The only thing I question about Trump's early assessment of COVID is how accurate that assessment appears to have been. It's almost prescient. Granted, someone else told him, but even so, back then we knew so little about this. We don't know that much even now I think.
I also wonder if a much earlier shutdown would have simply delayed the ultimate pain (area under the curve). We did keep hospitals from being overrun at least, but one editorial I read claimed we took the worst possible middle road strategy to this.
