Trump's Incompetent Delaying Cost Thousands Of Lives

Trump loves to tell Americans that his administration has done a great job of controlling the Coronavirus in this country. At the same time, he says he is not responsible for the spread of the virus and loss of American lives (approaching 100,000 deaths as I write this).

He is wrong on both counts.

The Trump administration has not done a good job of controlling the Coronavirus pandemic. Trump waited too long and has done too little. That is why the virus continues to rage throughout the country.

And Trump is responsible for the spread of the virus and the unnecessary loss of American lives.

Even after delaying action for the entire months of January and February, Trump still could have saved many thousands of lives by insisting on social distancing just a week or two earlier -- by March 1st or 8th instead of later.

Here's how The New York Times describes how lives could have been saved:

If the United States had begun imposing social distancing measures one week earlier than it did in March, about 36,000 fewer people would have died in the coronavirus outbreak, according to new estimates from Columbia University disease modelers.

And if the country had begun locking down cities and limiting social contact on March 1, two weeks earlier than most people started staying home, the vast majority of the nation’s deaths — about 83 percent — would have been avoided, the researchers estimated.

Under that scenario, about 54,000 fewer people would have died by early May.

The enormous cost of waiting to take action reflects the unforgiving dynamics of the outbreak that swept through American cities in early March. Even small differences in timing would have prevented the worst exponential growth, which by April had subsumed New York City, New Orleans and other major cities, the researchers found.

“It’s a big, big difference. That small moment in time, catching it in that growth phase, is incredibly critical in reducing the number of deaths,” said Jeffrey Shaman, an epidemiologist at Columbia and the leader of the research team.

The findings are based on infectious disease modeling that gauges how reduced contact between people starting in mid-March slowed transmission of the virus. Dr. Shaman’s team modeled what would have happened if those same changes had taken place one or two weeks earlier and estimated the spread of infections and deaths until May 3.

The results show that as states reopen, outbreaks can easily get out of control unless officials closely monitor infections and immediately clamp down on new flare-ups. And they show that each day that officials waited to impose restrictions in early March came at a great cost.