Janet Morana: The Truth About Donald Trump and Coronavirus

President Donald J. Trump greets guests on the South Lawn of the White House Tuesday, Oct.
Official White House Photo/Joyce N. Boghosian
Janet Morana

Coronavirus infections in the U.S. are surging, as predicted, now colder weather has arrived and the number of people being tested continues to increase.

But to hear the Democrats tell it, viral infections are increasing because President Trump had the nerve to tell the nation that we are learning to live with the virus.

He isn’t the only one saying that. In the Great Barrington Declaration, more than 5,000 scientists and physicians agree that measures to curb the spread of Covid have done more damage than the virus itself.

The report, written by infectious disease specialists from Harvard, Stanford and Oxford, raises “grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing Covid-19 policies… Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health.”

The scientists suggested strategies that protect vulnerable populations – primarily the elderly – while “those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal” as we await both the arrival of effective vaccines and the achievement of herd immunity.

Sounds a lot like what the president supports.

Coronavirus is not a political disease, but Joe Biden and the Democrats continue to insist it is. Sifting through the lies the candidates and their media collaborators tell about President Trump, the most glaring is that the president failed to respond aggressively and quickly to the crisis.

But as the timeline published at DonaldJTrump.com makes clear, the president recognized early on the serious threat the virus posed to the nation – and the world – and took action immediately.

On Dec. 31, 2019, China reported the discovery of the virus to the World Health Organization. By Jan. 3, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control had already offered to send U.S. health experts to Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. Four days later, the CDC had established a “coronavirus incident management system” to better share and respond to information on the virus.

That was week one in the U.S.

A month later the National Institutes of Health had begun work on a vaccine and the newly formed White House Coronavirus Task Force was already meeting.

On Jan. 31, while Congress was still busy trying to impeach the president, he declared the coronavirus a public health emergency and announced a ban on most travelers from China entering the U.S.

By the time the World Health Organization declared the virus a pandemic, on March 11, the White House Task Force had briefed governors across the nation; the Trump administration had requested $2.5 billion from Congress to battle the disease and secured agreements from  insurance companies to waive the co-pay for coronavirus testing.

By the end of April, President Trump’s efforts had impacted every American.

A prediction that the nation would not have enough ventilators never came to fruition because factories of major companies like GE, Ford, GM and Phillips were retooled to manufacture these devices that were critically needed to treat seriously ill Coronavirus patients.

An all-hands-on-deck response to the virus saw FEMA, the National Guard, the Army Corps of Engineers and retired Army personnel called in to help with everything from supplying additional hospital beds to stabilizing the supply chain for necessary items. The president even went after those who were hoarding such items as masks and hand sanitizer.

Recognizing that Black and Native American communities were among the hardest-hit in the pandemic, the president included tribal and Black leaders in his meetings with state and local officials. He also met with some 10,000 faith leaders, who were in the unique position of having to minister to their people from afar.

By early April, Americans had been brought home from 90 countries. More than 5 million business owners received a share of the Paycheck Protection Program’s $525 billion pot, and the program has now entered its loan forgiveness phase, where the debt will be wiped clean for employers who used the money to pay employee salaries.

Also, 88 million Americans received stimulus checks up to $1,200 each, and those laid off because of the lockdown received an extra $600 per week in unemployment benefits. Food stamp recipients were able to purchase food online.

The pandemic has not gone away but there are hopeful signs on the horizon.

Operation Warp Speed, a public-private partnership convened by the president and tasked with producing and delivering 300 million doses of vaccine by January 2021, has several promising candidates under evaluation.

New therapeutic options include the very promising monoclonal antibody cocktails that rely on the blood of people who have recovered from the virus. President Trump was treated with such a cocktail and was back at the White House and the campaign trail in record time. These therapies are under development and could soon make a real impact in treating new infections.

The coronavirus has infected more than 9 million people in the U.S. More than 5 million have recovered and most of the rest are in treatment and will make a full recovery.

Tragically, more than 230,000 Americans have died with this vicious disease but as much as the Democrats like to blame the president for each and every death, and repeatedly assert he did nothing to address the pandemic, the fact remains that America’s early and unremitting response to Covid-19 under Donald Trump represents a public-private partnership the likes of which our nation has not seen since World War II, and of which we should all be proud.

Janet Morana is the executive director of Priests for Life and serves on the board of Catholic Voices for Trump and Pro-Life Voices for Trump

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