latimes--2020-04-19--Gang intervention workers are vital community lifelines amid coronavirus pandemic

Gernay Quinnie Jr. slipped on a mask and gloves on a recent morning and set out to quell tensions in his West Athens neighborhood .
He talked a young man through a conflict with his mom .
He helped a group of young people make food boxes for neighbors .
He then drove to a nearby homeless encampment to pass out food and toiletries and explained how to properly use a mask and gloves .
The tasks all carry an added threat of contracting the coronavirus , and Quinnie , who suffers from an immune disorder , is especially at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ County shuttered because of the pandemic , Quinnie is one of many gang intervention workers still on the streets , tending to the neighborhoods where they grew up , places where historical disparities in access to healthcare , jobs and adequate housing make residents especially vulnerable to infection and death .
“ If I don ’ t go out , who else is going to do it , ” said , Quinnie , 38 , who has worked with Reclaiming America ’ s Communities through Empowerment , an intervention and prevention group , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ workers — some themselves former gang members — help reduce violence and retaliation and broker peace between rival street gangs .
Los Angeles County is one of a handful of places that has designated such work as essential during the coronavirus pandemic .
These days , the workers are also using their street credibility to dispel misinformation and educate people about the coronavirus .
They ’ re also trying to adapt to the needs of their communities , whether it ’ s walking door-to-door to feed the newly unemployed and the homeless or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to ask questions about the virus .
And they ’ re trying to diffuse tensions that arise between cooped up family members and stir-crazy youths .
“ These are not just those guys who know how to negotiate peace treaties , they are a community asset , ” said Jorja Leap , a gang expert at UCLA ’ s Luskin School of Public Affairs .
“ Historically and presently , where authorities are not trusted , these men and women ... are the go-between , the objects of trust.
” Their roles as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the daily onslaught of news alarms traumatizes some , said Ben “ Taco ” Owens , who supervises a team of 11 intervention workers .
“ You don ’ t know if it ’ s the end of the world or what ’ s going on , ” he said .
Since the outbreak , Kevin “ Twin ” Orange , has been unofficially patrolling a 7-Eleven near West Century Boulevard and South Vermont Avenue down the street from his home .
He also drives by the marijuana dispensaries in his neighborhood to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ encounters people who don ’ t understand the concept of social distancing , so he tries to educate them about maintaining space and taking other precautions .
Recently , an episode in South L.A. where police broke up a backyard birthday party of about 40 to 50 people turned volatile with angry residents yelling profanities .
The party , for a one-year-old , violated the city ’ s safer-at-home order , which now bans public and private gatherings .
The next day , Orange met with other intervention workers from across the city @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about why gathering in groups could be dangerous .
He ’ s told more than one teenager that this virus isn ’ t just about them .
“ Let ’ s think about who is in your household , ” he will say .
Orange is also thinking about his own home , where he lives with a relative who has an underlying health condition .
He bathes and changes his clothes as soon as he arrives .
“ I ’ m mindful of that threat that ’ s always out there , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson , whose district encompasses a chunk of South L.A. , said the area has seen a spate of shootings in recent weeks .
Although violent crime is down in the city , intervention workers are still on the streets , talking to young men to prevent retaliatory shootings .
In addition , workers in his district have volunteered to deliver meals to seniors , which helps them keep tabs on the community .
“ These men and women did not miss a beat , ” he said .
“ They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to tell them what they ought to be doing or should be doing .
“ Skipp Townsend , an intervention worker and executive director of Second Call , said social media taunts played a role in at least one of the recent shootings .
Some people still gather at events that can turn volatile , he said , adding that two people were shot at a party a few weekends ago .
“ The younger people are still consistently antagonizing each other on social media , ” he said .
Other gang prevention @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tina Padilla , a program manager at Breaking Through Barriers to Success in Northeast Los Angeles , held a Zoom call recently for young clients seeking guidance about the novel coronavirus .
Some in the community still want to hug or shake hands .
Others think the government is using COVID-19 to control Americans .
Some believe the coronavirus can be cured with a shot of tequila .
“ COVID-19 is something they can ’ t see , ” Padilla said .
“ They ’ re already living a risky lifestyle , so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ see going to get them ?
” After shootings , intervention workers typically go to hospitals to connect families with services .
Now , with hospital visits discouraged , Padilla said there ’ s a lag in providing resources .
Instead , case workers are assigning young people writing projects , playing online trivia and giving out board and card games to “ try to keep their minds busy.
” “ I do know they ’ re getting stir-crazy , ” she said .
Gerald “ Pee ” Cavitt , executive director of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said people are coming by his office off East Florence Avenue to ask questions about the coronavirus .
He ’ s also organized several food giveaways in the neighborhoods he works in .
“ People are fearful , ” Cavitt said .
“ We thought they didn ’ t have money then ; they don ’ t have money now.
” He ’ s educated a number of gang members about the virus and safety measures so they can take the information back to family and friends .
“ These are the people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” he said .
On a recent rainy afternoon , Claudia Bracho , program director for the H.E.L.P.E.R .
Foundation , donned a mask and gloves and stood in a Venice apartment courtyard .
Since the crisis began , Bracho and a team of intervention workers — Clinton Noble , Ebay Williams , Melvyn Hayward III and Ansar Muhammad — have been distributing donated groceries to low-income families and senior citizens in the Venice and Mar Vista area .
“ We got bread and produce !
We got bread and produce !
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the rain for hours , slipping bags with fresh asparagus and broccoli through iron gates .
In recent weeks , they ’ ve picked up prescriptions for people and run errands .
They ’ ve found ways to connect young people to each other , such as eating breakfast as a group on Instagram live .
Bracho ’ s organization serves mostly Latino and black families , some of whom are distrustful of authorities .
They ’ ve provided Spanish translations of physical distancing guidelines .
“ Since we ’ ve helped them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ word carries weight , ” she said .
For Cassandra Bibbs , a lifelong Venice resident with a heart condition , the gestures are a lifeline .
Bibbs said her 12-year-old grandson , whom she is raising , has asthma .
“ He has to stay in the house , ” she said .
“ That ’ s the choice I made to keep us safe.
” Since the stay-at-home mandates were issued , people from Bracho ’ s organization have come by several times each week to deliver sack lunches and groceries @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her grandson with his homework on FaceTime .
Around the corner , Geo Martinez shares an apartment with his mother and brother .
He was recently furloughed from his job at a local restaurant and said as the days go by , he worries more and more about money .
On a recent afternoon , Martinez was sitting in his apartment , looking out the window when he heard Bracho ’ s voice .
She had bags of groceries .
“ I was thinking , for real ?
” he said .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Then , two days later , the group was back with more .

Nicole Santa Cruz, Photography by Genaro Molina

Gernay Quinnie Jr. slipped on a mask and gloves on a recent morning and set out to quell tensions in his West Athens neighborhood.
He talked a young man through a conflict with his mom. He helped a group of young people make food boxes for neighbors. He then drove to a nearby homeless encampment to pass out food and toiletries and explain how to properly use a mask and gloves.
The tasks all carry an added threat of contracting the coronavirus, and Quinnie, who has an immune disorder, is especially at risk.
With much of Los Angeles County shuttered because of the pandemic, Quinnie is one of many gang intervention workers still on the streets, tending to the neighborhoods where they grew up, places where historical disparities in access to healthcare, jobs and adequate housing make residents especially vulnerable to infection and death.
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“If I don’t go out, who else is going to do it,” said, Quinnie, 38, who has worked with Reclaiming America’s Communities Through Empowerment, an intervention and prevention group, for about a year.
The intervention workers — some themselves former gang members — help reduce violence and retaliation and broker peace between rival street gangs. Los Angeles County is one of a handful of places that has designated such work as essential during the coronavirus pandemic.
These days, the workers also are using their street credibility to dispel misinformation and educate people about the coronavirus. They’re trying to adapt to the needs of their communities, whether it’s walking door-to-door to feed the newly unemployed and the homeless or setting up Zoom meetings for young people to ask questions about the virus.
Gernay Quinnie Jr., left, tells Irma Peralta that his crew will be feeding the homeless people who live in a vacant parking lot in the area. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
And they’re trying to defuse tensions that arise among cooped-up family members and stir-crazy youths.
“These are not just those guys who know how to negotiate peace treaties; they are a community asset,” said Jorja Leap, a gang expert at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs. “Historically and presently, where authorities are not trusted, these men and women ... are the go-between, the objects of trust.”
A fatigued homeless woman carries a bag lunch provided by Gernay Quinnie Jr. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Their roles as sounding boards have become more vital as the daily onslaught of news alarms or traumatizes some, said Ben “Taco” Owens, who supervises a team of 11 intervention workers.
“You don’t know if it’s the end of the world or what’s going on,” he said.
Since the outbreak, Kevin “Twin” Orange has been unofficially patrolling a 7-Eleven near West Century Boulevard and South Vermont Avenue down the street from his home. He also drives by the marijuana dispensaries in his neighborhood to break up parking lot fights. He encounters people who don’t understand the concept of social distancing, so he tries to educate them about maintaining space and taking other precautions.
Nonprofit worker Jesse Maroney gives Irma Peralta gloves and a protective mask in a South L.A. parking lot. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Recently, an episode in South Los Angeles where police broke up a backyard birthday party of about 40 to 50 people turned volatile, with angry residents yelling profanities.
The party, for a 1-year-old, violated the city’s safer-at-home order, which now bans public and private gatherings.
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The next day, Orange met with other intervention workers from across the city to try to get the word out about why gathering in groups could be dangerous.
Neise Kennedy waits to pick up food in South L.A. At right, a worker places gloves and masks inside food bags. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
He’s told more than one teenager that this virus isn’t just about them. “Let’s think about who is in your household,” he will say.
Orange is also thinking about his own home, where he lives with a relative who has an underlying health condition. He bathes and changes his clothes as soon as he arrives.
“I’m mindful of that threat that’s always out there,” he said.
Los Angeles City Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson, whose district encompasses a chunk of South L.A., said the area had seen a spate of shootings in recent weeks. Although violent crime is down in the city, intervention workers are still on the streets, talking to young men to prevent retaliatory shootings.
In addition, workers in his district have volunteered to deliver meals to seniors, which helps them keep tabs on the community.
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Ansar “Stan” Muhammad, center, co-director at the HELPER Foundation, delivers food through a fence. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
“These men and women did not miss a beat,” he said. “They didn’t wait around for anybody to tell them what they ought to be doing or should be doing. “
Skipp Townsend, executive director of the gang intervention nonprofit Second Call, said social media taunts played a role in at least one of the recent shootings. Some people still gather at events that can turn volatile, he said, adding that two people were shot at a party a few weekends ago.
“The younger people are still consistently antagonizing each other on social media,” he said.
Other gang intervention organizations have stepped up education efforts. Tina Padilla, a program manager at Breaking Through Barriers to Success in northeast Los Angeles, held a Zoom call recently for young clients seeking guidance about the novel coronavirus.
Claudia Bracho, left, and other intervention workers deliver groceries. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Some in the community still want to hug or shake hands. Others think the government is using COVID-19 to control Americans. Some believe the coronavirus can be cured with a shot of tequila.
Advertisement
“COVID-19 is something they can’t see,” Padilla said. “They’re already living a risky lifestyle, so how is something they can’t see going to get them?”
After shootings, intervention workers typically go to hospitals to connect families with services. Now, with hospital visits discouraged, Padilla said there’s a lag in providing resources.
Ebay Williams and Claudia Bracho of the HELPER Foundation distribute groceries in Venice. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Instead, case workers are assigning young people writing projects, playing online trivia and giving out board and card games to “try to keep their minds busy.”
“I do know they’re getting stir-crazy,” she said.
Gerald “Pee” Cavitt, executive director of Chapter Two in South Los Angeles, said people were coming by his office off East Florence Avenue to ask questions about the coronavirus. He’s also organized several food giveaways in the neighborhoods he works in.
“People are fearful,” Cavitt said. “We thought they didn’t have money then; they don’t have money now.”
He’s educated a number of gang members about the virus and safety measures so they can take the information back to family and friends.
Advertisement
Workers with the HELPER Foundation provide bags of food in the Oakwood neighborhood in Venice. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
“These are the people who can really make a difference,” he said.
On a recent rainy afternoon, Claudia Bracho, program director for the HELPER Foundation, donned a mask and gloves and stood in a Venice apartment courtyard. Since the crisis began, Bracho and a team of intervention workers — Clinton Noble, Ebay Williams, Melvyn Hayward III and Ansar Muhammad — have been distributing donated groceries to low-income families and senior citizens in the Venice and Mar Vista area.
“We got bread and produce! We got bread and produce!” Bracho shouted. The group trudged through the rain for hours, slipping bags with fresh asparagus and broccoli through iron gates.
In recent weeks, they’ve picked up prescriptions for people and run errands. They’ve found ways to connect young people to one another, such as by eating breakfast as a group on Instagram Live.
Ebay Williams of the HELPER Foundation gives a youngster and her family groceries in the Oakwood neighborhood in Venice. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Advertisement
Bracho’s organization serves mostly Latino and black families, some of whom are distrustful of authorities. They’ve provided Spanish translations of physical distancing guidelines.
“Since we’ve helped them with a lot of things, our word carries weight,” she said.
For Cassandra Bibbs, a lifelong Venice resident with a heart condition, the gestures are a lifeline. Bibbs says her 12-year-old grandson, whom she is raising, has asthma.
“He has to stay in the house,” she said. “That’s the choice I made to keep us safe.”
Since the stay-at-home mandates were issued, people from Bracho’s organization have come by several times each week to deliver sack lunches and groceries. Some of the intervention workers helped her grandson with his homework on FaceTime.
“It’s a big help,” Bibbs said.
Claudia Bracho, program manager with the HELPER Foundation, raises victorious arms under the watchful eye of longtime Venice community activist Pamela Anderson after delivering groceries to the needy. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Around the corner, Geo Martinez shares an apartment with his mother and brother. He was recently furloughed from his job at a local restaurant and said that as the days went by he worried more and more about money.
Advertisement
On a recent afternoon, Martinez was sitting in his apartment, looking out the window, when he heard Bracho’s voice. She had bags of groceries.
“I was thinking, for real?” he said. The food brought Martinez a brief respite. Then, two days later, the group was back with more.


latimes--2020-04-19--How Trump let the U.S. fall behind the curve on coronavirus threat

The first day President Trump mentioned the coronavirus in public , only one American was known to be infected .
He assured the rest of the country it had no reason to worry .
“ We have it totally under control , ” Trump said Jan. 22 from Davos , Switzerland .
“ It ’ s going to be just fine.
” Behind the scenes , however , even some of his close aides thought the virus posed a much greater threat to the nation and to Trump .
Three months later , the United States leads the world in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by the virus , with more than 39,000 dead .
States , counties and local hospitals are desperately bidding against one another for scarce ventilators and other lifesaving equipment in a marketplace dominated by chaos , profiteering and fraud .
And the country ’ s economy is in free fall , with more than 20 million Americans filing unemployment claims in the last month .
Trump has at various times called the catastrophe unforeseeable or blamed the World Health Organization and China ; his predecessor , who he claimed left him an “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and state governors whom he accused of mismanaging the health crisis .
But from the first international reports of the virus ’ appearance in China in late December until Trump declared a nationwide emergency in mid-March , his administration delayed or bungled basic but crucial steps to contain the spread of infections and prepare the country for a pandemic , according to a Times review of internal government records and interviews with administration officials and outside experts .
In that key early period , many of the Trump presidency ’ s most deeply @ @ @ @ @ @ @ federal bureaucracy , internal personality conflicts , lack of a formal policymaking process and Trump ’ s own insistence on controlling the public message — severely hampered the federal response , according to current and former White House officials and public health experts .
Even senior members of the administration who sought to warn Trump about the looming dangers were rebuffed , said several administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on internal discussions .
Containing such an easily spread contagion was certain to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ concede .
Making it even harder , China initially played down the infection danger , and it was unclear at that point how readily the virus could spread .
But Trump ’ s unwillingness to take the health threat seriously and disagreements among his top aides effectively sidelined the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services , leaving key responders without direction from a White House that was focused on the president ’ s impeachment trial in the Senate .
Weeks were lost that could have been used to test and isolate the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , prepare makeshift hospitals and enlist corporations in quickly ramping up production of badly needed respirators and other supplies .
“ In an ideal world , there would have been a structure and someone with vision empowered in the White House , ” said J. Stephen Morrison , a health policy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies , a Washington think tank .
“ Everything was seen through the impeachment and reelection process.
” The White House said in a statement that Trump acted to control the virus while Democrats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the danger in January and February .
“ President Trump took bold action to protect Americans and unleash the full power of the federal government to curb the spread of the virus , expand testing capacities , and expedite vaccine development when we had no true idea the level of transmission or asymptomatic spread , ” White House spokesman Judd Deere said .
The statement added that Trump “ remains completely focused on the health and safety of the American people and it is because of his bold leadership that we will emerge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and with a prosperous and growing economy.
” The first official warning about the new virus came on the last day of 2019 , when Chinese authorities reported that residents of Wuhan in the central Hubei province were coming down with pneumonia from an unknown cause .
China soon identified the cause of the outbreak as a new strain of coronavirus but said there was “ no evidence of significant human-to-human transmission.
” At the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , Director Robert Redfield , a physician and former AIDS researcher @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is no confirmed person-to-person spread ” of the illness in China , though his agency was “ monitoring the situation closely.
” The CDC issued a routine “ level 1 travel notice , ” advising Americans traveling to Wuhan to “ practice usual precautions.
” Three days later , the CDC announced that airports would conduct health screenings for passengers traveling from Wuhan to Los Angeles , San Francisco and New York .
The screenings didn ’ t initially cover all airports with flights from China .
Nor did they address travelers from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And the cursory temperature checks didn ’ t detect patients who were carrying the virus but were still asymptomatic , a problem that became fully apparent only later .
At the White House , Trump and his close advisors , consumed by his impending impeachment trial in the Senate , rebuffed attempts by Redfield ’ s boss , Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar , to alert them about the threat , according to a former federal official with knowledge of the communications .
Unlike some other Trump Cabinet officials , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , having served in the agency in the administration of President George W. Bush and having been an executive at pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Co. His relationship with Trump and senior health and budget officials in the White House had been strained for months , in part because of Azar ’ s inability to deliver on one of Trump ’ s signature campaign promises — to lower prescription drug prices .
Trump also blamed Azar for entangling him in what turned out to be a politically complicated effort to crack down on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with Trump on Jan. 18 , when the president was at Mar-a-Lago , his Palm Beach , Fla. , resort .
By then , Thailand and Japan were reporting confirmed coronavirus infections .
Trump wanted to discuss the vaping ban , not the coronavirus , a White House aide familiar with the call said .
Two days later , the CDC confirmed the first coronavirus case in the U.S. A Washington state man in his 30s had returned from Wuhan on Jan. 15 at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport , where no screening was being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ symptoms to his doctor .
“ It ’ s one person coming in from China , ” Trump said during his Jan. 22 interview with CNBC from Davos .
As Trump reassured the nation , the WHO , the United Nations agency for international public health , announced that evidence suggested “ human to human ” transmission in China but that more investigation was necessary .
Trump did not consider the virus a major worry and trusted Azar to handle it , a senior administration official said .
Other White House aides were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ official and another senior White House aide added .
In late January , Joseph Grogan , the White House domestic policy chief and a former lobbyist for a pharmaceutical company , sounded the alarm about the administration potentially overlooking what could become a major crisis .
He voiced reservations about Azar ’ s ability to handle the matter during a meeting in the office of Mick Mulvaney , then the president ’ s acting chief of staff , one of the senior administration officials said .
“ It could be so big that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cost the election , ” Grogan said with several senior staffers present .
Mulvaney convened meetings aimed at coordinating the U.S. government response , but the discussion at first focused only on evacuation flights to bring Americans in China and other affected countries home , one of the senior White House officials said .
There was little discussion about how to keep the virus out .
Daily intelligence updates from the CIA and other intelligence organizations tracked the international spread of the coronavirus , but their reports did not recommend steps to contain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a senior Defense official familiar with the warnings .
On Jan. 29 , the White House announced a 12-member task force of officials from multiple agencies “ to work to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus.
” Trump was briefed in the White House Situation Room .
Privately , some advisors were warning about massive disruptions if the virus caused a pandemic .
Peter Navarro , Trump ’ s director of trade and manufacturing policy , suggested stopping travel from China in a memo written the same day the task force was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by the New York Times , warned of potentially devastating effects on the economy if no containment measures were taken .
But Navarro , a longtime China hawk known around the West Wing as having a combustible temper , was largely dismissed after he erupted at Azar during a staff meeting , leading the health secretary to demand that Mulvaney keep him off the task force , according to one of the senior administration officials .
The conflicts inside the White House along with the impeachment trial underway in the Senate kept the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ radar .
“ You have Trump as the lone-wolf operator , ” said Anthony Scaramucci , who served briefly as Trump ’ s director of communications and has recently been critical of the president .
“ What happens is everybody gets immobilized .
They don ’ t know what their marching orders are … so that ’ s caused them to be very slow-footed in the midst of this crisis.
” Others in the administration took their cue from Trump .
The same day as the Situation Room briefing , Commerce Secretary Wilbur @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases in China could “ accelerate the return of jobs to North America.
” White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told reporters the next day that Trump and his senior aides were continuing “ to monitor the situation.
” Standing next to her , Brett Giroir , assistant secretary for health , said that the outbreak was “ under control ” and that “ all the resources were in place.
” As head of the task force , Azar tried to carve out a major role overseeing the federal response without sounding public alarms @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , according to another administration official , who spoke on the condition of anonymity .
On Jan. 31 , Azar declared a public health emergency and announced the U.S. was temporarily prohibiting foreign nationals who had traveled in China within the previous 14 days from entering the country .
Americans returning from China were allowed back after being screened at select ports of entry and for 14 days afterward to monitor any possible symptoms .
It was Trump who had made the decision to impose the travel restrictions , Azar told reporters , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ career public health officials here at HHS.
” But Azar would run into resistance from some White House aides later as he sought more federal funding to respond to the virus .
During one tense meeting , a White House budget official accused him of trying to go around the president to get the money from Congress , according to a former government official .
For much of the next month , Trump and other senior White House officials played down the risk to Americans , even as evidence mounted that the virus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health and disaster experts had warned for years about the possible devastation that a pandemic could wreak .
Internal government studies conducted months earlier had shown that a fast-spreading flu virus from China would quickly overwhelm the nation ’ s health system unless preparations were taken beforehand .
A 2019 exercise overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services , dubbed Crimson Contagion , concluded that a massive , deadly epidemic would result in confusion and limited coordination among federal agencies and state governments as school closures and other social distancing measures @ @ @ @ @ @ @ struggle with shortages of medications , personal protective equipment , ventilators and other supplies , according to a draft report on the results , disclosed by the New York Times .
At the White House , the Council of Economic Advisors warned in September that the economic damage of a fast-spreading virus could reach $ 3.79 trillion and kill 500,000 Americans .
And a 2017 study by the Defense Department on the possibility of a pandemic predicted a shortage of medical masks , gloves , ventilators and hospital beds .
The federal government @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the predictions from becoming a reality , experts said , including invoking the Defense Production Act to require private companies to address shortages of medical masks , ventilators and other equipment ; mobilizing the military to construct field hospitals and organize testing centers around the country ; and dispatching Navy hospital ships to New York and Los Angeles sooner .
But there was little urgency to the government response .
“ It was one failure after another , piling up on each other , ” said Dr. Ashish Jha , faculty director of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ When that happens , it usually means it wasn ’ t a priority .
It was a lack of leadership.
” In early February , the WHO warned that the coronavirus was spreading rapidly in China and assumed in its response plan that human-to-human transmission was widespread .
Chinese authorities had quarantined entire cities .
Limited testing in other countries was complicating the effort to detect the virus .
The international organization urged countries to scale up “ preparedness and response operations , including strengthening readiness to rapidly identify , diagnose and treat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Singapore rolled out COVID-19 tests fairly quickly , giving health officials a head start on tracing the spread of the virus and imposing a degree of containment measures that the United States did not take until weeks later , said Dr. C. Jason Wang , director of Stanford University ’ s Center for Policy , Outcomes and Prevention .
Not everything went smoothly .
Singapore is now fighting an outbreak among a large population of migrant workers the government mostly overlooked in its initial efforts against the virus .
But as of late @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reported in Singapore was just 11 , and only half a dozen had been tallied in Taiwan .
There were 234 reported fatalities in South Korea — a tiny fraction of the per capita deaths in the United States .
“ South Korea did massive testing and containment , ” Wang said .
He said Taiwan also deployed its military to manufacture medical masks , upping production from 2 million to 10 million a day within three weeks .
“ We could have done that — absolutely , ” said Nick Vyas , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Global Supply Chain Management .
“ Masks would have been very easy to replicate and inventory.
” In the U.S. , Trump mentioned the virus during a Feb. 10 campaign rally in New Hampshire , telling the crowd that “ by April , you know , in theory , when it gets a little warmer , it miraculously goes away.
” It is now clear that the virus was spreading rapidly in the U.S. , but tracing its path proved impossible because the CDC had fumbled its initial attempt to create a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ proven German test that had been adopted by the WHO , and it relied on an existing network of public health labs , a model better suited for smaller , less deadly outbreaks .
It distributed kits to more than 100 public health labs run by states and counties , sending each facility enough testing supplies to sample 300 to 400 patients , far fewer than would eventually be needed .
The agency ’ s early effort was on a small scale because there was little initial recognition that the virus could be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ agency official who discussed the CDC response .
When state labs began to run sample tests using the CDC kits , a flaw quickly became apparent : Running ordinary water through the test produced false positives .
Paul Fulton , a CDC spokesman , said the agency was still studying the flawed test but said a new version is now “ accurate and reliable.
” He noted that the CDC ’ s role was “ to equip state public health labs , which is only one part of total testing that needs to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Administration was responsible for approving tests by private labs for commercial use by hospitals and clinics — a step that took the agency until March 16 .
Difficulties in responding to a health crisis are hardly unusual , noted Dr. Richard Besser , who served as acting director of the CDC in 2009 during the outbreak of the H1N1 swine flu .
The agency has long prided itself on its independence and sometimes made mistakes as it rushed to respond in a crisis .
“ I was never involved in a public health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” said Besser , who now heads the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation .
But the missteps in responding to the current outbreak were slow to be corrected — in part because of the agency ’ s isolation under Trump , Besser added .
During past outbreaks , the CDC played a prominent role in public briefings , helping increase accountability within the agency and push its scientists to make any needed changes quickly .
“ It was the ability to be transparent and share what we were learning that allowed us to maintain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” Besser explained .
At a news briefing Feb. 25 , Dr. Nancy Messonnier , director of the CDC ’ s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases , said she was frustrated with the flaws in the tests and raised the possibility of significant social disruption , including closing schools , canceling mass gatherings and delaying elective surgeries .
Her comments were a sharp contrast to the message delivered that same day by Trump , who was 10 time zones away in New Delhi for a state visit .
“ We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shape in the United States , ” Trump told reporters , referring briefly to the virus .
“ And we think it ’ s going to remain that way.
” On the 18-hour flight home , the president grew upset about the plunging stock market and grim picture painted in news reports he watched aboard Air Force One .
Instead of sleeping , he called Azar from the plane and complained that Messonnier ’ s comments were worrying the markets .
Upon landing , Trump convened the task force in the Oval Office @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the president stepped to the lectern , he announced that Vice President Mike Pence would be taking over the task force .
The aides who ’ d been in the room with him moments earlier had gotten no warning .
Nor had Azar , who heard along with everybody else the news that he ’ d been replaced .
The decision , according to two administration officials familiar with the president ’ s thinking , reflected Trump ’ s fixation on the virus ’ economic effects and his desire to prevent public health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the response .
The number of U.S. cases was “ going very substantially down , not up , ” Trump said at a news conference .
There would be only five infected Americans shortly , he predicted .
Azar openly contradicted him : “ We can expect to see more cases in the United States , ” he said .
Pence ’ s staff immediately ordered that all public statements about the virus go through his office , according to one of the officials .
On Feb. 27 , as reported infections spread @ @ @ @ @ @ @ administration had “ done an incredible job.
” “ One day — it ’ s like a miracle — it will disappear , ” he said .
“ It could get worse before it gets better .
It could maybe go away .
We ’ ll see what happens .
Nobody really knows.
” The next day , a WHO report warned the virus was highly contagious and urged countries with infections to immediately “ activate the highest level of national Response Management protocols.
” On Feb. 29 , the CDC announced that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of COVID-19 near Seattle , marking the first publicly reported fatality in the U.S .
But as the coronavirus outbreak spread in March , Trump failed to mount an organized government response to address medical supply shortages hobbling hospitals , clinics and doctors ’ offices nationwide .
Instead , he turned to his daughter Ivanka Trump ; her husband , Jared Kushner ; and Navarro , a former economics professor from Southern California , none of whom have expertise in logistics or procurement .
Kushner set himself up in an office at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the foot of Capitol Hill , much to the chagrin of some in the health agency .
The Kushner team began calling chief executives of major corporations , lobbying them to scrounge up supplies outside the normal procurement channels set up by the government , one private sector official said .
Matthew Beckmann , a UC Irvine political science professor who focuses on the presidency , said Trump ’ s response to the pandemic reflected not so much his ideology as his overall lack of interest in the nitty-gritty work of running the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ number of inexperienced people close to him .
“ The way he runs things is more like a family restaurant , ” Beckmann said .
Off the California coast , the cruise ship Grand Princess had circled for days as thousands of worried passengers and crew members potentially exposed to the coronavirus waited for federal and state officials to decide where and when they would dock .
Trump said he wasn ’ t in favor of bringing the passengers ashore for testing that would cause the official tally of infected Americans to surge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ where they are .
I don ’ t need to have the numbers double because of one ship , ” Trump told reporters during a visit March 6 to the CDC in Atlanta .
The passengers were unloaded in Oakland anyway and sent to hospitals or placed in quarantine .
The worsening outlook — and the slow pace of testing — increased pressure on Trump to announce far-reaching additional measures .
“ The bottom line : It is going to get worse , ” Dr. Anthony Fauci , who leads the National Institute @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at a House committee hearing March 11 , the same day the WHO labeled the virus a pandemic and the continuing losses in the stock market officially ended the longest bull market in U.S. history .
Hours later , in a rare prime-time address from the Oval Office , Trump said he was extending the travel restrictions to Europe , barring entry to foreign nationals who had been in parts of the continent within the previous 14 days .
It was a measure some advisors had been urging him to take for weeks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He urged that “ older Americans should avoid nonessential travel ” and said people in general should “ stay home , ” even as he continued to minimize the potential severity of the disease .
Wall Street futures dropped sharply after the speech , which came within minutes of the actor Tom Hanks announcing he had the disease and the National Basketball Assn .
suspending its entire schedule .
One former White House official said the speech prompted an intervention from some of the Wall Street executives whom Trump most trusts : “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speech where you ’ re making light is not helping you , ” the former official said , paraphrasing the message .
“ The markets know math and this is not a math thing .
This is a science thing.
” The takeaway was clear : The usual playbook would not work with a pandemic .
“ He can ’ t yell from the podium , ‘ fake science , ’ ” the former official said .
“ You ’ ve got to adjust and calibrate this.
” The speech marked the first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the White House messaging on the pandemic .
But his continued downplaying of the coronavirus threat so alarmed Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx , the State Department ’ s top global health expert , that they decided they needed to shock him into taking action , according to a former health official close to Birx .
They showed him the findings of an alarming study by Imperial College London , an institution noted for its research into global health , that found an unchecked epidemic could infect 8 in 10 people and cause @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The day after their briefing , Trump declared a national emergency , freeing more than $ 40 billion in federal assistance for states .
Within days , the Pentagon , the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies moved off the sidelines .
State and local officials began shutting down schools and enforcing restrictions on contacts .
The virus was still spreading , and many weeks of upheaval , medical emergencies and human tragedy were to come .
Over that time , Trump has vacillated on how long the nation ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is to blame for the rising death toll .
But he has consistently maintained that his administration ’ s response was flawless , a “ 10 out of 10 , ” he told reporters at one news conference .
Problems such as the slow rate of testing were not his fault .
“ I don ’ t take responsibility at all , ” he said .
Times staff writers Noah Bierman , Noam N. Levey and Tracy Wilkinson contributed to this report .

David S. Cloud, Paul Pringle, Eli Stokols

The first day President Trump mentioned the coronavirus in public, only one American was known to be infected. He assured the rest of the country it had no reason to worry.
“We have it totally under control,” Trump said Jan. 22 from Davos, Switzerland. “It’s going to be just fine.”
Behind the scenes, however, even some of his close aides thought the virus posed a much greater threat to the nation and to Trump.
Three months later, the United States leads the world in reported numbers of people infected and killed by the virus, with more than 39,000 dead. States, counties and local hospitals are desperately bidding against one another for scarce ventilators and other lifesaving equipment in a marketplace dominated by chaos, profiteering and fraud. And the country’s economy is in free fall, with more than 20 million Americans filing unemployment claims in the last month.
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President Trump gives a thumbs-up Jan. 22 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he told an interviewer that the U.S. had the coronavirus “totally under control.” (Fabrice Coffrini / AFP/Getty Images)
Trump has at various times called the catastrophe unforeseeable or blamed the World Health Organization and China; his predecessor, who he claimed left him an “empty shelf” of medical equipment; and state governors whom he accused of mismanaging the health crisis.
But from the first international reports of the virus’ appearance in China in late December until Trump declared a nationwide emergency in mid-March, his administration delayed or bungled basic but crucial steps to contain the spread of infections and prepare the country for a pandemic, according to a Times review of internal government records and interviews with administration officials and outside experts.
In that key early period, many of the Trump presidency’s most deeply ingrained characteristics — its distrust of the federal bureaucracy, internal personality conflicts, lack of a formal policymaking process and Trump’s own insistence on controlling the public message — severely hampered the federal response, according to current and former White House officials and public health experts.
Even senior members of the administration who sought to warn Trump about the looming dangers were rebuffed, said several administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on internal discussions.
Containing such an easily spread contagion was certain to be arduous under any circumstances, many experts concede. Making it even harder, China initially played down the infection danger, and it was unclear at that point how readily the virus could spread.
But Trump’s unwillingness to take the health threat seriously and disagreements among his top aides effectively sidelined the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, leaving key responders without direction from a White House that was focused on the president’s impeachment trial in the Senate.
Weeks were lost that could have been used to test and isolate the first infected patients, purchase medical supplies, prepare makeshift hospitals and enlist corporations in quickly ramping up production of badly needed respirators and other supplies.
Medical workers treat a critical COVID-19 patient March 1 at a Red Cross hospital in Wuhan, China. (AFP/Getty Images)
“In an ideal world, there would have been a structure and someone with vision empowered in the White House,” said J. Stephen Morrison, a health policy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. “Everything was seen through the impeachment and reelection process.”
The White House said in a statement that Trump acted to control the virus while Democrats in Congress and the news media ignored the danger in January and February.
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“President Trump took bold action to protect Americans and unleash the full power of the federal government to curb the spread of the virus, expand testing capacities, and expedite vaccine development when we had no true idea the level of transmission or asymptomatic spread,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said.
The statement added that Trump “remains completely focused on the health and safety of the American people and it is because of his bold leadership that we will emerge from this challenge healthy, stronger, and with a prosperous and growing economy.”
‘It will cost the election’
The first official warning about the new virus came on the last day of 2019, when Chinese authorities reported that residents of Wuhan in the central Hubei province were coming down with pneumonia from an unknown cause. China soon identified the cause of the outbreak as a new strain of coronavirus but said there was “no evidence of significant human-to-human transmission.”
At the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Director Robert Redfield, a physician and former AIDS researcher, tweeted Jan. 14 that “there is no confirmed person-to-person spread” of the illness in China, though his agency was “monitoring the situation closely.” The CDC issued a routine “level 1 travel notice,” advising Americans traveling to Wuhan to “practice usual precautions.”
Three days later, the CDC announced that airports would conduct health screenings for passengers traveling from Wuhan to Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York.
The screenings didn’t initially cover all airports with flights from China. Nor did they address travelers from Europe, another likely source of infection. And the cursory temperature checks didn’t detect patients who were carrying the virus but were still asymptomatic, a problem that became fully apparent only later.
Travelers pass through the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX on March 15 amid heightened U.S. travel restrictions. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
At the White House, Trump and his close advisors, consumed by his impending impeachment trial in the Senate, rebuffed attempts by Redfield’s boss, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, to alert them about the threat, according to a former federal official with knowledge of the communications.
Unlike some other Trump Cabinet officials, Azar has considerable experience in his field, having served in the agency in the administration of President George W. Bush and having been an executive at pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Co.
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His relationship with Trump and senior health and budget officials in the White House had been strained for months, in part because of Azar’s inability to deliver on one of Trump’s signature campaign promises — to lower prescription drug prices. Trump also blamed Azar for entangling him in what turned out to be a politically complicated effort to crack down on vaping.
The health secretary finally connected with Trump on Jan. 18, when the president was at Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach, Fla., resort. By then, Thailand and Japan were reporting confirmed coronavirus infections. Trump wanted to discuss the vaping ban, not the coronavirus, a White House aide familiar with the call said.
Two days later, the CDC confirmed the first coronavirus case in the U.S.
A Washington state man in his 30s had returned from Wuhan on Jan. 15 at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where no screening was being conducted. Later, he reported pneumonia-like symptoms to his doctor.
“It’s one person coming in from China,” Trump said during his Jan. 22 interview with CNBC from Davos.
A traveler wearing a mask waits at Los Angeles International Airport on March 18. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
As Trump reassured the nation, the WHO, the United Nations agency for international public health, announced that evidence suggested “human to human” transmission in China but that more investigation was necessary.
Trump did not consider the virus a major worry and trusted Azar to handle it, a senior administration official said. Other White House aides were concerned that Azar would overreact, the official and another senior White House aide added.
In late January, Joseph Grogan, the White House domestic policy chief and a former lobbyist for a pharmaceutical company, sounded the alarm about the administration potentially overlooking what could become a major crisis. He voiced reservations about Azar’s ability to handle the matter during a meeting in the office of Mick Mulvaney, then the president’s acting chief of staff, one of the senior administration officials said.
“It could be so big that if we mishandle it, it will cost the election,” Grogan said with several senior staffers present.
Mulvaney convened meetings aimed at coordinating the U.S. government response, but the discussion at first focused only on evacuation flights to bring Americans in China and other affected countries home, one of the senior White House officials said. There was little discussion about how to keep the virus out.
Daily intelligence updates from the CIA and other intelligence organizations tracked the international spread of the coronavirus, but their reports did not recommend steps to contain it in the U.S., according to a senior Defense official familiar with the warnings.
On Jan. 29, the White House announced a 12-member task force of officials from multiple agencies “to work to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus.” Trump was briefed in the White House Situation Room.
Privately, some advisors were warning about massive disruptions if the virus caused a pandemic. Peter Navarro, Trump’s director of trade and manufacturing policy, suggested stopping travel from China in a memo written the same day the task force was announced. The memo, first reported by the New York Times, warned of potentially devastating effects on the economy if no containment measures were taken.
But Navarro, a longtime China hawk known around the West Wing as having a combustible temper, was largely dismissed after he erupted at Azar during a staff meeting, leading the health secretary to demand that Mulvaney keep him off the task force, according to one of the senior administration officials.
The conflicts inside the White House along with the impeachment trial underway in the Senate kept the health threat barely on Trump’s radar.
“You have Trump as the lone-wolf operator,” said Anthony Scaramucci, who served briefly as Trump’s director of communications and has recently been critical of the president. “What happens is everybody gets immobilized. They don’t know what their marching orders are … so that’s caused them to be very slow-footed in the midst of this crisis.”
Others in the administration took their cue from Trump.
The same day as the Situation Room briefing, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross observed that the alarming rise in cases in China could “accelerate the return of jobs to North America.”
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told reporters the next day that Trump and his senior aides were continuing “to monitor the situation.” Standing next to her, Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health, said that the outbreak was “under control” and that “all the resources were in place.”
As head of the task force, Azar tried to carve out a major role overseeing the federal response without sounding public alarms that were sure to upset the president, according to another administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
On Jan. 31, Azar declared a public health emergency and announced the U.S. was temporarily prohibiting foreign nationals who had traveled in China within the previous 14 days from entering the country. Americans returning from China were allowed back after being screened at select ports of entry and for 14 days afterward to monitor any possible symptoms.
It was Trump who had made the decision to impose the travel restrictions, Azar told reporters, following the “uniform recommendation of the career public health officials here at HHS.”
But Azar would run into resistance from some White House aides later as he sought more federal funding to respond to the virus. During one tense meeting, a White House budget official accused him of trying to go around the president to get the money from Congress, according to a former government official.
For much of the next month, Trump and other senior White House officials played down the risk to Americans, even as evidence mounted that the virus was deadly and highly communicable.
Disaster predicted
Public health and disaster experts had warned for years about the possible devastation that a pandemic could wreak.
Internal government studies conducted months earlier had shown that a fast-spreading flu virus from China would quickly overwhelm the nation’s health system unless preparations were taken beforehand.
A 2019 exercise overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, dubbed Crimson Contagion, concluded that a massive, deadly epidemic would result in confusion and limited coordination among federal agencies and state governments as school closures and other social distancing measures were put into place. Hospitals would struggle with shortages of medications, personal protective equipment, ventilators and other supplies, according to a draft report on the results, disclosed by the New York Times.
Members of the California Air National Guard in Oxnard on April 7 prepare a shipment of 200 ventilators to be delivered to New York. (Senior Airman Jonathan Lane / U.S. Air National Guard)
At the White House, the Council of Economic Advisors warned in September that the economic damage of a fast-spreading virus could reach $3.79 trillion and kill 500,000 Americans. And a 2017 study by the Defense Department on the possibility of a pandemic predicted a shortage of medical masks, gloves, ventilators and hospital beds.
The federal government had an array of options to prevent the predictions from becoming a reality, experts said, including invoking the Defense Production Act to require private companies to address shortages of medical masks, ventilators and other equipment; mobilizing the military to construct field hospitals and organize testing centers around the country; and dispatching Navy hospital ships to New York and Los Angeles sooner.
But there was little urgency to the government response.
“It was one failure after another, piling up on each other,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, faculty director of the Harvard Global Health Institute. “When that happens, it usually means it wasn’t a priority. It was a lack of leadership.”
In early February, the WHO warned that the coronavirus was spreading rapidly in China and assumed in its response plan that human-to-human transmission was widespread. Chinese authorities had quarantined entire cities. Limited testing in other countries was complicating the effort to detect the virus.
The international organization urged countries to scale up “preparedness and response operations, including strengthening readiness to rapidly identify, diagnose and treat cases.”
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Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore rolled out COVID-19 tests fairly quickly, giving health officials a head start on tracing the spread of the virus and imposing a degree of containment measures that the United States did not take until weeks later, said Dr. C. Jason Wang, director of Stanford University’s Center for Policy, Outcomes and Prevention.
Not everything went smoothly. Singapore is now fighting an outbreak among a large population of migrant workers the government mostly overlooked in its initial efforts against the virus.
But as of late Saturday, the total number of deaths reported in Singapore was just 11, and only half a dozen had been tallied in Taiwan. There were 234 reported fatalities in South Korea — a tiny fraction of the per capita deaths in the United States.
“South Korea did massive testing and containment,” Wang said.
He said Taiwan also deployed its military to manufacture medical masks, upping production from 2 million to 10 million a day within three weeks.
“We could have done that — absolutely,” said Nick Vyas, executive director of USC’s Center for Global Supply Chain Management. “Masks would have been very easy to replicate and inventory.”
In the U.S., Trump mentioned the virus during a Feb. 10 campaign rally in New Hampshire, telling the crowd that “by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.”
It is now clear that the virus was spreading rapidly in the U.S., but tracing its path proved impossible because the CDC had fumbled its initial attempt to create a reliable test.
The agency shunned a proven German test that had been adopted by the WHO, and it relied on an existing network of public health labs, a model better suited for smaller, less deadly outbreaks.
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It distributed kits to more than 100 public health labs run by states and counties, sending each facility enough testing supplies to sample 300 to 400 patients, far fewer than would eventually be needed.
The agency’s early effort was on a small scale because there was little initial recognition that the virus could be transmitted easily between humans, said an agency official who discussed the CDC response.
When state labs began to run sample tests using the CDC kits, a flaw quickly became apparent: Running ordinary water through the test produced false positives.
Paul Fulton, a CDC spokesman, said the agency was still studying the flawed test but said a new version is now “accurate and reliable.” He noted that the CDC’s role was “to equip state public health labs, which is only one part of total testing that needs to be conducted.”
The Food and Drug Administration was responsible for approving tests by private labs for commercial use by hospitals and clinics — a step that took the agency until March 16.
Difficulties in responding to a health crisis are hardly unusual, noted Dr. Richard Besser, who served as acting director of the CDC in 2009 during the outbreak of the H1N1 swine flu. The agency has long prided itself on its independence and sometimes made mistakes as it rushed to respond in a crisis.
“I was never involved in a public health response where everything rolled out perfectly,” said Besser, who now heads the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
But the missteps in responding to the current outbreak were slow to be corrected — in part because of the agency’s isolation under Trump, Besser added. During past outbreaks, the CDC played a prominent role in public briefings, helping increase accountability within the agency and push its scientists to make any needed changes quickly.
“It was the ability to be transparent and share what we were learning that allowed us to maintain trust in the public and make adjustments,” Besser explained.
At a news briefing Feb. 25, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said she was frustrated with the flaws in the tests and raised the possibility of significant social disruption, including closing schools, canceling mass gatherings and delaying elective surgeries.
Her comments were a sharp contrast to the message delivered that same day by Trump, who was 10 time zones away in New Delhi for a state visit.
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“We think we’re in very good shape in the United States,” Trump told reporters, referring briefly to the virus. “And we think it’s going to remain that way.”
President Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi raise hands together, with First Lady Melania Trump standing beside them, at an event at a stadium in Ahmedabad, India, during Trump’s February state visit. (Alex Brandon / Associated Press)
On the 18-hour flight home, the president grew upset about the plunging stock market and grim picture painted in news reports he watched aboard Air Force One. Instead of sleeping, he called Azar from the plane and complained that Messonnier’s comments were worrying the markets.
Upon landing, Trump convened the task force in the Oval Office ahead of a news briefing. When the president stepped to the lectern, he announced that Vice President Mike Pence would be taking over the task force. The aides who’d been in the room with him moments earlier had gotten no warning. Nor had Azar, who heard along with everybody else the news that he’d been replaced.
The decision, according to two administration officials familiar with the president’s thinking, reflected Trump’s fixation on the virus’ economic effects and his desire to prevent public health officials from asserting too much control over the response.
The number of U.S. cases was “going very substantially down, not up,” Trump said at a news conference. There would be only five infected Americans shortly, he predicted.
Azar openly contradicted him: “We can expect to see more cases in the United States,” he said.
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Pence’s staff immediately ordered that all public statements about the virus go through his office, according to one of the officials.
On Feb. 27, as reported infections spread through Europe, Trump told reporters his administration had “done an incredible job.”
“One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear,” he said. “It could get worse before it gets better. It could maybe go away. We’ll see what happens. Nobody really knows.”
Lori Spencer, right, and her husband, Michael Spencer, visit her mother, Judie Shape, through a window at the Life Care Center in Kirkland, Wash., an early hotbed of the U.S. coronavirus outbreak. (Ted S. Warren / Associated Press)
The next day, a WHO report warned the virus was highly contagious and urged countries with infections to immediately “activate the highest level of national Response Management protocols.”
On Feb. 29, the CDC announced that a man in his 50s had died of COVID-19 near Seattle, marking the first publicly reported fatality in the U.S.
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But as the coronavirus outbreak spread in March, Trump failed to mount an organized government response to address medical supply shortages hobbling hospitals, clinics and doctors’ offices nationwide.
Instead, he turned to his daughter Ivanka Trump; her husband, Jared Kushner; and Navarro, a former economics professor from Southern California, none of whom have expertise in logistics or procurement.
Kushner set himself up in an office at the Department of Health and Human Services at the foot of Capitol Hill, much to the chagrin of some in the health agency. The Kushner team began calling chief executives of major corporations, lobbying them to scrounge up supplies outside the normal procurement channels set up by the government, one private sector official said.
Matthew Beckmann, a UC Irvine political science professor who focuses on the presidency, said Trump’s response to the pandemic reflected not so much his ideology as his overall lack of interest in the nitty-gritty work of running the government and his reliance on a small number of inexperienced people close to him.
“The way he runs things is more like a family restaurant,” Beckmann said.
The Grand Princess cruise ship sails in under the Golden Gate Bridge on March 9 to dock at the Port of Oakland. (Peter DaSilva / For The Times)
Off the California coast, the cruise ship Grand Princess had circled for days as thousands of worried passengers and crew members potentially exposed to the coronavirus waited for federal and state officials to decide where and when they would dock.
Trump said he wasn’t in favor of bringing the passengers ashore for testing that would cause the official tally of infected Americans to surge.
“I like the numbers being where they are. I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship,” Trump told reporters during a visit March 6 to the CDC in Atlanta.
The passengers were unloaded in Oakland anyway and sent to hospitals or placed in quarantine.
The worsening outlook — and the slow pace of testing — increased pressure on Trump to announce far-reaching additional measures.
“The bottom line: It is going to get worse,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, who leads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testified at a House committee hearing March 11, the same day the WHO labeled the virus a pandemic and the continuing losses in the stock market officially ended the longest bull market in U.S. history.
Hours later, in a rare prime-time address from the Oval Office, Trump said he was extending the travel restrictions to Europe, barring entry to foreign nationals who had been in parts of the continent within the previous 14 days. It was a measure some advisors had been urging him to take for weeks, a White House official said.
He urged that “older Americans should avoid nonessential travel” and said people in general should “stay home,” even as he continued to minimize the potential severity of the disease.
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Wall Street futures dropped sharply after the speech, which came within minutes of the actor Tom Hanks announcing he had the disease and the National Basketball Assn. suspending its entire schedule.
One former White House official said the speech prompted an intervention from some of the Wall Street executives whom Trump most trusts: “Your press conferences and your Oval Office speech where you’re making light is not helping you,” the former official said, paraphrasing the message. “The markets know math and this is not a math thing. This is a science thing.”
The takeaway was clear: The usual playbook would not work with a pandemic.
“He can’t yell from the podium, ‘fake science,’” the former official said. “You’ve got to adjust and calibrate this.”
The speech marked the first sign that Trump intended to take over the White House messaging on the pandemic. But his continued downplaying of the coronavirus threat so alarmed Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx, the State Department’s top global health expert, that they decided they needed to shock him into taking action, according to a former health official close to Birx.
They showed him the findings of an alarming study by Imperial College London, an institution noted for its research into global health, that found an unchecked epidemic could infect 8 in 10 people and cause as many as 2.2 million U.S. deaths.
The day after their briefing, Trump declared a national emergency, freeing more than $40 billion in federal assistance for states.
Within days, the Pentagon, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies moved off the sidelines. State and local officials began shutting down schools and enforcing restrictions on contacts.
The virus was still spreading, and many weeks of upheaval, medical emergencies and human tragedy were to come. Over that time, Trump has vacillated on how long the nation’s social distancing rules should remain and who is to blame for the rising death toll.
But he has consistently maintained that his administration’s response was flawless, a “10 out of 10,” he told reporters at one news conference. Problems such as the slow rate of testing were not his fault.
“I don’t take responsibility at all,” he said.
Times staff writers Noah Bierman, Noam N. Levey and Tracy Wilkinson contributed to this report.


latimes--2020-04-19--Not a student? Not a problem as L.A. schools become food pantries for all amid coronavirus crisis

Benjamin and Samuel Zuniga look to education to improve their future .
But for now , the brothers are relying on their school district to help put food on the table .
“ People are just living off what they can afford basically , ” said Benjamin , who takes college classes but lost his job , as have other family members .
His brother Samuel , a Venice High School junior , is the only family member who attends a Los Angeles public school .
But the L.A. school district is feeding the entire six-person clan .
“ Of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ food giveaways , ” Benjamin said .
“ Just thank God.
” Although campuses are closed , school districts throughout the state have taken on a critical role during the coronavirus crisis : feeding children shut in at home and paying for it with money from the federal school-lunch program .
Morning drop-off lanes have been transformed into food pickup drive-throughs ; school buses in rural areas leave food boxes at familiar bus stops ; families stand clustered outside campuses in walk-up lines , spaced six feet apart by cones , to receive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But the largest , perhaps most generous and financially risky school system effort in the state , if not the country , is underway at 63 campuses in the Los Angeles Unified School District , which is giving away meals not only to students , but for anyone who shows up — no questions asked , except : How many do you need ?
“ This is a community in crisis , ” said L.A. schools Supt .
Austin Beutner .
“ Anyone who arrives looking for food — we ’ re assuming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re going to provide it.
” Since March 18 , the nation ’ s second-largest school district has emerged as a mammoth food distribution operation , serving about 9.8 million meals so far at campuses strategically located through the school system ’ s broad expanse and partnering with the Red Cross and the regional food bank .
To put it in perspective , the Red Cross said it helped provide 382,100 meals and snacks in the wake of the devastating 2018 California wildfires ; 4.5 million after Hurricane Harvey , which struck Texas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ million that same year after Hurricane Maria ripped through Puerto Rico .
The lines grow every day as the crisis wears on , at times stretching more than half a mile .
Friday was the highest meal total yet — 585,017 — putting the district on pace to far surpass 25 million by June 12 , the last day of the academic year .
In Los Angeles County , all 80 schools districts are providing at least limited food service under state directives .
In addition , more than 100 independently operated charter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Unified was well-suited to mobilize — its massive food service operation already was providing about a million meals per day when campuses were open : breakfast in the classroom , lunch in the cafeteria and some take-home dinners — food that was generally hot and healthful , if sometimes uninspiring .
But this new operation posed efficiency and safety challenges for workers and families in need .
On Friday at Byrd Middle School in Sun Valley , trained volunteers wore caps , gloves and masks .
Some 20 people in the gym assembled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ walk-up traffic and a line of cars that stretched 90 deep throughout the 8-11 a.m. pickup time .
About 3,600 district workers volunteered for the effort and received a $ 100-per-day stipend .
Prepared meal bags were set on a rear table ; workers asked people how many they needed and then moved that number of bags to a front table for pickup .
A separate worker then swept in with disinfectant to wipe down the front table , the touch point for families and children .
Wipe .
Repeat pickup .
Wipe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than 26,000 gallons of milk , 219,000 cereal boxes , 27,525 pounds of carrots , 50 tons of fruit and countless turkey sausages will be given away .
With the exception of milk , these meals rely on “ shelf-stable ” ingredients that don ’ t spoil quickly .
The meal packers inside Byrd ’ s gym included teaching assistant Johanna Cifuentes , who normally helps first- and second-graders learn to read at a nearby elementary school .
She wanted a way to keep helping .
Those in line have included her parents @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a valet , while her mother lost her work cleaning houses .
The Red Cross has provided 1,000 unpaid volunteer workers .
On April 6 , the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank joined in , giving out 36-pound boxes of nonperishable food — pasta , rice , soup — enough for about 30 meals .
The Food Bank expects to reach 36,000 families at school sites by month ’ s end , having provided the equivalent of more than 1 million meals .
The effort comes amid increasing food insecurity .
Nearly half @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have lost a job or had their work hours cut , and an additional 10 % have lost other sources of income because of the coronavirus pandemic , according to a recent survey .
Food banks are facing historic demand just as their supply chains have been disrupted and they are short of volunteers , said Katie Fitzgerald , chief operating officer for Feeding America , which coordinates the nation ’ s network of 200 regional food banks .
Donors also are needed to respond to the crisis .
Many markets are no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of increased demand , while produce rots in the fields because it ’ s not getting to market .
In the L.A. region , the food bank system is strained , with distribution up 73 % over last year and some distribution points closed , according to an update last week from the Regional Food Bank .
For now , L.A. Unified has generally been able to manage the demand .
The Zunigas are grateful because their modest family income has shrunk with their job losses .
The family lives in Mar Vista @ @ @ @ @ @ @ within easy walking distance of the Mar Vista Family Center , a secondary distribution point for the food being handed out at nearby Marina del Rey Middle School .
Late that morning , Yadira Mora came by with her first-grader Emily , one of three children who used to receive breakfast and lunch at school .
“ The kids are at home and all they do is eat all the time , ” she said , laughing .
“ Everything ’ s amazing , ” said Mora , whose husband , a gardener @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Milk , chocolate milk , pancakes , sandwiches , oranges , apples .
Every day when my kids wake up they ’ re excited to see what I got for them.
” “ Sometime if I have too much , I ’ ll tell my neighbor : Do you want some milk ?
We ’ re helping each other out during this.
” Although she arrived before 10 a.m. , the supply of meals already was exhausted , which had never happened before .
The crowd may have been larger than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ free headphones to help students screen out noise while they do their schoolwork at home .
On a recent morning at South East High School in South Gate , a line of cars stretched outside the campus entrance more than a quarter-mile .
The scene was much the same at Gage Middle School in Huntington Park , where school board member Jackie Goldberg recently nudged her slightly battered Prius into the line to offer volunteers a personal thank you — from the safe distance of inside her car .
She said the line @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as long as when the food giveaway began .
The New York City school system , the nation ’ s largest , has followed L.A. 's example .
Its food program began about the same time as L.A. Unified , but was initially for children only and was providing about 130,000 meals a day .
On April 3 , the program opened to all .
The district distribution has swelled to more than 250,000 meals per day .
New York has a special tax levy to pay for the meals provided to adults @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Unified is now racking up more than $ 2 million per day in food costs — nearly $ 39 million so far , a calculated risk .
The federal government — through the Department of Agriculture — typically reimburses school districts only for feeding children who live in poverty , which describes about 80 % of L.A. Unified students .
Although the feds have made the policies more flexible , some rules remain in place .
To get reimbursed , the district must “ ensure that meals are distributed only to parents or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ duplicate meals are not distributed to any child , ” a department spokeswoman told The Times .
Documenting the connection of meals to specific enrolled students would add enormous complications .
L.A. officials presume they ’ re feeding adults as well as children and that the children include many from outside L.A. Unified .
Beutner said the district is doing the right thing and that he expects the government to follow suit — and not penalize L.A. Unified for feeding the hungry .
At the Mar Vista center , those lined up included @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a privately managed charter that is not providing food .
Candelario said she ’ s grateful to be able to avoid crowded stores , which she sees as less safe , and to save money .
She has temporarily lost her work as a nanny .
Yuliana Regalado , a second-grader at Stoner Avenue Elementary in Culver City , listed what she liked as she stood in line with her mother , saving the best for last .
“ We get milk and carrots — and coffee cakes , ” she said excitedly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ probably L.A. Unified ’ s most famous offering .
“ Really good !
”

The L.A. school district is providing food to all in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Benjamin and Samuel Zuniga look to education to improve their future. But for now, the brothers are relying on their school district to help put food on the table.
“People are just living off what they can afford basically,” said Benjamin, who takes college classes but lost his job, as have other family members. His brother Samuel, a Venice High School junior, is the only family member who attends a Los Angeles public school. But the L.A. school district is feeding the entire six-person clan.
“Of course we take advantage of all the food giveaways,” Benjamin said. “Just thank God.”
Although campuses are closed, school districts throughout the state have taken on a critical role during the coronavirus crisis: feeding children shut in at home and paying for it with money from the federal school-lunch program. Morning drop-off lanes have been transformed into food pickup drive-throughs; school buses in rural areas leave food boxes at familiar bus stops; families stand clustered outside campuses in walk-up lines, spaced six feet apart by cones, to receive “grab and go” bags.
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But the largest, perhaps most generous and financially risky school system effort in the state, if not the country, is underway at 63 campuses in the Los Angeles Unified School District, which is giving away meals not only to students, but for anyone who shows up — no questions asked, except: How many do you need?
“This is a community in crisis,” said L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner. “Anyone who arrives looking for food — we’re assuming needs the food — and we’re going to provide it.”
Since March 18, the nation’s second-largest school district has emerged as a mammoth food distribution operation, serving about 9.8 million meals so far at campuses strategically located through the school system’s broad expanse and partnering with the Red Cross and the regional food bank.
To put it in perspective, the Red Cross said it helped provide 382,100 meals and snacks in the wake of the devastating 2018 California wildfires; 4.5 million after Hurricane Harvey, which struck Texas and Louisiana in 2017; and 12.8 million that same year after Hurricane Maria ripped through Puerto Rico.
The lines grow every day as the crisis wears on, at times stretching more than half a mile. Friday was the highest meal total yet — 585,017 — putting the district on pace to far surpass 25 million by June 12, the last day of the academic year.
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In Los Angeles County, all 80 schools districts are providing at least limited food service under state directives. In addition, more than 100 independently operated charter schools also are providing meals.
L.A. Unified was well-suited to mobilize — its massive food service operation already was providing about a million meals per day when campuses were open: breakfast in the classroom, lunch in the cafeteria and some take-home dinners — food that was generally hot and healthful, if sometimes uninspiring.
But this new operation posed efficiency and safety challenges for workers and families in need. On Friday at Byrd Middle School in Sun Valley, trained volunteers wore caps, gloves and masks. Some 20 people in the gym assembled meal packs while about 20 others managed walk-up traffic and a line of cars that stretched 90 deep throughout the 8-11 a.m. pickup time.
About 3,600 district workers volunteered for the effort and received a $100-per-day stipend. Prepared meal bags were set on a rear table; workers asked people how many they needed and then moved that number of bags to a front table for pickup. A separate worker then swept in with disinfectant to wipe down the front table, the touch point for families and children. Wipe. Repeat pickup. Wipe. Repeat.
People line up Friday to receive meal packs provided by the L.A. school district at a grab-and-go site in front of Byrd Middle School in Sun Valley, which is closed because of the coronavirus pandemic. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
In one day more than 26,000 gallons of milk, 219,000 cereal boxes, 27,525 pounds of carrots, 50 tons of fruit and countless turkey sausages will be given away. With the exception of milk, these meals rely on “shelf-stable” ingredients that don’t spoil quickly.
The meal packers inside Byrd’s gym included teaching assistant Johanna Cifuentes, who normally helps first- and second-graders learn to read at a nearby elementary school. She wanted a way to keep helping.
Those in line have included her parents: Her father lost his job as a valet, while her mother lost her work cleaning houses.
Volunteers work in the gym at Byrd Middle School preparing meal packs for a grab-and-go food center. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
The Red Cross has provided 1,000 unpaid volunteer workers. On April 6, the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank joined in, giving out 36-pound boxes of nonperishable food — pasta, rice, soup — enough for about 30 meals. The Food Bank expects to reach 36,000 families at school sites by month’s end, having provided the equivalent of more than 1 million meals.
The effort comes amid increasing food insecurity. Nearly half of the households in Los Angeles County have lost a job or had their work hours cut, and an additional 10% have lost other sources of income because of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a recent survey.
Food banks are facing historic demand just as their supply chains have been disrupted and they are short of volunteers, said Katie Fitzgerald, chief operating officer for Feeding America, which coordinates the nation’s network of 200 regional food banks. Donors also are needed to respond to the crisis. Many markets are no longer able to donate excess food because of increased demand, while produce rots in the fields because it’s not getting to market.
In the L.A. region, the food bank system is strained, with distribution up 73% over last year and some distribution points closed, according to an update last week from the Regional Food Bank.
For now, L.A. Unified has generally been able to manage the demand.
The Zunigas are grateful because their modest family income has shrunk with their job losses. The family lives in Mar Vista Gardens, a low-income housing complex, within easy walking distance of the Mar Vista Family Center, a secondary distribution point for the food being handed out at nearby Marina del Rey Middle School.
Late that morning, Yadira Mora came by with her first-grader Emily, one of three children who used to receive breakfast and lunch at school.
“The kids are at home and all they do is eat all the time,” she said, laughing.
“Everything’s amazing,” said Mora, whose husband, a gardener, has lost work during the pandemic. “Milk, chocolate milk, pancakes, sandwiches, oranges, apples. Every day when my kids wake up they’re excited to see what I got for them.”
“Sometime if I have too much, I’ll tell my neighbor: Do you want some milk? We’re helping each other out during this.”
Although she arrived before 10 a.m., the supply of meals already was exhausted, which had never happened before. The crowd may have been larger than usual because donors also were handing out free headphones to help students screen out noise while they do their schoolwork at home.
On a recent morning at South East High School in South Gate, a line of cars stretched outside the campus entrance more than a quarter-mile.
The scene was much the same at Gage Middle School in Huntington Park, where school board member Jackie Goldberg recently nudged her slightly battered Prius into the line to offer volunteers a personal thank you — from the safe distance of inside her car. She said the line of vehicles was at least 10 times as long as when the food giveaway began.
The New York City school system, the nation’s largest, has followed L.A.’s example. Its food program began about the same time as L.A. Unified, but was initially for children only and was providing about 130,000 meals a day. On April 3, the program opened to all. The district distribution has swelled to more than 250,000 meals per day. New York has a special tax levy to pay for the meals provided to adults, said spokesman Nathaniel Styer.
L.A. Unified is now racking up more than $2 million per day in food costs — nearly $39 million so far, a calculated risk. The federal government — through the Department of Agriculture — typically reimburses school districts only for feeding children who live in poverty, which describes about 80% of L.A. Unified students. Although the feds have made the policies more flexible, some rules remain in place.
To get reimbursed, the district must “ensure that meals are distributed only to parents or guardians of eligible children, and that duplicate meals are not distributed to any child,” a department spokeswoman told The Times.
Documenting the connection of meals to specific enrolled students would add enormous complications. L.A. officials presume they’re feeding adults as well as children and that the children include many from outside L.A. Unified.
Beutner said the district is doing the right thing and that he expects the government to follow suit — and not penalize L.A. Unified for feeding the hungry.
At the Mar Vista center, those lined up included Lilia Candelario, whose daughter Marlene attends a privately managed charter that is not providing food. Candelario said she’s grateful to be able to avoid crowded stores, which she sees as less safe, and to save money. She has temporarily lost her work as a nanny.
Yuliana Regalado, a second-grader at Stoner Avenue Elementary in Culver City, listed what she liked as she stood in line with her mother, saving the best for last.
Gaby Regalado and daughter Yuliana, 8, check out Yuliana’s donated headphones, which should help her study at home, while her family picks up food at the Mar Vista Family Center. Yuliana especially likes the coffee cake. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
“We get milk and carrots — and coffee cakes,” she said excitedly, thinking about a treat that is probably L.A. Unified’s most famous offering. “Really good!”


latimes--2020-04-18--L.A.'s first big warm-up of spring could bring highs near 90 by Saturday

After cool , dry weather through Monday , then a slight chance of showers Monday afternoon , dry and much warmer conditions are on tap Tuesday through Saturday , the National Weather Service said .
Gusty north to northwest winds will affect portions of the area from Monday night through the end of the week , and the extended outlook for precipitation is normal in Southern California , and below normal in Northern California .
In downtown Los Angeles , for example , normal for the month of April is 0.91 inch of rain .
But more than three times @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , putting L.A. at 105 % of normal for the season since Oct. 1 .
Chances of moisture typically diminish as the spring season wears on .
Rainfall in most of Northern California remains well below normal .
The extended outlook also calls for above-normal temperatures for the West Coast from April 24 to 28 , especially in California .
Temperatures will be lower than normal Sunday and Monday , then jump to several degrees above normal Tuesday , the weather service said .
The warmest valleys and inland coastal areas will go @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the mid-70s on Tuesday .
Gusty northwest to north winds Monday night into Tuesday are expected to kick up in the mountains and on the south coast of Santa Barbara County as well as the L.A. and Ventura County mountains and through the Interstate 5 corridor .
Advisory-level winds are likely every night from Tuesday through Friday in these wind-prone areas .
There may even be advisory-level gusts Thursday night in the valleys of L.A. and Ventura counties and in the Santa Monica Mountains .
High temperatures will be as much as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and up to 15 degrees above normal by Saturday .
That translates to the lower 80s on Wednesday , rising to the mid-80s to near 90 by Saturday .

The precipitation outlook for the next six to 10 days is normal in Southern California.
After cool, dry weather through Monday, then a slight chance of showers Monday afternoon, dry and much warmer conditions are on tap Tuesday through Saturday, the National Weather Service said.
Gusty north to northwest winds will affect portions of the area from Monday night through the end of the week, and the extended outlook for precipitation is normal in Southern California, and below normal in Northern California.
In downtown Los Angeles, for example, normal for the month of April is 0.91 inch of rain. But more than three times that much has already fallen this month, putting L.A. at 105% of normal for the season since Oct. 1. Chances of moisture typically diminish as the spring season wears on. Rainfall in most of Northern California remains well below normal.
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The extended outlook also calls for above-normal temperatures for the West Coast from April 24 to 28, especially in California.
Temperatures will be lower than normal Sunday and Monday, then jump to several degrees above normal Tuesday, the weather service said. The warmest valleys and inland coastal areas will go from the mid- to upper-60s on Sunday to the mid-70s on Tuesday.
Gusty northwest to north winds Monday night into Tuesday are expected to kick up in the mountains and on the south coast of Santa Barbara County as well as the L.A. and Ventura County mountains and through the Interstate 5 corridor. Advisory-level winds are likely every night from Tuesday through Friday in these wind-prone areas. There may even be advisory-level gusts Thursday night in the valleys of L.A. and Ventura counties and in the Santa Monica Mountains.
High temperatures will be as much as 10 degrees above normal on Wednesday, and up to 15 degrees above normal by Saturday. That translates to the lower 80s on Wednesday, rising to the mid-80s to near 90 by Saturday.