We'll have to agree to disagree. First, Trump dismissed the pandemic team that Obama put together. Then months later he disregarded the warnings about the problems in China that could result in a pandemic, by the time he put the restrictions on Chinese travel tens of thousands or more were already here from there, and Europe. Trump insisted on developing our own testing rather than going to either the Chinese, or South Koreans who clearly had developed good testing capability, we wasted months developing testing, and still are taking weeks in most cases to get results of bulk testing. Trump criticised hospital workers for using too much PPE, rather than acting to get more, as well as recognizing the benefits of wearing masks to lower transmission, even if it's just a simple scarf.
I worked in Japan nearly half a century ago and saw people in masks back then, they knew it reduced the spread, but only sick people would wear them. We have a disease where people don't know they're sick, and it's often most infectious before you have symptoms, masks would clearly reduce it's spread and ideally all American's could be provided with medical grade masks, but Trump made it a political statement not to wear them.
I'm sorry, but I believe we could have saved hundreds of thousands had we acted prudently, but we didn't, we've never brought the curve down as Trump pushed opening up too early, and now we're still on top of the first wave rather than at a low rate of infection and being cautious about going into fall with a second wave. Trumps emphasis on the economy and not on lives is costing us not only more lives, but is taking a much worse hit at the long term economy than if we got the curve down as it is elsewhere before reopening. Now all sorts of places that opened, in some cases for less than a week, are forced to close again, and with virtually millions infected, no telling when they can reopen again.
What do you imagine might have happened if the pandemic panel had been working the entire time and reacted, very probably in late 2019 to prepare. I don't know that they'd have stopped transportation, but I suspect that people may have been tested before they ever got on a plane. Tests did exist in China, South Korea, etc well before they were available here, and I believe our pandemic staff would have been acquiring them, or rights to use the technology, and make them here, but of course Trump fired that staff.
Gary
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