1/So, do we expect the states to be on their own to fight

an invading army?
a surge at the border?
cyber attacks from hostile nation states?
a serial killer who crosses state lines?
a hurricane, flood or other extreme weather event?
a recession?

Of course not.

2/In our system, we've put the power/resources to fight big threats to our health, safety and economy in the national government.

For pandemics, the USG has resources - CIA/IC, CDC, FDA, FEMA, DOD - which simply do not exist in the states, by design. USG owns pandemic response.

3/When the President and his team claim the states are the lead in fighting COVID19, they are just making it up, it's an invention, a confabulation.

There is no plan which says this. Resources and expertise were never allocated that way. FDA controls all testing for example.

4/This absurd fiction that POTUS has conjured up - that the states are on their own to fight a *pandemic* of all things - has to BE CRUSHED by our elected leaders in coming days. It is an abdication of responsibility with no parallel in our history and it is killing people.

5/America needs, deserves a national response to COVID19, as all other modern nations have. Without it the damage to our country will incalculable.

Our Mad King sees a dangerous enemy and has chosen to do lots of TV but not to fight. And people our dying, losing their jobs.

6/Our President is mad. He says insane things on the TV every day. He only occasionally appears to understand what is happening around him.

If we can't adopt a new and better course, soon, our country is going to be grievously wounded, perhaps for a generation or more.

7/So what do we do? First, our elected leaders - the Speaker, governors, Senators - must organize, and rise up to challenge the President more forcefully. We must use all our powers - media, governing - to force him to begin a mass mobilization to fight the virus, this war.

8/Next, we must do four things, immediately:

Surge supplies/people to the front lines

Enforce mandatory national stay at home

Crash/develop a national testing/isolation regime

Launch a "Manhattan Project" for a vaccine/therapeutics/diagnostics/PPE and basic COVID research

9/These things we have to do are the things all other countries are doing, and we, 11 weeks in, are still are refusing to do. It's madness. Madness.

I go into detail about this simple plan here: https://www.ndn.org/blog/2020/03/covid-daily-keep-focus-testing-surge-health-supplies-natl-stay-home-sun-edition