FourVirusFailures

 

 

The first is a sin of omission — the failure to act when clear duties arise.

 The federal government’s response to covid-19 began poorly in early February. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention produced a test for the virus that was contaminated and initially useless. But when testing faltered, the Trump administration did not rise to the moment, even though there were solutions at hand — employing the effective World Health Organization test, or allowing labs to develop and use their own. Weeks passed as the health bureaucracy churned.

 The second error was a sin of commission — the direct betrayal of a duty.

  Even as events rushed forward, the Trump administration actively and deceptively played down the extent and seriousness of the crisis. As the danger became undeniable, the president and others in his administration doggedly denied it. “It’s going to disappear,” said President Trump. “We have it so well under control.”“The numbers would tell us that 15 cities were on fire, and two were turning things around. The entire focus was on the two doing good. No focus on the 15 doing poorly.”

How do you successfully manage an unfolding crisis if you refuse to hear bad news? You don’t. 

 

 The third major error was the Trump administration’s early decision to shift burdens and blame to the states.

 

By April, an administration strategy had solidified: hand off responsibility for pandemic response to the governors and cease to “own the problem.” With the death toll around 58,000, the administration hoped to declare victory and be done with it. “We have met the moment, and we have prevailed,” Trump said on May 11.

 In a crisis requiring behavioral change on a vast scale — wearing masks, social distancing — Trump consistently treated behavioral change as a sign of weakness. “It was increasingly destructive,” a senior administration official said. “It led to many thousands of deaths.” 

 

The fourth mistake was the administration’s undermining of expertise.

 The tendency is most obvious in Trump’s elevation of quack cures. He suggested hydroxychloroquine would be “one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine.”  His non medical advisors: Navarro on rapid reopening, Atlas on herd immunity. These anti-experts have provided bad advice and sought to sabotage rival sources of information. “Not only does the president want to surround himself with yes-men,” a senior administration official told me, “he wants to use yes-men to discredit the reputations of truth tellers.”

 Once again, Trump is insisting we are turning the corner on covid-19. One administration official responds: “We are turning the corner — into a dark alley.”

 The most extraordinary failure in presidential history — the attempt to disguise and downplay the deaths of more Americans than all the U.S. military deaths from World War I, the Korean War and all us wars since then combined — has not been laid at Trump’s feet. Put aside criminal law for now; this is a moral crime of unimaginable dimensions that should never be erased from the records of Trump and his enablers. What’s more, it is still going on.