re: #202 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

The United States needed a top-down, decisive, consistent and centralized approach to Covid.

That was not forthcoming from TFG as he was in full denial mode that there was a problem. The Dems were not in a position to do anything but scramble as best they could under the chaotic, contradictory circumstances only to be chided for being “ineffective”.

In absence of leadership from the WH, there needed to be some sort of national-level leadership from the party. We needed something like the Howard Dean “50 State Strategy” days of the party getting on the same page and sticking to it. Instead, we got this balkanization of various state parties acting in their own immediate interests to the detriment of the party at large. Which lead to situations like here in VA where hotels yelling in Northam’s ear about all the money they were losing and set to lose if they couldn’t open in time for summer tourism overrode public health concerns.

The result was a massive spike in infections that were centered in tourism-heavy cities and towns, to which the state imposed mandates…that they then left to health inspectors to enforce without any corresponding increase in funding for additional manpower. The worst a business could face at the height of the pandemic for failure to enforce mask mandates or social distancing was a fine and maybe losing their business license if they received multiple citations.