To the Editor:

Re “Trump Shifts Image: Leader for ‘Wartime’” (news analysis, front page, March 23):

Memo to President Trump: If you think you’re a wartime president, you’re losing the war. The country needs leadership, not lies. The troops (physicians, nurses, first responders, many others) desperately need personal protective equipment. Patients need ventilators. The economy needs help for those at the bottom — not companies, their executives and their shareholders.

Why did you wait so long to acknowledge that there was a problem? What will you do to help us? We need more than meaningless words.

Daniel Fink

Beverly Hills, Calif.

The writer is an internist.

To the Editor:

Re “A Race to Deliver Critical Supplies to Medical Teams” (front page, March 22):

You reported that President Trump resists use of the Defense Production Act because of his inclination “not to interfere with market forces.” You also reported that Gov. Andrew Cuomo said New York State was paying $4 for masks that normally sell for 80 cents. Were the president to use the act, prices could not be bid up, and production increases could be mandated.

It is clear that for Mr. Trump and his allies, this pandemic is a business opportunity. The rest of us will pay high prices, some of us will get sick and perhaps some will die because of a lack of supplies.