Donald Trump and his administration had 70 days to plan and prepare for the coronavirus, but instead, they did nothing until it was too late.
The Trump administration received its first formal notification of the outbreak of the coronavirus in China on Jan. 3. Within days, U.S. spy agencies were signaling the seriousness of the threat to Trump by including a warning about the coronavirus — the first of many — in the President’s Daily Brief.
And yet, it took 70 days from that initial notification for Trump to treat the coronavirus not as a distant threat or harmless flu strain well under control, but as a lethal force that had outflanked America’s defenses and was poised to kill tens of thousands of citizens. That more-than-two-month stretch now stands as critical time that was squandered.
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It is not enough to know that Trump was warned for months about the coronavirus before it arrived. The fact that Trump did absolutely nothing with weeks and weeks of time when a competent government would have been distributing the WHO tests, increasing the supply of PPE, setting up a functional and federally coordinated supply chain, informing and educating the public, and putting a plan in place for a national stay at home order should it become necessary.
Preparation wins the battle. Trump failed to prepare the country and has been playing catch up against a virus that grows exponentially for months. Trump is trying to blame the states. Donald Trump has tried to blame Obama, but the fact that can’t be erased is that this president had 70 days of advanced knowledge to prepare the nation, and he did nothing.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
