It's hard to believe, but just a month ago Donald Trump and his henchmen were dismissing the coronavirus as a nonevent. On Feb. 26, Trump declared that "You have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be close to zero." His remark came a day after Larry Kudlow, his administration's chief economist, declared that the virus was almost completely contained, and that the economy was "holding up nicely."
There are now more than 82,000 cases in the U.S. - we don't know how many more, because we're still lagging far behind on testing. But that makes us the world's coronavirus epicenter, and the U.S. trajectory is worse than that of any other country.
As for the economy: Last week more than 3 million workers filed for unemployment insurance, a number that is completely off the scale even as many others who are suddenly out of work aren't eligible for unemployment benefits. We're clearly losing jobs even faster than at the worst moments of the 2008-09 financial crisis, when we were losing "only" 800,000 per month.
Trump's dismissal and denial played a large role in getting us to this point. And he should be held accountable. But the crucial question now is whether we're doing enough to cope with the catastrophe.
And the answer is no. We're doing some of what we should be doing, mainly thanks to the efforts of Democratic governors and Democratic members of Congress - a statement that may sound partisan, but is the simple truth.
What should we be doing? Three main things.
First, we need an all-out push to get essential medical equipment to where it's needed. This means everything from face masks and other personal protective equipment for health care workers to ventilators for critical patients. It also, of course, means a vast expansion of testing. A full-court press could still make a huge difference.
Unfortunately, that's still not happening. Trump has the power to mobilize industry to produce crucial equipment, but he has refused to use that power.
Second, we need to slow the virus's spread, by reducing personal contacts that might lead to new infections - "social distancing." The good news is that a number of states have taken strong action, closing nonessential businesses, banning almost all gatherings and issuing shelter-in-place orders to stop people from going out. And early indications are that these actions are working.
The bad news is that Trump is calling for the United States to "reopen" by Easter, a move nearly all public health experts believe would be catastrophic.
So crucial measures to slow the pandemic's spread are partial, and the president is offering the opposite of leadership. But much of the country is doing the right thing despite Trump.
Which brings me to the third thing we need to do: Provide financial aid to families and businesses in the face of an unavoidable economic contraction. What we're seeing in those surging unemployment claims isn't a conventional recession; it's more like a medically induced coma, done for the patient's own good - which is why Trump's desire to get people back to work is lethally misguided. But people need to eat even while they can't work.
So two cheers for the $2 trillion legislation just passed. People keep calling it a "stimulus" bill, but that's not what it really is. Instead, it's mainly disaster relief: checks to families, enhanced unemployment benefits, aid to hospitals and hard-pressed states, and loans to help small businesses survive.
What the bill won't do, however, is prevent a huge death toll if, as seems all too likely, the rapid spread of the coronavirus overwhelms hospitals that still aren't getting the equipment they need. And the tragedy is that many of those deaths will be the direct result of bad leadership - Trump's disdain for expertise and refusal to take the threat seriously, a refusal that continues to cripple our response even now.
The New York Times