Re: 'The coronavirus: who's really at fault?' [Village News, Letter, 4/30/20]

To Ms. Silvestro and Mr. Terrell, I have a request for you. Would you please give us a brief outline showing us what you would have done differently in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic if you were the President? Here's the scenario:

You, as President, are told that there is a new, unknown disease/virus that is not supposed to spread from human to human but, lo and behold, it does and it is here. You have no idea what this disease was designed to do and how deadly it could be or how quickly it will spread.

As you are thinking about this, please keep in mind that you are responsible for the health and safety of about 330 million people (which is more than Germany, France, Italy, U.K. and Spain combined) who live in 50 different states who all have their own issues.

Also keep in mind that your health advisers first tell you that it is nothing to worry about and then they tell you that it is more serious than they thought so there will probably be about 2 million deaths in the country.

At this point, I assume you would need to get some people together to help you deal with this. Possibly you have someone near you who knows how to deal with Congress because he/she has been there and he/she was also a governor of a medium-sized state that had a crisis or two to deal with.

As time is of the essence at this point, you and your team must mobilize everything quickly. You have a governor of a large state and a mayor of a highly populated city, among others, who are screaming at you that they need lots and lots of ventilators and masks and supplies and more beds.

Of course, they had all been warned that their jurisdictions were woefully underprepared. So, you could possibly, now, call on the manufacturing sector in this country to see what they could do as quickly as possible to make those needed supplies. You also have an incredibly competent and well-trained military that could be put to good use to help with these problems, if you choose to call on them.

After weeks of organizing and putting your logistics teams to work to get everyone what they need when they need it, you now must get the medical teams going at full speed to put testing capabilities together for this brand-new disease that we have never seen before now.

As the virus seems to be somewhat under control, you, as President, start thinking that you could open up the economy again very soon. But you have to have a thick skin, at this point, because no matter what you do, you will be loudly and soundly criticized by the media and people who would not know the first thing about handling a crisis of this magnitude.

So, you could decide that maybe the better plan would be to let each state decide when to lift their shutdown orders and let people go back to work. Each state should know best what their individual situation is and what will work in their towns and cities.

Oh yes, while you are at it, Iran is trying to test you and your strength and resolve; China is also being aggressive in the South China Sea right after they have blamed you for this problem and then threatened not to send you medicines that you need.

And North Korea is shooting missiles very near South Korea's borders. Other than that, we are sure you can handle everything just fine. Let us know what you have!

Sue Jones