Letter: Trump has no excuse for failure on COVID

In his recent op-ed, Dave Sutton laments that Trump could have addressed the COVID-19 pandemic better “if he was not being impeached at the same time.” That’s absurd.

Sutton must be the only person on the planet to worry that his hero might actually be removed from office. Everyone else knew the deck was stacked, and that Trump had nothing to worry about.

The truth is that in contrast to similar nations, the U.S. is likely to witness one of the largest economic contractions in its history as a result of the Trump administration’s total failure to execute a speedy and coordinated response that could have contained both the loss of life and mounting economic losses.

Without providing a shred of evidence, Sutton calls Dr. Anthony Fauci “less than reputable.” This is laughable.

Then he slams President Biden’s efforts to get Americans vaccinated, which has been demonstrated by reputable scientists across the globe as the most effective way to stem the pandemic.

This is a pandemic, of course, made exponentially worse by Trump’s actions taken before the first case was even recorded:

Each of his budget proposals included less money for the Centers for Disease Control.

He disbanded a pandemic response team that President Obama had created.

He pulled more than two dozen staff members from the CDC’s China office, personnel who could have provided an early warning about the coronavirus.

Then he went so far as to remove an American epidemiologist embedded within China’s disease control organization.

The preventable and tragic deaths of millions of Americans are on Trump’s hands, and on the hands of those cultists who continue to worship him.

Greg Brown, Hopewell Township

This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Letter to the Editor: Trump has no excuse for failure on COVID