When President Trump came to power, he did so on a platform of bringing power back to the people. And yet he was quoted recently saying, “The federal government has absolute power … .”

Sadly, when it comes to managing a worldwide pandemic, he is right about this. Used effectively, there could have been no greater threat to COVID-19 than the U.S. government. We eliminated measles, rubella, diphtheria and many other infectious diseases by getting organized and developing national vaccination plans.

The most optimistic scenario is that we will have a vaccine for COVID-19 in 18 months, and that’s incredibly optimistic. The only logical way to get people back to work, back together again, is to be able to know for sure if your neighbor, classmate or fellow worker has the virus or has immunity. Ramping up nationwide testing is the only path to getting things back to normal.

The administration has wasted our fight against this disease by first denying there was ever a risk to Americans, and then by failing to aggressively manage it. Naming Vice President Mike Pence, a person who has no background in medicine or science, in charge of protecting Americans from COVID-19 is more evidence of mismanagement.

Science does not care what we believe, and the path of this virus was predicted long ago by knowledgeable experts. It will take knowledgeable experts, working for the federal government, to enable us to resume our lives. It will take a president who trust scientists and epidemiologists to accomplish this goal.

Tracy Floyd

Cape Elizabeth

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