General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsA competent president, when informed in January about the virus in China,
would have jumped on it and pushed all related agencies to start responding.
First he wouldn't have ignored the WHO coalition of countries that quickly developed tests for the virus.
The tests were time critical because they were used to screen travelers from infected areas and contain the virus if it entered the U.S.
Without a widely used test the virus was free to enter and spread without any intervention at all.
If the CDC wanted to develop their own test, he would have insisted that the WHO test be used until the US version was ready.
A competent president would have insisted on being kept up to date with the current status and if problems arose would have intervened, using the power of the presidency to ensure that solutions were quickly found.
The virus invasion of the US would have been kept to a minimum and would not have become a major disruption of everyday life everywhere.
Instead he ignored the warnings.
He was probably the reason the US did not join the WHO nations in combatting this. The CDC spent precious weeks developing their own, flawed test. Even now, over a month later, the test has not been distributed as widely as needed.
Also by leaving the response to the various agencies without supervision, red tape and department rivalries delayed effective response even more.
Trump simply takes credit for an incredible response as he hits is little white ball down the fairway.
We are heading towards a dangerous and scary period that will disrupt everything in American life but could have been mitigated dramatically if the president had simply done the job of the president.
We will soon hear how the president did everything humanly possible to prevent this disaster. No president could have done more but it was inevitable that the virus invade the US in a massive way.
I hope someone investigates and reports how all of this happened.
It's dangerous for people to believe that this was inevitable.
It's important that people learn and understand why this disaster occurred.
secondwind
(16,903 posts)could invest in the private companies who would be making the masks!!!
napi21
(45,806 posts)medical issues. Of course, if Obama did it, it had to go!