WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Several months before the coronavirus pandemic began, the Trump administration eliminated a key American public health position in Beijing intended to help detect disease outbreaks in China, Reuters has learned.

The American disease expert, a medical epidemiologist embedded in China’s disease control agency, left her post in July, according to four sources with knowledge of the issue. The first cases of the new coronavirus may have emerged as early as November, and as cases exploded, the Trump administration in February chastised China for censoring information about the outbreak and keeping U.S. experts from entering the country to help.

“It was heartbreaking to watch,” said Bao-Ping Zhu, a Chinese American who served in that role, which was funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, between 2007 and 2011. “If someone had been there, public health officials and governments across the world could have moved much faster.”

Zhu and the other sources said the American expert, Dr. Linda Quick, was a trainer of Chinese field epidemiologists who were deployed to the epicenter of outbreaks to help track, investigate and contain diseases. As an American CDC employee, they said, Quick was in an ideal position to be the eyes and ears on the ground for the United States and other countries on the coronavirus outbreak, and might have alerted them to the growing threat weeks earlier.

No other foreign disease experts were embedded to lead the program after Quick left in July, according to the sources. Zhu said an embedded expert can often get word of outbreaks early, after forming close relationships with Chinese counterparts.

Zhu and the other sources said Quick could have provided real-time information to U.S. and other officials around the world during the first weeks of the outbreak, when they said the Chinese government tamped down on the release of information and provided erroneous assessments.

Quick left amid a bitter U.S. trade dispute with China when she learned her federally funded post, officially known as resident adviser to the U.S. Field Epidemiology Training Program in China, would be discontinued as of September, the sources said. The U.S. CDC said it first learned of a “cluster of 27 cases of pneumonia” of unexplained origin in Wuhan, China, on Dec. 31.

LOL, this is just too funny!!!! Fucking Orange Ass Clown!!!
I’m so tired of this much “Winning!!”.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-cdc-exclusiv/exclusive-u-s-axed-cdc-expert-job-in-china-months-before-virus-outbreak-idUSKBN21910S

Let’s say that CDC bitch, Dr. Linda Quick, was making $500,000 a year with the federal government (and that’s at the high end for MD Pay in Federal Service, it’s really more like $300,000). Asshole Trump’s decision to save $500,000 will cost the USA and the stock market at least $5 Trillion+ EASY. That and thousands of American lives.

Never seen a bigger FAIL in the world history of FAIL.

New World FAIL Record for TRUMP! I’m impressed.

Just looked up Linda Quick on FederalPay.

She made $145,629 at NIH in Rockville as a GS-14 in 2018 with a $600 bonus.

She must be a PhD Doctor and not a MD Doctor in Federal Service.

Trump saved $145,629 firing her from her Beijing monitoring job. That decision will cost America at least $5,000,000,000,000.00 and counting.

**** NEW FAIL WORLD RECORD - Donald J. Trump ****

OP has a very sad life obsessing over Trump 24/7. What a loser.