[Goose]

If this leader demanded to be given credit for economic growth and stock market performance, areas where he should know he had very little direct control, then he should have expected to get most of the credit/blame if members of his executive branch team stumble on pandemic management.

I think he/they fully well know that. That is why they have desperately tried to spin this whole thing the entire time to prove it wasn't his fault. The problem for them is that it doesn't matter if his team stumbled or not. He will get the blame, period. It is almost poetic justice that he will be defeated not for the horrible job he did on many fronts, but rather by something that actually was beyond his control.

I was being kind when saying his staff has stumbled.   The CDC is under his authority and it was possible with a better set of advisors the CDC could have saved a lot of lives by accepting the WHO tests,

For the 9,473rd time, there was no WHO test. We have been over this ground many times before. The problem wasn't the design of the CDC test. The initial problem was they couldn't successfully manufacture it. However, even if they hadn't botched that, the "plan" was the same plan they used in the H1N1 outbreak, namely distribute the tests to each state health department lab and have them do the testing after a leisurely verification by the CDC that they could correctly run the test. Even if that plan had worked perfectly the state labs would be able to do about 6000 tests a week, based on past history. It would have been spitting in the ocean. THAT was what the real problem was, and none of that had anything to do with Trump, his relatives, or the advisors to the President. The CDC had a very flawed plan that they then botched. It is on the CDC staff, and nobody else. The CDC actually published documents pointing out the necessity of accommodating laboratory developed test at places like Quest. They knew they needed a program to get the big PCR companies like Roche and Abbot involved. In short, they knew there was a problem, and a big one. This was in 2010. The CDC didn't really attempt to fix the problem and didn't yell to high heaven that there was one. The German health organizations OTOH involved commercial testing from day 1 and attribute lots of their testing success to that fact.

Yes, trump sucks. BUT there are other serious problems that won't be fixed by Trump's departure. I greatly fear that the many serious problems with our epidemic response (at all levels, CDC, USPHS, FDA, state and county health departments) will be left unaddressed, as they were in 2008, and everybody will declare victory (Pyrrhic as it will be) and move on.

[Goose]

If this leader demanded to be given credit for economic growth and stock market performance, areas where he should know he had very little direct control, then he should have expected to get most of the credit/blame if members of his executive branch team stumble on pandemic management.

I think he/they fully well know that. That is why they have desperately tried to spin this whole thing the entire time to prove it wasn't his fault. The problem for them is that it doesn't matter if his team stumbled or not. He will get the blame, period. It is almost poetic justice that he will be defeated not for the horrible job he did on many fronts, but rather by something that actually was beyond his control.

I was being kind when saying his staff has stumbled.   The CDC is under his authority and it was possible with a better set of advisors the CDC could have saved a lot of lives by accepting the WHO tests,

For the 9,473rd time, there was no WHO test. We have been over this ground many times before. The problem wasn't the design of the CDC test. The initial problem was they couldn't successfully manufacture it. However, even if they hadn't botched that, the "plan" was the same plan they used in the H1N1 outbreak, namely distribute the tests to each state health department lab and have them do the testing after a leisurely verification by the CDC that they could correctly run the test. Even if that plan had worked perfectly the state labs would be able to do about 6000 tests a week, based on past history. It would have been spitting in the ocean. THAT was what the real problem was, and none of that had anything to do with Trump, his relatives, or the advisors to the President. The CDC had a very flawed plan that they then botched. It is on the CDC staff, and nobody else. The CDC actually published documents pointing out the necessity of accommodating laboratory developed test at places like Quest. They knew they needed a program to get the big PCR companies like Roche and Abbot involved. In short, they knew there was a problem, and a big one. This was in 2010. The CDC didn't really attempt to fix the problem and didn't yell to high heaven that there was one. The German health organizations OTOH involved commercial testing from day 1 and attribute lots of their testing success to that fact.

Yes, trump sucks. BUT there are other serious problems that won't be fixed by Trump's departure. I greatly fear that the many serious problems with our epidemic response (at all levels, CDC, USPHS, FDA, state and county health departments) will be left unaddressed, as they were in 2008, and everybody will declare victory (Pyrrhic as it will be) and move on.