From a pro-liberty perspective, I am suspicious of government intervention in the COVID-19 crisis. I have a somewhat nuanced position as a minarchist libertarian: I do think there's a self-defense argument in protecting communities against public health issues; this is one of those positions I share with AnCap icon Walter Block on grounds of the non-aggression principle (e.g., a vaccine mandate): you do not have the "right" to impose your disease on me. The infamous case of asymptomatic "Typhoid Mary" Mallon is particularly relevant; she was primarily a cook (for wealthy families), in a state of denial over her disease, with bad hygiene habits (not regularly washing her hands). Now outlining a libertarian approach on handling the COVID-19 crisis is beyond the scope of this essay; we generally prefer decentralization of government authority and regulatory reform to engage the private sector, robust expression of scientific and medical communications, and a more nuanced, risk-based approach to public policy (e.g., protection/isolation of at risk populations): no blanket travel bans, shutdowns, mask mandates, etc.
Now don't get me started on Trump's failed management of the crisis. Keep in mind a central theme behind this essay is that Presidents have very little constitutional or other authority or ability to do much of anything, and both Trump and Biden are utterly incapable of managing whatever limited authority they do/would have.
Trump's scientific illiteracy and superficial, sloppy, incompetent, self-serving, impulsive analysis, judgment and decision-making are beyond dispute, and other libertarians like Tom Woods piss me off when they accept Trump's attempt to rationalize e.g., his idiotic spitballing how we should be working on drugs that handle COVID-19 as well in the body as deodorants and UV lights work on viruses outside the human body; this was as profound and original as a primary school kid asking her Dad if Clorox works so well on hard surfaces, why can't we inject it inside the human body? Trump was on the stage with career scientists trying to assert his relevance because of his massive, fragile ego, and the poor scientists are trying to figure out how to tactfully respond to an unexpected batshit-crazy question from a guy who probably last looked at biology in high school (and almost surely didn't earn an A).
After the outbreak of H1N1 (swine flu) and Ebola during the Obama Administration, why didn't voters take into account Trump's relevant idiotic tweets and foresee the possibility of his inept leadership in dealing with an even more serious pandemic? I don't know. Why did he allow Bolton to reorganize the pandemic response team in the federal top-heavy bureaucracy with the Ebola crisis still fresh in people's minds? I don't know. But it's excruciating reading a Trump tweet that said effectively, if an American medical volunteer leaves the country to battle an international health crisis, lock the door behind him. America, you got the "President" you voted for. His embarrassing tweets were a harbinger of what has transpired this year; nobody should be surprised.
The one no-brainer thing to contain the crisis was to rapidly ramp up testing to diagnose asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic individuals. Not only did the government monopoly (with its not-invented-here mentality) bungle the crucial initial rollout during the crisis on Trump's watch, but he perversely tries to verbalize that testing has distorted the crisis as more serious than it is, and he lies about international comparative statistics. Listen, dude: we have less than 5% of the global population and a MULTIPLE of that (like 4 or 5 times) the cases and/or fatalities. Now, unlike the Democrats, I don't hold Trump responsible for relevant American statistics; you might argue his travel restrictions were too little, too late, too inconsistent, but the states under our Constitution (Tenth Amendment) are responsible for health security, and Democratic governors and mayors in particular implemented Draconian policies and try to scapegoat Trump for their economic illiterate and ineffective policies.
There is some scientific evidence that early travel restrictions can help mitigate the scope of the pandemic's spread, but is Trump's snake oil claim that "When I did China, it had never been done before. I was the first one to do it...We’re the ones that gave the great response, and we’re the ones that kept China out of here. And if I didn’t do it, you’d have thousands and thousands of people died — who would’ve died — that are now living and happy," correct? No. At least 38 countries had implemented sooner or around the same time as the US. ("We did not include 12 countries, such as Japan, that took some sort of action before the United States but with measures that were not as sweeping. Japan, for instance, barred travelers from certain regions of China, not the entire country. Some other countries, such Bangladesh and Myanmar, simply suspended visas on demand for travelers from China.")
Furthermore:
The New York Times calculated that at least 430,000 people arrived in the United States on direct flights from China since Jan. 1, including nearly 40,000 in the two months after Trump imposed restrictions. Moreover, screening proceedings of travelers from China have been uneven and inconsistent, the Times said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Jan. 21 announced the first travel-related case of novel coronavirus in the United States. Trump unveiled his plan 10 days later, making the restrictions effective Feb. 2. (On Jan. 17, the CDC had begun health screenings of passengers on direct or connecting flights from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak.) ... U.S. citizens and permanent residents could still travel from China but were subject to screening and possible 14-day quarantine
Between the first official report of an outbreak in China and the announcement of U.S. travel restrictions, more than 40,000 travelers from China were estimated to have entered the United States. Scientists believe the virus likely emerged and began circulating a month or more before it was first recognized in China, which may have allowed it to spread beyond the countries where cases were initially recognized.... Until Feb. 27, no other travelers to the United States faced such travel restrictions and quarantine requirements — even if they were arriving from other nations that were reporting coronavirus cases....In the early days of the U.S. epidemic, testing was restricted to people with a travel history to China, which limited the ability to detect locally the cases and infections among travelers from other countries.
40,000 US residents were repatriated from China, with screening described as cursory or lax... It is also possible that the virus entered via nearby Vancouver, British Columbia, which is closely linked to both China and Washington State.
