What are the odds of that preventing arrival onto our shores? Anecdotally this seems to have been spreading long before it was really on the radar. He should have closed EU travel earlier than he did based on what was known at the time, but in hindsight it probably would have been futile.
I definitely don't think it would have been futile. The butterfly effect from that one call could have changed the trajectory of our country's handling of this virus, and possibly even the global response. Here's a hypothetical: Trump shuts flights from the EU, effectively slowing the spread in the US. Slower spread means hospitals aren't overwhelmed, leading to fewer bad calls by local officials, such as NY's nursing home debacle and extended shut-down. It means people get better treatment in March and April, and the delayed spread means more people have access to better treatment protocols by virtue of having gotten sick later. It's also possible that a national response at the level of closing EU travel evokes a more serious response from officials in the US and abroad, leading to fewer deaths and fewer illnesses before treatments and vaccines are widely available, with possibly fewer economic repercussions as a result. The what-if game is endless.
Looking back and pointing fingers is pretty pointless. There was bad info and bad reactions all around. The real focus should be on what the people who made the mistakes are doing right now. Are they busy playing CYA? Are they spinning the past? Are they preening over perceived victories? Are they learning from the things that went wrong and preparing for the future? To me it seems like we're headed for disaster come winter. I don't see Trump touting a revamped plan to prevent further spread. I don't see him bragging about our replenished stockpiles of PPE, ensuring we don't have shortages in this country again, whether during a resurgence of this pandemic or the next one. (To be fair, I don't see a plan from the Biden ticket, either.) I don't see Cuomo making sure NY doesn't have hospital shortages again. I don't see him addressing the accusations of gross medical mismanagement in his state. I don't see him talking about a plan to address the disparities in death rates in the high risk populations of NY. I don't see a single honest postmortem of the events and decisions of the last 6 months, or any attempt at a plan for protecting the people of this country from this virus as it stands today, or any future event of its kind that may come our way.
To the point of this thread's title, truths have come out. Now what?
