How would you have handled coronavirus.....

[gimmethesimplelife]

differently, if so, than the Trump Administration/The Orange One Himself has? Today I'm really over Trump given his words regarding Kamala Harris so I'm going to cool off before posting. Rob

[jp1]

I would have followed the pandemic playbook written during the Obama administration. And offered full throated support of the experts like Anthony Fauci.

[Teacher Terry]

Totally agree with JP.

[Yppej]

I would have had maybe a once weekly news conference vs daily grandstanding. I would have shut down the borders immediately to all countries not just China, Iran, Europe and Brazil. I would have shut down the cruise industry immediately. I would have added funding to public health including contact tracers. I would have put in place a national paid leave of absence program for workers over age 60 or with respiratory or other underlying conditions diagnosed before the pandemic. As a condition of receiving funds recipients would have to agree to stay home. I would have added funding and employees to the post office so they can make deliveries of food and medication with no delivery charge to high risk individuals. I would have lost weight myself and promoted a program of losing weight, stopping smoking especially vaping, and other healthy behaviors to help reduce susceptibility to bad outcomes from the virus. I would have asked Oprah Winfrey of Weight Watchers to help me with this effort and to help reach the African-American community, which is disproportionately affected by the pandemic.

[Rogar]

I would have followed the recommendations of the leading medical experts like Fauci instead of pushing to reopen everything, pushing in-person back to schooling the push to open up churches as early as Easter. Routine use of mask has been delayed or ignored by some form of conspiracy theory fueled by certain government officials. It seems like we've failed in testing availability and contact tracing relative to other more successful countries. And I'd have made sure at risk medical professionals had the proper PPE much sooner.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Well ideally squash it before it even speads but if that hasn't happened (and clearly we were well beyond that by March):

At least 6 weeks of hard (Italy style not U.S. style) lockdown with GUARANTEED INCOME for then and as long as it takes (Canada has been doing 2k a month for months). Pay people not to work so we can get the virus under control. None of this economy versus virus garbage (don't even pretend to rope me into that silly uniquely American false dichotomy when I've known what should be done from day 1: JUST PAY PEOPLE TO STAY HOME). Get all PPE possible to necessary workers.

Test, hire contract tracers, have the government provide isolation (hotel rooms or whatever) for sick people who live with others. Don't open up until test trace isolate can be done promptly for all cases. I might say use the defense authorization act to make PPE but this may be literally impossible, the U.S. may just not have the manufacturing know how at this point - but we CAN do all the other stuff that doesn't require that - 3rd world countries contract trace, we can too. There is some possibility that because we have little manufacturing testing would be slowed, then we'll just have to stay closed a bit longer than a more developed country to get it under control and ramp up testing to meet reduced cases, but it can be done). Have mandatory paid sick time going forward so noone has to come to work sick, but with all other measures community spread should be fairly minimal anyway.

[JaneV2.0]

Funny how all your suggestions would be worlds more effective than what we've had.

[Teacher Terry]

Everyone had excellent suggestions! Too bad Trump’s ego wouldn’t let him follow Obama’s protocol.