Did Obama Urge US Pandemic Preparedness in 2014?







"There may and likely will come a time in which we have an airborne disease that is deadly," said the former president.







































							True
['A video clip shows former President Barack Obama stressing the need for U.S. pandemic preparedness in 2014.', 'In the United States, one of the most controversial issues surrounding the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic of early 2020 was a debate over whether the Trump administration failed at adequately preparing the country for such an outbreak, and in responding to it in a timely and effective manner once it hit the U.S.:', 'President Donald Trump’s failure to respond to the coronavirus pandemic didn’t begin with the administration’s inability to send out the millions of test kits and the protective medical gear for health care workers that experts say are needed to tackle the crisis. It didn’t start with Trump’s bungled messaging downplaying the crisis even as it’s worsened, nor with his mid-March insistence that social distancing measures could be lifted by Easter (he later backpedaled).', 'It began in April 2018 — more than a year and a half before the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the disease it causes, Covid-19, sickened enough people in China that authorities realized they were dealing with a new disease.', 'The Trump administration, with John Bolton newly at the helm of the White House National Security Council, began dismantling the team in charge of pandemic response, firing its leadership and disbanding the team in spring 2018.', 'The cuts, coupled with the administration’s repeated calls to cut the budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other public health agencies, made it clear that the Trump administration wasn’t prioritizing the federal government’s ability to respond to disease outbreaks.', 'That lack of attention to preparedness, experts say, helps explain why the Trump administration has consistently botched its response to the coronavirus pandemic.', 'In response to such criticisms, U.S. President Donald Trump sought to affix blame on other people and entities, including his predecessor in the White House, Barack Obama:', 'For decades the @CDCgov looked at, and studied,  its testing system, but did nothing about it. It would always be inadequate and slow for a large scale pandemic, but a pandemic would never happen, they hoped. President Obama made changes that only complicated things further…..', '— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 13, 2020', '', 'Trump’s critics countered his excuses by, among other means, producing a video clip said to date from 2014 (a full five years before the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic) and seemingly showing Obama strongly urging that the U.S. invest in creating an infrastructure for dealing with an “airborne disease that is deadly” that would “allow us to see it quickly, isolate it quickly, respond to it quickly”:', 'This is indeed a correctly identified video clip which captured Obama’s remarks when he paid a Dec. 2, 2014, visit to campus of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, to call for more funding for Ebola research:', 'President Barack Obama visited the NIH campus on Dec. 2 to see firsthand the progress that biomedical research is making against Ebola virus disease.', 'The President toured the NIH Vaccine Research Center and met with scientists who are working hard to develop ways to combat this deadly virus that continues to devastate West Africa. And, in a speech before a packed auditorium at the NIH Clinical Center, the President praised the contributions of NIH staff. He also emphasized the need for emergency Congressional authorization of resources to ensure that the nation’s research and public health efforts against Ebola will lead as quickly as possible to an end to this devastating outbreak.', 'Obama stressed the importance of investing in research for the long term. “If and when a new strain of flu, like the Spanish flu, crops up five years from now or a decade from now, we’ve made the investment and we’re further along to be able to catch it,” he said. “It is a smart investment for us to make. It’s not just insurance; it is knowing that down the road we’re going to continue to have problems like this — particularly in a globalized world where you move from one side of the world to the other in a day.”', 'A full transcript of Obama’s address at the NIH can be viewed here, while the portion excerpted in the video clip seen above read as follows:', 'We can’t say we’re lucky with Ebola because obviously it’s having a devastating effect in West Africa, but it is not airborne in its transmission.', 'There may and likely will come a time in which we have both an airborne disease that is deadly. And in order for us to deal with that effectively, we have to put in place an infrastructure — not just here at home, but globally — that allows us to see it quickly, isolate it quickly, respond to it quickly. And it also requires us to continue the same path of basic research that is being done here at NIH that [Dr.] Nancy [Sullivan] is a great example of. So that if and when a new strain of flu, like the Spanish flu, crops up five years from now or a decade from now, we’ve made the investment and we’re further along to be able to catch it. It is a smart investment for us to make. It’s not just insurance; it is knowing that down the road we’re going to continue to have problems like this — particularly in a globalized world where you move from one side of the world to the other in a day.', 'So this is important now …', 'Fogarty International Center. \xa0 “Obama Visits NIH to Call for More Funding for Ebola Research.”\n\xa0 \xa0 November/December 2014. \xa0 Volume 13, Issue 6.', 'Nadeau, Barbie Latza. \xa0 “Trump Blames CDC and Obama for His Mistakes Over COVID-19.”\n\xa0 \xa0 Daily Beast. \xa0 13 March 2020.', 'The White House — Office of the Press Secretary. \xa0 “Remarks by the President on Research for Potential Ebola Vaccines.”\n\xa0 \xa0 2 December 2014.', 'Lopez, German. \xa0 “The Trump Administration’s Botched Coronavirus Response, Explained.”\n\xa0 \xa0 Vox. \xa0 2 April 2020.', 'Rumors about antifa plotting violence have coincided with the month of July and Gettysburg before.', 'A complete story is rarely told in a headline.', 'Social media rumors that two memorials in New York were vandalized proved misleading.', 'In August 2019, a 23-year-old unarmed Black man died after an encounter with police officers in Aurora, Colorado.', 'A chaotic scene in St. Louis sparked outrage, memes, and confusion.', 'Socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested on sex abuse charges connected to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.', 'The white supremacist group made frequent use of the slogan more recently embraced by President Donald Trump, though they did not, as some claim, invent it.', "The question of past arrests often surfaces among people who want to rationalize police officers' actions when Black men are killed in custody.", 'You can claim anything if you remove the barrier of evidence.', 'Rumors about antifa plotting violence have coincided with the month of July and Gettysburg before.', '© 1995 - 2020 by Snopes Media Group Inc.', 'This material may not be reproduced without permission.', 'Snopes and the Snopes.com logo are registered service marks of Snopes.com']
Did Obama Urge US Pandemic Preparedness in 2014?