Deeds, Not Words, Lead a Nation

Interesting stat I saw yesterday but wanted to confirm before posting. South Korea's new Coronavirus cases have been flat to declining. Their new cases per day have been around 100 now for about 11 days. That's down from a peak of around 900 per day. They test 20,000 people a day. Their first reported case was January 20th. it's a good sign that diligence can make a difference.

The US case numbers are still increasing. and we still haven't been able to scale up testing because we don't have the volume of tests needed or ability to protect the people doing them, we just don't have the medical supplies. The states are in a bidding war with each other to get needed supplies.

So, what's my point? The first case of Coronavirus in the US was January 20th. Both countries had the intelligence about what was going on, yet one country's leader kept dismissing it as a hoax, as just another flu, it will go away by itself, etc. The travel ban from the administrator was announced on January 31st and went into effect on February 2nd. Yet, for another 4 weeks, despite what other leaders were doing, despite the CDC warnings, despite intelligence reports, our president didn't take it seriously.

Two countries, same intelligence info, same date of first infection, both modern industrialized nations. The one with real leadership is today, post the peak of its case crisis. The US, with a clueless leader, is at the beginning of what will be the most devastating crisis for Americans in our lifetimes, and, with no end yet on the horizon. Some say the weight of the world is on the president's shoulders, poor man.

Consider this, if you lose a family member or friend to this disease, if you lose your business, your house, whatever, remember that even after the travel ban he keeps mentioning, even with government officials telling him we needed to do one thing or another to address this, this president didn't listen. He did nothing to address this virus until the stock market crash woke him up. 6 weeks of potential action that could have been taken - wasted, lost by a man truly incapable of leading.

Fox News and right-wing media will continue to be kind to this president, they will together blame every thing, everyone else. The president will use his typical diversion messaging tactics - he was posting about Hillary's emails just a few days ago.

History, however, will not be as kind to this president. Unfortunately, too many of us will be mourning friends and loved ones, and be struggling for the foreseeable future due to his lack of leadership. It's not fake news, this is real. In a country like ours, we should have been ahead of this.

Deeds, not words, lead a nation.