Trump vs Xi: The Corona Race

The Chinese were slow to report COVID-19, the disease caused by the new Coronavirus. So Xi received a late warning. But Trump received an early warning. Eleven days before the first known U.S. case (Jan 21) the WHO issued a travel advisory “be prudent to reduce the general risk of acute respiratory infections while traveling in or from Wuhan City.”

In spite getting a late warning, in a bigger, poorer country, Xi stopped the epidemic at 87,000 cases and 3,300 deaths.

But in the U.S. we will pass 100,000 cases on today (Mar 27) and will reach 500,000 in about a week. The most conservative estimates predict we will have 20 times more deaths than China.

Trump has more powers to stop this than he has used. China’s economy has already recovered. Why are we doing so much worse?