The term "effective leadership" is subject to opinion.
In my view, a lot of mistakes were made, some by governors, at least in hindsight.
My POINT is there is no evidence that different messenging would have made much difference. Europe has also been hit hard.
And we see no change from Biden over what Trump did, some flowery words, and I'm glad at least he's not speaking about it. But the course of the pandemic is set.