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Our country is currently in the midst of a serious public health crisis. We are greatly in need of competent, honest leadership. Sadly, the current president of our country is neither competent nor honest.

Over the past two years Trump has weakened our nation’s security by eliminating the government positions that were most responsible for monitoring and responding to global outbreaks of infectious diseases.

When the Novel Coronavirus epidemic began back in January, Trump downplayed the danger to the U.S. and avoided taking aggressive action to prepare for the inevitable spread of the illness in our country. As a result, when the virus began to appear here, the government was not prepared.

Public health professionals have been unanimous in sounding the alarm about the urgent need for testing kits to determine who has been infected with the virus. They have also been unanimous in their criticism of the Trump administration’s failure to aggressively develop and produce testing kits.

From the outset of the epidemic in the U.S., Trump has told one lie after another. He repeatedly attempted to downplay the seriousness of the disease. He also downplayed the need to institute measures to prevent the spread of the disease, stating that most people who were infected were able to go about their regular lives, and some were able to go to work. These remarks by the president directly contradicted the advice of medical experts.

Trump also lied about how soon a vaccine could be developed to prevent infections with this virus. He repeated his false claim that a vaccine could be developed in “a few months,” even after the government’s medical experts said it would take at least a year.

Donald Trump is incompetent and dishonest. He is a danger to the health and security of our nation.

Larry Feldman, M.D.

Lakeside