President Trump downplayed the coronavirus threat, was slow to move and has delivered mixed messages to the nation. The federal bureaucracy bungled rapid production of tests for the virus. Stockpiles of crucial medical materials were limited and supply lines cumbersome. States and hospitals were plunged into life-and-death competition with one another. When the public looked to government for help, government sometimes looked helpless or frozen or contradictory — and not for the first time. …
In interviews over the past two weeks, senior officials from administrations of both parties, many with firsthand experience in dealing with major crises, suggest that the president and his administration have fallen short of nearly every standard a government should try to meet. CONT.
Dan Balz, Washington Post