The advice I've been giving family since February:

"We have no federal government. The Administration will not act until we hit crisis, and even then, won't know what they're doing. Only the federal government can craft a public health response to manage a viral outbreak.../1

...but they won't do it. Trump only cares about the stock market, his public image, and what they're saying on TV. He will downplay this until it's too late. He won't understand that you can only contain an epidemic when infections are low. He said "hoax." Half the country.../2

...hear that word & dismiss what is happening out of hand. Trump is incapable of listening to experts, because he is mentally ill. He thinks he is expert in all things.

"So, we only have ourselves to rely on. Again, there is no federal government. We have to save ourselves.../3

...so, everyone lock down." I gave a series of instructions - thankfully, even though they thought i was nuts, all my kids followed them. My wife thought i was nuts, but she acquiesced.

Today, what I told them:.../4

..."We still have no federal government. They fighting three wars back, badly. They're not war gaming, running through the worst-case scenarios and preparing for that and every scenario in between. They still can't manage testing, which is necessary for ending isolation.../5

...They have not come up with any for contact tracing, which basically doesnt matter since they aren't testing enough. They are consumed by magical thinking. They want to end the things that are cutting back estimates without first preparing what is needed to end them...../6

...they are driving 90 MPH toward a wall and assure themselves they wont hit it. And after they do, they'll debate whether or not to get brakes.

Without a federal plan, without a national, unified public health policy, this will only get worse...

...then only thing we have going for us is Trump is clearly cracking up. At some point, the GOP is going to recognize that spin and propaganda won't cover up the piles of bodies, or that Trump is insane. They are going to realize this will hurt their reelection chances....

...whatever you think of Pence, he is not crazy. He will listen to experts. The war gaming is taking place, just behind closed doors, and no one can tell Trump worst case scenarios because he is crazy, caught in the magical thinking. They'll prepare for worst case and other...

...scenarios if Trump is gone. But until then, we have no federal government. A lot of people are going to die. There will be no public health policy. We can only depend on ourselves."

Then I spelled out the worst-case scenarios. We were already prepared for most of them.....