Consider Taiwan

Today, Spokesman opiner Marc Thiessen doubled down on his Sunday column absolving President Trump of any culpability for the 40,000 plus dead U.S. citizens (“Place the blame squarely on China,” April 23). He blames W.H.O., the CDC, Dr Fauci, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and his favorite target: Barack Obama.

The previous Sunday he compared Taiwan’s response to China’s. Taiwan is only 81 miles from China and has over a million citizens who reside or work in China. Taiwan has had only 6 deaths from the coronavirus because of their efforts at containment, which kept Taiwan out of the mitigation phase. Taiwan’s government sprung into action on Dec 31, screening and isolating those with symptoms. By Jan 30, all travelers from China were being tested and by Feb 6, all international cruise ships were banned.

Thiessen compares Taiwan’s response to China’s, avoiding comparing Taiwan to the United States because this would show that the Trump administration was totally incompetent in the handling of this deadly virus. During the period between Dec. 31 and Feb. 28, Trump held nine campaign rallies and took five golf vacations at his Florida resort as the deadly virus spread across America. At his March 6-9 golf vacation, he was asked if he was concerned about the spread of the virus he answered, “No, I’m not concerned at all. No, I’m not. No, we’ve done a great job.”

Bottom line: Taiwan has the virus contained with a vibrant economy while the U.S. is loading corpses into refrigerated trailers and the economy is trashed.

Bob Johnston

Spokane