[Goose]

It's not too hard to imagine a different president going to congress on January 21st, when the first case of coronavirus was detected in the US or January 30, when the first person-to-person spread in the US was confirmed or January 31st, when HHS issued it's public health emergency.  I have no idea if it would have made a difference, but having more money for testing and medical supplies on February 11th rather than March 6 would not have hurt.

BC

Actually BC, I find it hard to imagine any president doing that for several reasons. The main one is that we have not experienced this kind of epidemic in a very long time, like 100 years. The President would have had to believe things were going to get real bad real fast. At that point, virtually nobody believed that. Maybe they should have, but they didn't. Trying to convince congress in February to appropriate a bunch of money would have been difficult no matter who the President was. With this President and his poison relationship with the House, no chance. The main reason it would have been difficult is that any President would have had to answer the question "To do what?". At that point, we didn't know. Ventilators? PPE? Nasal Swabs? At that point, these thing weren't even on the radar. Everybody was FDH. Congress didn't have any idea what was coming. The president would have to have a fairly detailed program to lay out, which wasn't easily available. For these reasons, I think that no President was going to move that early, and if he did, it wouldn't pass.

[Goose]

It's not too hard to imagine a different president going to congress on January 21st, when the first case of coronavirus was detected in the US or January 30, when the first person-to-person spread in the US was confirmed or January 31st, when HHS issued it's public health emergency.  I have no idea if it would have made a difference, but having more money for testing and medical supplies on February 11th rather than March 6 would not have hurt.

BC

Actually BC, I find it hard to imagine any president doing that for several reasons. The main one is that we have not experienced this kind of epidemic in a very long time, like 100 years. The President would have had to believe things were going to get real bad real fast. At that point, virtually nobody believed that. Maybe they should have, but they didn't. Trying to convince congress in February to appropriate a bunch of money would have been difficult no matter who the President was. With this President and his poison relationship with the House, no chance. The main reason it would have been difficult is that any President would have had to answer the question "To do what?". At that point, we didn't know. Ventilators? PPE? Nasal Swabs? At that point, these thing weren't even on the radar. Everybody was FDH. Congress didn't have any idea what was coming. The president would have to have a fairly detailed program to lay out, which wasn't easily available. For these reasons, I think that no President was going to move that early, and if he did, it wouldn't pass.