Fact check: Obama’s administration made a pandemic “playbook” due to the H1N1 outbreak. Trump’s following administration adopted a different procedure in the face of the COVID-19 outbreak. It proved to be objectively ineffective, when several of Obama’s pandemic procedures would have made a difference. Trump’s approach to the Covid was to inform the public that masks were ineffective.

1. Summary of the results

1. Summary of the results:

The Obama administration did create a 69-page pandemic playbook in 2016 that specifically mentioned novel coronaviruses. The Trump administration acknowledged its existence but chose different approaches, including restructuring the NSC health unit in 2018. Both administrations conducted their own pandemic preparedness exercises - Obama's team during the transition and Trump's team with "Crimson Contagion" in 2019.

2. Missing context/alternative viewpoints:

• The Trump administration developed its own 2018 pandemic preparedness report, which they claimed was more current and suitable than the Obama-era playbook
• Kayleigh McEnany, Trump's press secretary, provided specific reasons for not following the Obama playbook, calling it "insufficient" and "dated"
• Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's initial denial and subsequent correction about the existence of a pandemic plan demonstrates the political complexity surrounding this issue
• The Trump administration's "Crimson Contagion" exercise in 2019 shows they were not ignoring pandemic preparedness, but rather taking a different approach

3. Potential misinformation/bias in the original statement:

• The statement claims Trump's procedure "proved to be objectively ineffective" - this is an opinion not supported by the provided analyses
• The claim about Trump's approach to masks is not addressed in any of the analyses and appears to be inserted without supporting evidence
• The statement suggests Obama's procedures "would have made a difference" - this is speculative and cannot be proven since they were not implemented
• The statement presents a simplified "good versus bad" narrative, while the analyses show a more complex situation involving different approaches to pandemic preparedness by both administrations