It Was the Impeachment

President Trump and his Senate comrade-in-arms Mitch McConnell have disclosed that the President failed to prepare the country for the coronavirus threat because he was “distracted” by the impeachment proceedings.
As an example of this distraction, they cited the President saying on January 22 in reference to the virus outbreak, “We have it totally under control”. To Fox News’ Sean Hannity a few days later, he said “We pretty much shut it down coming from China.”
It appears that this impairment of the President persisted even after the impeachment proceeding ended on February 5. For example, the President said on February 14 that warm weather would bring the virus outbreak to a halt. And ten days after that, he said that coronavirus infections were declining at a time when they were in fact climbing.
The impeachment distraction also explains the President’s failure to make coronavirus testing widely available. A crucial error, widespread testing in South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan led to far fewer infections per capita than in the U.S. which has had to rely almost solely on social distancing and state Stay At Home mandates.
Similarly, in past national catastrophes, the federal government is expected to assume the principal role of securing essential resources, equipment and materiel and assuring that it is distributed and used strategically. But the distracted President has left it to the individual states to engage in chaotic, wasteful and inefficient efforts to secure what was needed.
The resulting shortages of Personal Protection Equipment for healthcare workers and ventilators for the severely ill are expected to have dire consequences.
A further wrinkle is that Sen. McConnell was apparently also distracted by the impeachment process. On February 27, three weeks after the impeachment trial ended, he praised the coronavirus efforts of the President and dismissed Sen. Chuck Schumer’s warning that far more needed to be done.