Yes, nothing was in place...no test kits, no ventilators, no masks...nothing.
We had vents and masks and ppe, just not enough to make up for the lack of planning is some of hte individual states. The Stockpile was depleted in 09 by Obama and not refilled. If you want to blame Trump for not doing it after he was elected, thats fair but you need to ask if he was even told. Tests had to be made to match the virus and that had to wait for samples, which were not easy to get. Then the CDC screwed up the test kit and then the FDA had regs in place making it difficult to near impossible to have outside testing done. There was a team in Washington State ready to do just that and the FDA said no. That cluster continued until Trump nuked the rules. So you want to blame Trump for that.
Now the scramble us on. The crack down on social distancing occurred too late after all the partying in Florida and New Orleans...and before you bring in the states are responsible...I'm sure Trump has some overriding command he could I still which would force the states to comply.
Please quote me the law that would have allowed Trump to force shutdowns of States to force social distancing. Ive not found one that works yet and I've done a bunch of research, but if I'm wrong I'll be happy to admit it.
Also there was no screening of US citizens coming from abroad...in fact coming from China nor mandatory self quaranteen for 14 days.
Actually we did screen citizens returning and we did quarenteen them for 14 days, and I point first to the US citizens airlifted from Wuhan. We also screen passengers returning after Mar 13 from Europe after there were travel restrictions in place. There was a big stink about how long it took to get them through the airports. And on it goes. You think we did nothing, and thats not even close to the truth.
Sure I'm looking at these measures with hindsight...but we expect our Commander in Chief not to look in hindsight, but foresight and take the necessary steps to avert catastrophe.
The US started working on the virus and the protection of the US in earnest in early January. The problem was the data was a mess and evolving daily. Even as late as Feb 5 the scientists and Dr. Fuaci were stating it would most like not be a big problem for the US. So what is it you would do? Hindsight is 2020.
Trillions are spent foreward looking at terrorist attacks...yet this pandemic is doing so many magnitudes more damage than all terrorist attacks combined. Truly if there was a desire to do so, this virus I could have been handled much better saving thousands of lives. Now everyone is in chaos mode and looking to blame others.
That boggles my mind. You contend that the admistration didn't want to try and protect America?
Added on edit:
Just as a data point 3.4 MILLION travelers from overseas arrived in the US in Dec, Jan and Feb. 750k of those were from China. On the 15th of Jan the WHO was saying there was no human to human transmission. We did not have our first case until Jan 29.
