Ok let me say it another way BDU,
Sure America didn’t respond quick enough
and now we are paying the price for it,so
there’s that.
Your an intelligent well read person so I’m going
to bet you know your history, if we hadn’t taken out
Japan, Australia would be speaking Japanese!
So please this is a world wide problem and political
shit throwing won’t solve it, so before you throw more
Poo on this country I suggest you relax your views
and opinions till we ALL get rid of this plague.
I will deal with your second point first. To be honest, I don't think much of it. In a historical context, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of what ifs like that.
Here is one for example: what if Churchill and the UK had not held off Hitler until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States actually became interested in opposing Hitler? How difficult do you think a united Europe ruled by Hitler might have been to defeat? Perhaps we would all would be speaking German had it not been for Churchill and the UK.
As for the first, I think you concede too quickly. In some ways, it can be argued that we responded more rapidly than anyone else. For example, on January 28, only 4 days after the second confirmed case of the coronavirus in the United States, Trump expanded U.S. airport screenings to identify travelers showing symptoms and instituted mandatory quarantines for people showing symptoms. Then only a single day after the WHO declared a global health emergency of international concern and for the first time publicly confirmed the person-to-person spread of the coronavirus, Trump issued the ban on travel between China and the United States.
On February 4, the Trump administration directed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to step up coronavirus diagnostic testing procedures.
On February 20, the Trump administration raised travel warnings to their highest level for Japan and South Korea in view of the number of cases in those two countries. This was six days before the first confirmed death in the United States.
On March 11, the WHO declared coronavirus a worldwide pandemic. The next day, on March 12, President Trump imposed travel restrictions on European nations.
In the early days, one of the major concerns in America was with cruise ships on the west coast. Containment and mitigation efforts in California and Washington state were largely successful with respect to the cruise ships. Unfortunately, New York City happened. The reasons for the apparent failure in New York are not readily apparent other than the apparent density of the city, but it is interesting that New York suddenly occurred in the middle of apparent containment and mitigation success on the west coast.
Regarding Testing:
There is no doubt that the response in terms of testing capability in the United States was inadequate initially. However, a case can scarcely be made that it was because of a late response by the Trump Administration. On February 4, only one week after the WHO publicly confirmed for the first time that person-to-person spread of the coronavirus was possible, the administration directed the FDA to step up efforts to develop testing for the virus.
I have already linked an article noting the reason for the success in South Korea. But for the convenience for the reader, I will link it again:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/12/asia/coronavirus-south-korea-testing-intl-hnk/index.html
However, note that as discussed in the article, this was after significant numbers of deaths had occurred in South Korea. The article does not mention it, but this was obviously because South Korea did not restrict travel from China as the United States did.
Also, it is well to note that we now have a better method for testing than the method developed and used in South Korea.
