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Commentary
Wall Street Journal

U.S. Leadership Will Survive Coronavirus

Put away the plague carts and wailing for now. Comebacks are America’s specialty.

walter_russell_mead
walter_russell_mead
Ravenel B. Curry III Distinguished Fellow in Strategy and Statesmanship
U.S. President Donald Trump walks to the Rose Garden for the daily coronavirus briefing at the White House on March 29, 2020. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
Caption
U.S. President Donald Trump walks to the Rose Garden for the daily coronavirus briefing at the White House on March 29, 2020. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

There are two epidemics raging across the U.S. today: the coronavirus and a febrile sense of national failure. Just like the so-called Flagellants, who roamed across Europe during the Black Death beating themselves with scourges and bewailing their sins, pundits and politicians now solemnly intone that a failed coronavirus response proves that American society is sick and American global leadership is dead.

Certainly the initial U.S. response was flawed. The Trump administration and local and state officials should have made much better use of the time gained by President Trump’s much-criticized but now universally imitated coronavirus travel bans. The time could have been used to get the country in substantially better shape for testing and treatment, and an earlier adoption of strict social-distance protocols would have impeded the spread of the virus significantly and reduced the projected death toll.

Read the full article in the "Wall Street Journal":.