the agency most prepared to handle this dismounted, or if politics hadn't led us to refuse tests from the World Health Organization, or if a prominent politician didn't help spread the disease by showing up on cable news and predicting that it would all go away and people can still work sick, or if that same politician said he preferred for a cruise full of Americans not to dock in the US because it would raise the statistics of viruses in the US, or if a politician told everyone they could take a test if they wanted to while there were almost none available, or if a politician hadn't tried to blame this on another politician, or hadn't worn campaign gear at press conferences about this thing.

The arguments I hear now by people who are coming around to the idea that this is kind of important are essentially "politicians did everything they could to ignore or hide this, but let's not discuss politics now."

FWIW, I agree with you that POTUS was unfairly criticized for travel bans from China and Europe, and that Biden is a jackyewt.