Donald Trump considers himself a wartime president. Let us all be thankful that the war against COVID-19 is not a shooting war. If it were, we would be in worse shape than we are now. The commanders in the field would not have enough ammunition, just as our governors do not have enough testing supplies. Those testing supplies are the ammunition needed to fight the war against COVID-19.

When the governors were told they had to secure their own testing supplies, the governor of Maryland was able to purchase millions of dollars worth of such supplies from South Korea. This was possible because his wife had a connection there. The governor had the National Guard meet the shipment from South Korea to secure it and deliver it to where it’s being kept. He did this to prevent FEMA from intercepting the shipment and confiscating it for the federal government. FEMA has done this in the past so the federal government could dole out the supplies as it saw fit.

Some political insiders say Trump dithered for two months when scientists and medical experts informed him a pandemic was possible. They also say the warnings were in many of his daily briefing books and that he spends very little time reading them. In his February press briefings, he obviously did not know what was on the horizon.

We are in a heck of a mess. Let’s just be thankful that the war against COVID-19 is not a shooting war.

William Merten
Falmouth