They could have invoked the defense production act, which lets them direct who makes what, how much of them, and where do they go. Then we wouldn't have had states bidding against each for PPE, doing under the radar shipments, and the feds seizing it before it got them. During a war we don't need companies to pump out a million tanks when we don't need them. We need someone at the top with the big picture view to direct resources.

Instead of thinking it will go away like a miracle, we should have spent those two months ramping everything up, possibly by using a pandemic playbook that was available.

A recent study seemed to show that if the SIP started a week earlier, it would have cut the number of deaths in half. Having a consistent lockdown strategy from the top would have helped.

Heck, if he wanted to sail into a second term, all he had to do was say "There's a virus, and it's going to be bad, but if we work together, we'll get through it. Here's the CDC who will tell us what to do:" then sit back and sign EOs to keep everything moving. Instead we got whining about how no one cared that his press conferences got such great ratings.

But anyways.