I’m fuming after reading the Politico article, “Trump Team Failed to Follow NSC’s Pandemic Playbook.” President Trump has claimed that no one could have seen the COVID-19 pandemic coming. Turns out many people in various branches of government did see it. Research efforts like the 2016 Pandemic Playbook were done so we could have reasoned and timely responses to such threats. Apparently they were not heeded.

That’s not surprising given that Trump’s initial response to COVID-19 was that it’s no big deal and was being blown out of proportion by vengeful Democrats and the “fake news” media. The Playbook highlighted in this article rested with a National Security Council office which officials claim the Trump administration disbanded in 2018.

Trump’s initial disregard for science, professional expertise and reasoned information is a disgrace. It has left us tragically behind in the race to confront this pandemic and resulted in the piecemeal effort we are witnessing play out in his daily briefings.

This is but the latest example of the bungling of a man unfit for the office he holds and we will pay dearly for it. Trump’s “special genius” seems to be his reliance on decision-making by gut reaction, not information or facts. We need leadership that relies on another area of body functioning; it’s call a brain, and if you have one you ought to use it. Or should we continue to rely on a man whose decision-making process is to pull them out from one end or the other of his intestinal track?

November cannot come soon enough. Trump aside, where were all the others that were privy pandemic research? Why wasn’t there a chorus of alarm in January, including from those in Congress who took time to sell their stocks before the market crashed?

 

Roy Estabrook

North Monmouth