The numbers reveal how much Trump’s dithering worsened the COVID-19 crisis

Thousands continue to die each day in the United States from COVID-19, and there’s no sign yet that the virus will fully retreat anytime soon. But new analysisfrom two epidemiologists published in the New York Times on Thursday showed that it didn’t have to be this way. Had the country acted sooner, it could have dramatically decreased the death toll.

And President Donald Trump, as the person best positioned to lead a national response to the crisis, should get the brunt of the blame for this failure.

The analysis by Britta and Nicolas Jewell of Imperial College London and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, respectively, makes use of the fact that viruses spread exponentially. Because of this fact, the social distancing measures we’ve put in place in the United States to quell the spread could have had a significantly larger impact if they had been implemented just a little bit sooner. Continue reading.