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Their view: Never forget those that paid the ultimate price

As a result of Chinese deceit, a worldwide pandemic that might well have been prevented is costing countless lives. It has been staggering to see how thoroughly the Chinese government initially mishandled the new coronavirus epidemic.
				Local authorities in Wuhan concealed critical information from the public even after the Dr. Li Wenliang first sounded the alarm about the virus&rsquo;s outbreak in Wuhan. Li subsequently died from the virus. Recently Ai Fen, the head of emergency at the Wuhan Central Hospital, gave an interview condemning the government for its lies about the virus. She has since disappeared. Even though the Chinese dictator Xi received reports from Wuhan about the spread of the virus in early January, he did not take serious action for weeks. China&rsquo;s communist government must be held accountable for their use of disinformation and concealment that has affected the world community.
				Throughout his presidency Donald Trump has displayed a vast array of incompetence. It is the job of the CDC and other agencies to have America well-prepared to fight communicable diseases. They failed. From the start, the now famous Anthony Fauci, director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, did not understand the risks of the virus. During a radio interview, he said that the American public shouldn&rsquo;t worry about the coronavirus outbreak in China. This cost the United States valuable time to adequately prepare for this pandemic.
				Two factors have hindered America&rsquo;s response to the coronavirus outbreak. Since the 1960s a bureaucratic form of government has developed in our country. Consequently, we spend an enormous amount of money on a centralized bureaucracy that now operates top down from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug administration, the National Institutes of Health and other agencies. These agencies have lost their focus and have become largely independent of political control. Why didn&rsquo;t we have testing kits early on? Why didn&rsquo;t we have masks? Why didn&rsquo;t we have ventilators?
				These agencies knew that our national stockpile of these things was depleted during the swine flu pandemic of 2009 and never replenished. In a report the &ldquo;CDC OFF Center&rdquo; the late Sen. Tom Coburn exposed money-making schemes, international junkets, lavish facilities, and hundreds of millions of tax dollars for failed prevention efforts by CDC. These agencies got away from their original mission preparing for communicable diseases including stockpiling masks and ventilators. This is what the CDC was created to do.
				The second factor that affected America&rsquo;s response to this pandemic is our dependence on China for goods that are essential to our national health and security. One needed response is to get pharmaceutical manufacturing back into the U.S. Most American&rsquo;s do not realize the extent of our dependence on China for medical drugs and supplies. China produces around 40 percent of the total world supply of active pharmaceutical ingredients, including 97 percent of the U.S market for antibiotics. They also produce 50 percent of the world&rsquo;s surgical masks. We cannot afford to confide the safety of our country to a foreign communist country. Why are U.S public health agencies giving China tons of money for medical research? History has proven that totalitarian governments cannot be trusted.
				Finally we must listen to experts but expertise cannot as a simple fact of principle tell us finally what is right to do. I fear that this will happen again and we must prepare ourselves to face the next pandemic without surrendering our way of life.
				Bill Sarnak
				Harding

Your view: America’s dependency on China must end