In a November 5, 2005 speech outlining the plan, he said, "if we wait for a pandemic to appear, it will be too late to prepare. And one day many lives could be needlessly lost because we failed to act today." The administration created a 381-page plan that would outline the proper responses to possible virus outbreaks.
The plan was passed on to Donald Trump's incoming administration. A simulation was also run for them demonstrating what could happen and what measures should be put in place. Only a small number of the newcomers attending grasped the significance of the exercise. In fact some--like Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross--napped through it.
The office was shut down in 2018 by President Donald Trump, who disbanded the pandemic response team.
In October 2017, the Times emailed Ross questions about his investments in Navigator Holdings, a mover of liquefied gases whose major clients included a Russian energy company. Three days later, Ross made the so-called short sale. Ross' short sale was worth between $100,000 and $250,000, the Times reported.
The Securities and Exchange Commission considers insider trading as any transaction on public markets that's based on nonpublic information that can influence prices once it's revealed. "I did not receive any nonpublic information due to my government position, nor did I receive any nonpublic information from a government employee," Ross said in a statement. "Securities laws presume that information known to or provided by a news organization is by definition public information."
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The above quotations are from Business Insider webzine.
Click here for other excerpts from Business Insider webzine. Click here for other excerpts by Wilbur Ross. Click here for a profile of Wilbur Ross.
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