The Definitive Ranking of the Worst U.S. Government Responses to the Coronavirus

Politicians’ refusal to take the coronavirus pandemic seriously has put millions of Americans at risk

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters following a meeting of the coronavirus task force in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on April 7, 2020 in Washington, DC. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

In times of crisis, we want and expect our elected officials to take command of the situation and lead us to safety. But often, lawmakers in fact do the exact opposite, failing to take critical actions swiftly or downplaying the scope of an emergency to score partisan political points. The novel coronavirus pandemic has been no exception.

With more than 418,000 cases and upwards of 14,000 deaths, the United States has become the hardest-hit country among those with reliable statistics (and even then we know we are massively undercounting deaths and the extent of the disease). President Trump was stunningly slow to respond to the pandemic, leaving the federal government ill-prepared to curb the spread of Covid-19. Many state leaders have stepped up to fill the gaps — but some have refused to take the crisis as seriously as their constituents need them to.

We compiled a list of seven lawmakers whose inaction around the coronavirus has put millions of Americans at risk. From ignoring public health experts to encouraging senior citizens to sacrifice themselves for the economy, here is a list of some of the worst responses to the pandemic so far.

President Donald Trump

U.S. intelligence agencies warned President Trump of the dangers of the novel coronavirus as early as January, but it took 70 days before he started to treat the pandemic as a serious crisis. Though he declared a public health emergency on January 31, Trump spent February downplaying concerns about the virus, often saying it would just disappear. On March 9, he said the seasonal flu was worse, and the next day, he promised that the coronavirus would just “go away.” It was not until April that Trump switched his tune in the face of the now-runaway epidemic and predicted that between 100,000 and 240,00 Americans would die.

All the while, behind closed doors, Trump refused to take action for two critical months. The White House battled public health agencies over funding, did little to handle the shortage of personal…