Trump’s Slow Response to the Coronavirus Pandemic

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/opinion/letters/coronavirus-trump-response.html

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To the Editor:

Re “Despite Timely Alerts, Trump Was Slow to Act” (front page, April 12):

The case can be made that, among industrialized countries, the United States has had the worst overall response. We were late in taking the threat seriously, our testing capacity is chaotic, hospitals are undersupplied, health care across the board is overwhelmed and behavioral efforts to “flatten the curve” have been piecemeal.

Oxford University has been ranking the stringency of government actions in response to Covid-19, comparing the efforts of six countries hard hit by the virus (China, South Korea, Italy, France, the United Kingdom and the United States). Its timeline shows that the United States was one of the slowest countries to respond and was late in ramping up its efforts. Its most recent data (as of April 5) puts the U.S. response in last place among the six nations. As a result, we are now first place in the number of Covid-19 deaths.

The United States may well have the best and most experienced cadre of pandemic expertise in the world, and we certainly have the resources to launch a robust effort in preventing the spread of novel diseases. Our poor response to Covid-19 reflects weaknesses in long-term preparation and planning as well as a failure of current leadership.

As additional waves of the virus work their way through the population, and as future diseases present themselves, we must either do a much better job of containment or be prepared to face even greater social disruption and an unprecedented loss of life.

David SarokinWashingtonThe writer is a microbiologist, formerly with the Environmental Protection Agency.

To the Editor:

In documenting President Trump’s failure to heed early warnings of the pandemic, the article refers to “six long weeks before President Trump finally took aggressive action to confront the danger the nation was facing.”

Yet the president still has not taken “aggressive action” to confront the danger. He has neither required shelter-in-place nor leveraged federal power to implement a Manhattan Project for acquiring and allocating test kits, protective personal equipment and ventilators. The stimulus bill bears his signature, but Mr. Trump played no role in ensuring that it would provide relief to everyday Americans. House Democrats did that crucial work.

Mr. Trump’s only aggressive actions to date have been downplaying the risk, peddling unproven cures, blaming the Chinese, spreading false hope of quickly reopening the economy and giving himself high marks despite his own negligence.

Aaron BelkinSan FranciscoThe writer is a professor of political science at San Francisco State University.

To the Editor:

Again? Really?

How frequently is The Times going to publish articles critical of President Trump’s erratic and impotent response to the coronavirus outbreak? There have been numerous articles, columns, editorials and Op-Eds on this topic over the past two months. Yes, people have died and will die because of Mr. Trump’s inability to lead. But this is no longer news. And it hasn’t been news for weeks now.

The New York Times is obsessed with President Trump. You publish the same stories critical of him over and over again. I beg you to broaden your coverage and stop giving this man pointless additional attention, which he so clearly enjoys.

Jonathan CareyHoboken, N.J.

To the Editor:

The Times’s thorough and persuasive account of the slowness of the Trump administration to act on pandemic warnings lacks one further important perspective: Surely congressional leaders in their oversight capacity were aware, or should have been aware, of much of the information. Their polarization and extended attention to impeachment proceedings (with a predictable outcome) may well prove to have diverted them from this, as well as much of the nation’s other urgent business.

An examination of congressional leadership in both parties by The Times — what they knew and when, and what they did or did not do — during this period also seems warranted if a complete account of culpability is to be reported.

Elsa A. SolenderNew York