[Goose]

Imagine how much better our situation would be if we had a competent CDC with testing that showed community transmission in February, and a President who would've seen what was happening in Italy in late February and shut us down then. We'd be in the same boat as South Korea or NZ by now.

Maybe. We have a much larger population that is not nearly as compliant with government requests. We have many more points of entry that would need screening. It is also important to remember that the President can't shut down the individual states. He can close the borders. The important thing we are missing is contact tracing and quarantine. We didn't have that going in and we don't have that now. Showing community transmission indicates you have failed to contain the disease. Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore contained the disease. We didn't, because we had no organization at the county and state level to do it. The CDC can scream all it wanted, but without "boots on the ground", it doesn't matter.

[Goose]

Imagine how much better our situation would be if we had a competent CDC with testing that showed community transmission in February, and a President who would've seen what was happening in Italy in late February and shut us down then. We'd be in the same boat as South Korea or NZ by now.

Maybe. We have a much larger population that is not nearly as compliant with government requests. We have many more points of entry that would need screening. It is also important to remember that the President can't shut down the individual states. He can close the borders. The important thing we are missing is contact tracing and quarantine. We didn't have that going in and we don't have that now. Showing community transmission indicates you have failed to contain the disease. Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore contained the disease. We didn't, because we had no organization at the county and state level to do it. The CDC can scream all it wanted, but without "boots on the ground", it doesn't matter.