I’m not an expert in any of this- not even close. Ideally, the steps we’re taking this week would have been done weeks ago, but that could just be 20/20 hindsight. You say our country is faring far better than most, but how do we know that is true when we have no sense of the scope of the spread? We could just appear better off because we are simply a few weeks behind them with the progression. I agree that the travel ban from China probably bought us a few weeks, but did we use them wisely?
I do know there are a few things that could have been done better in my opinion (and I say this as someone who is pretty non-political), most of which have to do with mixed messaging:
—Not saying in a speech to the nation that “prohibitions will apply to trade and cargo” when, in fact, that is not the case
—Not saying that the virus will “die with the hotter weather” when we don’t know that to be the case
—Not saying the number of US cases is “going very substantially down” to “close to zero,” which everyone knows is nonsense (even at the time)
—Not saying that everyone who wants a test can get a test, when that wasn’t true then and isn’t true now.
I don’t want to start a political war on a weather message board. It’s unfortunate this is happening in an election year because everything will be colored by that context. Hopefully as a country we can move past the blame game (both sides) and deal with this challenge. Stay well everyone.