly: A Newly Emerging Moral Dilemma. PubMed Central (PMC). (Accessed at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/ articles/PMC7275658/)

Chen C. (21-07-20). How to Understand COVID-19 Numbers. Propublica. (Accessed at https://www.propublica.org/article/how-to-understand-covid-19-numbers)

CNN.com Wire Service. (2020, May 12). Fact check: Obama left Trump a pandemic response playbook. The Mercury News. (Accessed at https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/05/12/fact-check-obama-left-trump-a-pandemic-response-playbook)

Coletta A. (2020, July 15). Canada’s coronavirus performance hasn’t been perfect. But it’s done far better than the U.S. The Washington Post. (Accessed at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/coronavirus-canada-united-states/2020/07/14/0686330a-c14c-11ea-b4f6-cb39cd8940fb_story.html)

Collman C. (2020, March 17). In 2017, Obama officials briefed Trump’s team on dealing with a pandemic like the coronavirus. One Cabinet member reportedly fell asleep, and others didn’t want to be there. Business Insider. (Accessed at https://www.businessinsider.nl/trump-appointees-trained-pandemic-response- in-2016-2020-3?international=true&r=US)

Constable H, Kushner J. (2021). Stopping the next one: What could the next pandemic be? BBC Future. (Accessed at https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210111-what-could-the-next-pandemic-be)

Department of Health and Human Services. (2020, September). Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Crimson Contagion 2019 Functional Exercise After-Action Report, 2020. https://www.governmentattic.org/38docs/HHSaarCrimsonContAAR_2020.pdf

Debenedetti G. (2020, March 12). Obama’s Ebola Czar, Ron Klain, on How Trump Has Bungled the Coronavirus Response. Intelligencer. Accessed at https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/obamas- ebola-czar-on-how-trump-bungled-coronavirus-response.html)

Dornauer, M. (2020, August 6). Why Was America So Unprepared for the COVID-19 Pandemic? Medium. (Accessed at https://freopp.org/why-was-america-so-unprepared-for- the-covid-19-pandemic-8c0602a971ec)

Evon, D. (2020, March 2). Did Obama Declare Swine Flu an Emergency Only After ‘Millions’ Were Infected? Snopes. (Accessed at https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-wait-swine-flu-n1h1/.)

Executive Office of the President of the United States. (2016). Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6819268/Pandemic-Playbook.pdf

Fabian J. (2020, June 25). Now, Trump blames Obama and Biden for all the crises he’s facing. ThePrint. (Accessed at https://theprint.in/world/now-trump-blames-obama-and-biden-for-all-the-crises-hes-facing/448790/.)

Farzan, A. N., Hassan, J., Bellware, K., O’Grady, S., Hawkins, D., Beachum, L., Shaban, H., Kornfield, M., & Iati, M.(2020, August 14). U.S. was ‘unprepared’ for ‘greatest public health crisis’ in a century, CDC director says. Washington Post. (Accessed at https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/13/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/.)

Finkenstadt, D. J., Handfield R., & Guinto, P. (2021, February 2). Why the U.S. Still Has a Severe Shortage of Medical Supplies. Harvard Business Review. (Accessed at https://hbr.org/2020/09/why-the-u-s-still-has-a-severe-shortage-of-medical-supplies)

Fitzpatrick, A. (2020, August 13). Why the U.S. Is Losing the War on COVID-19. Time. (Accessed at https://time.com/5879086/us-covid-19/)

Florko, N. (2020, July 13). The CDC is an apolitical island. That’s left it defenseless against Trump. STAT. (Accessed at https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/13/cdc-apolitical-island-defenseless/)

Global Health Security Index. (2020, April 10). Findings and Recommendations. GHS Index. (Accessed at https://www.ghsindex.org/ .)

Gill, B. V. (2020, June 6). Coronavirus: This is not the last pandemic. BBC News. (Accessed at https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52775386)

Gingrich, N. (2020, March 26). Newt Gingrich: How China Mismanaged and Lied About Coronavirus—Then Blamed America | Opinion. Newsweek. (Accessed at https://www.newsweek.com/newt-gingrich-how-china-mismanaged-lied-about-coronavirusthen-blamed-america-opinion-1494532)

Gu, Y. (2020, April). COVID-19 Projections Using Machine Learning – covid19-projections.com. COVID-19 Projections Using Machine Learning. https://covid19-projections.com

Haseltine, W. A. (2020, November 4). Lancet Study Suggests U.S. Is Massively Undercounting Covid-19 Cases. Forbes. (Accessed at https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2020/11/04/every-day-one-million-americans-likely-infected/?sh=1b430db26456)

Radcliffe, S. (2020, August 10). Here’s What Happened the Last Time We Had a Vaccine During a Pandemic. Healthline. (Accessed at https://www.healthline.com/health-news/what-happened-the-last-time-we-had-a-vaccine-during-a-pandemic)

Hitti, M. (2009, April 26). Swine Flu: U.S. Declares Public Health Emergency. WebMD. (Accessed at https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20090426/swine_flu_20_us_cases_confirmed)

Homeland Security Council. (2005, November). National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza. (Accessed at https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/pdf/pandemic-influenza-strategy-2005.pdf.)

Jankowicz, M. (2020, October 26). A new memoir from Barack Obama describes how he developed a pandemic playbook for the US, which Trump went on to ignore. Business Insider. (Accessed at https://www.businessinsider.com/obama-book-recalls-developing-pandmic-response-plan-that-trump-ignored-2020-10?international=true&r=US&IR=T)

Keller, J. (2020, March 20). Why the US government was unprepared for COVID-19, according to a biodefense expert. Task & Purpose. (Accessed at https://taskandpurpose.com/analysis/national-biodefense-strategy-coronavirus-covid-19/)

Khan, H., & Fletcher, L. (2009, October 26). H1N1 Vaccine Shortages Create Panic, Worry. ABC News. (Accessed at https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/swine-flu-h1n1-flu-vaccine-shortage-panic/story?id=8915650)

Kim, J. H., An, J. A. R., Oh, S. J. J., Oh, J., & Lee, J. K. (2021, March 5). Emerging COVID-19 success story: South Korea learned the lessons of MERS. Our World in Data. (Accessed at https://ourworldindata.org/covid-exemplar-south-korea)

Woolhandler, S., Himmelstein, D. U., Ahmed, S., et al. (2021, February 20). Public policy and health in the Trump era. The Lancet. (Accessed at https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32545-9/fulltext)

Levin, B. (2020, February 11). Trump Claims Coronavirus Will “Miraculously” Go Away by April. Vanity Fair. (Accessed at https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/02/donald-trump-coronavirus-warm-weather)

Lister, S.A., Redhead, C.S. (2009, September 10). The 2009 Influenza Pandemic: An Overview. Congressional Research Service. Doi: 7-6700 / R40554.

Lockhart, O. B. J. (2020, November 2). Opinion: The Covid-19 lessons Trump didn’t learn. CNN. (Accessed at https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/02/opinions/donald-trump-covid-lessons-election-lockhart/index.html)

Lovelace, B. (2020, July 14). Drugmakers will start coronavirus vaccine production by end of summer, Trump health officials say. CNBC. (Accessed at https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/13/drugmakers-will-start-coronavirus-vaccine-production-by-end-of-summer-trump-health-officials-say.html)

Macias, A. (2020, December 31). Trump boasts about his Covid response after largely ignoring crisis during deadliest month yet. CNBC. (Accessed at https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/31/trump-boasts-about-covid-response-as-december-becomes-deadliest-month-yet.html)

Mallapaty, S. (2020, November 11). Where did COVID come from? WHO investigation begins but faces challenges. Nature. (Accessed at https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03165-9?error=cookies_not_supported&code=38765ff5-b33e-4b9f-93e2-e8de50f081a4)

Martin, T.W. & Yoon, D. (2020, September 25). How South Korea Successfully Managed Coronavirus. Wall Street Journal. (Accessed at https://www.wsj.com/articles/lessons-from-south-korea-on-how-to-manage-covid-11601044329.)

Meyer, R., & Madrigal, A. C. (2020, December 4). The U.S. Has Passed the Hospital Breaking Point. The Atlantic. (Accessed at https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/12/the-worst-case-scenario-is-happening-hospitals-are-overwhelmed/617301/.)

Moore, J. (2020, November 07). Trump would have easily won a second term if it weren't FOR COVID-19. Independent. (Accessed at https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-us-election-coronavirus-second-term-b1667035.html.)

Moore, E. (2020, October 16). Trump's and Biden's plans on The Coronavirus Pandemic. NPR. (Accessed at https://www.npr.org/2020/10/16/919139204/trumps-and-biden-s-plans-on-the-coronavirus-pandemic.)

Mosk, M. (2020, April 5). George W. Bush in 2005: 'If we wait for a pandemic to appear, it will be too late to prepare'. ABC News. (Accessed at https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/george-bush-2005-wait-pandemic-late-prepare/story?id=69979013&cid=social_fb_abcn.)

Naylor, B. (2009, May 07). Obama Flu Response Relied On Bush Plan. NPR. (Accessed at https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103908247.)

Noh, J., & Danuser, G. (2020). Estimation of the fraction of COVID-19 infected people in U.S. States and countries worldwide. doi:10.1101/2020.09.26.20202382

Obama, B. (2020). A Promised Land. New York: Penguin Random House.

Parker, A., Dawsey, J., Viser, M., & Scherer, M. (2020, November 07). How Trump's erratic behavior and failure on coronavirus doomed his reelection. The Washington Post. (Accessed at https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2020/trump-pandemic-coronavirus-election/.)

Paz, C. (2020, November 2). All the President's lies about the Coronavirus. The Atlantic. (Accessed at https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/11/trumps-lies-about-coronavirus/608647/.)

Peters, C. (2020, June 8). A detailed timeline of all the ways Trump failed to respond to the coronavirus. Vox. (Accessed at https://www.vox.com/2020/6/8/21242003/trump-failed-coronavirus-response.)

Public Health Agency of Canada. (2020, June 29). Update on COVID-19 in Canada: Epidemiology and Modelling. (Accessed at https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/phac-aspc/documents/services/diseases-maladies/coronavirus-disease-covid-19/epidemiological-economic-research-data/update_covid_19_Canada_epidemiology_modelling_29june2020.pdf.)

Reinhard, B., Brown, E., Thebault, R., & Sun, L. H. (2020, June 08). CDC wants states to count 'PROBABLE' coronavirus cases and deaths, but most aren't doing it. The Washington Post. (Accessed at https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/cdc-wants-states-to-count-probable-coronavirus-cases-and-deaths-but-most-arent-doing-it/2020/06/07/4aac9a58-9d0a-11ea-b60c-3be060a4f8e1_story.html.)

Sebenius, I. & Sebenius, J.K. (2020, June 19). How many needless Covid-19 deaths were caused by delays in responding? Most of them. Stat. (Accessed at https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/19/faster-response-prevented-most-us-covid-19-deaths/.

Shaw, A.R. (2020, May 17). How President Barack Obama Would Have Handled COVID-19. Bluefield Media, LLC.

Schnirring, L. (2009, October 26). Obama's emergency STEP aimed to help implement disaster plans. CIDRAP. (Accessed at https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2009/10/obamas-emergency-step-aimed-help-implement-disaster-plans.)

The White House. (2009, October 24). Declaration of a National Emergency with Respect to the 2009 H1N1 Influenza Pandemic. (Accessed at https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/realitycheck/the-press-office/declaration-a-national-emergency-with-respect-2009-h1n1-influenza-pandemic-0.)

The White House. (2015, July 28). Fact Sheet: The Global Health Security Agenda. (Accessed at https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/07/28/fact-sheet-global-health-security-agenda.)

Guardian staff and agencies. (2020, November 22). Donald Trump appears to admit COVID is 'running wild' in the US. The Guardian. (Accessed at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/22/donald-trump-appears-to-admits-covid-is-running-wild-in-the-us.)

United States Congressman Lloyd Doggett. (2021, January 20). Timeline of Trump’s Coronavirus Responses. (Accessed at https://doggett.house.gov/media-center/blog-posts/timeline-trump-s-coronavirus-responses.)

Walsh, N. P. (2020, December 01). The Wuhan files: Leaked documents reveal China's mishandling of the early stages of Covid-19. CNN News. (Accessed at https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/30/asia/wuhan-china-covid-intl/index.html.)

William Natcher Center & National Institute of Health. (2005, November 01). President Outlines Pandemic Influenza Preparations and Response. (Accessed at https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051101-1.html.)

Wong, C. (2020, April 19). Asian countries more receptive to China's coronavirus 'face mask diplomacy'. South China Morning Post. (Accessed at https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3080406/asian-countries-more-receptive-chinas-coronavirus-face-mask.)

Wu, S. L., Mertens, A., Crider, Y. S., Nguyen, A., Pokpongkiat, N. N., Djajadi, S., Seth, A., Hsiang, M.S., Colford Jr., J.M., Reingold, A., Arnold, B.F., Hubbard, A., & Benjamin-Chung, J. (2020). Substantial underestimation of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the United States. doi:10.1101/2020.05.12.20091744

VCU Health. (2020). Comparing COVID-19 with H1N1 and other viral outbreaks. (Accessed at https://www.vcuhealth.org/news/covid-19/comparing-covid-19-with-h1n1-and-other-viral-outbreaks#:~:text=The%20major%20difference%20from%20SARS,coronavirus%20is%20much%20less%20deadly.)

Viglione, G. (2020, November 03). Four ways Trump has meddled in pandemic science - and why it matters. Nature. (Accessed at https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03035-4.)

Yan, W., & Babe, A. (2020, October 05). What Should the U.S. Learn from South Korea's Covid-19 Success? Undark. (Accessed March 12, 2021, at https://undark.org/2020/10/05/south-korea-covid-19-success/.)

Yong, E. (2020, August 06). How the Pandemic Defeated America. The Atlantic. (Accessed at https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/09/coronavirus-american-failure/614191/.)

Published

11-30-2021

How to Cite

Lee, E., & Oh, B. (2021). A Disparity in COVID Numbers: Simulation of Trump v. Obama. Journal of Student Research, 10(4). https://doi.org/10.47611/jsrhs.v10i4.1805

Issue

Section

HS Research Articles