Originally Posted by
Walter Sobchak
He made it worse by not listening to the scientists, telling people it was no big deal, promoting unproven and dangerous "treatments," reducing preparedness before it happened and bungling simple things like testing and PPE, even interfering with state efforts if the governor didn't sniff his balls closely enough.
He didn't cause it but he made it demonstrably worse.
Also he made America the laughingstock of the world.
:joker
You're parroting the left-wing criticisms of him, but not really saying anything which had an effect on deaths and economic devastation.
No prominent Republican or Democrat demanded a super-early shutdown which could have possibly contained this (or allowed useful contact tracing).
Testing ended up being a non-issue. Whether you test positive or negative, your treatment is still the same. In fact, the tests themselves have a 30% false negative rate.
PPE situation was a clusterfuck, but there was a major shortage, and it wasn't easy to solve in a short period of time. Regardless, the lack of PPE at the beginning did not cost a significant number of lives, nor is it thought that a Democrat in charge would have done much better finding them.
Don't know what you mean by "interfering with state efforts" when even Gavin Newsom and Andrew Cuomo praised Trump at one point for "doing everything they promised". But even if you want to say that Trump interfered with states in some way, can you point to what could have prevented deaths had Trump not done what you're alleging?
Bottom line is that we were getting death and devastation regardless of who was President, due to both this being a new situation for everyone alive today, coupled with the individualistic and distrusting nature of Americans which has existed for over 250 years.
Blaming Trump is convenient, but not accurate.