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Signs Missed and Steps Slowed in Trump's Pandemic Response

Associated Press

   WASHINGTON - By the time President Donald Trump first spoke publicly
   about the coronavirus, it may already have been too late.

   Interviewed at Davos, a gathering of global elites in the Swiss Alps,
   the president on Jan. 22 played down the threat posed by the
   respiratory virus from China, which had just reached American shores in
   the form of a solitary patient in Washington state.

   "We have it totally under control," Trump said on CNBC. "It's one
   person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It's going
   to be just fine."

   In the 11 weeks since that interview, the coronavirus has reached every
   corner of the globe. It has infected more than 500,000 Americans and
   killed at least 20,000. It has rewritten the rules of society, isolated
   people in their homes, closed schools, devastated the economy and put
   millions out of work.

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