March 9 in Orlando, Fla. PHOTO: EVAN VUCCI, AP, ILLUSTRATION: USA TODAY

Tweet Share Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine In an emergency, every day matters. Every week matters. Quote icon

That declaration, issued a month ago this week, prompted a cascade of measures by governors and other officials that have essentially halted public life in the U.S. in a frantic effort to limit COVID-19’s spread. Although disruptive, those measures have been credited with limiting new COVID-19 outbreaks in places that had not yet become a hot spot while helping to tamp down the exponential rise in cases in cities like New York, where a crush of sick patients have overwhelmed hospitals.

USA TODAY interviewed half a dozen experts in epidemiology, economics and the medical supply chain who said Trump squandered an opportunity that week, as he had for months, to take significant steps that would have saved lives and put the country in a better position to fight the virus.

“The United States is one of the richest countries the world has ever seen,” said Heather Boushey, head of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, a nonprofit economic research and grantmaking organization. “It has enormous resources. But it needs good management to marshal those resources. What we’ve got is six-year-olds playing soccer. There’s no strategy, no plan.”

The experts said it’s obvious that the U.S. would be best equipped to manage the impact of COVID-19 if the efforts to secure equipment, increase testing and shore up the economy had begun back in January, when Trump was reportedly already receiving warnings from intelligence officials and key advisors that the virus would inevitably spread through the country. And they contended that in the last month, Trump's response remains disorganized and lacking.

But they said that taking significant action during that one week before he declared a national emergency would have made a measurable difference.

Patrick Corbin of Washington Nationals posted an image on Instagram with President Trump on March 8. Instagram

“In an emergency, every day matters,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. “Every week matters.”

White House spokesperson Judd Deere, in a statement, called this story "another shameful attempt by the fake news to distort the President’s record to confront this global pandemic, including during March 6-13, which was filled with action after action to slow the spread of virus, expand testing, and provide much-needed relief for Americans impacted by the outbreak."

The White House provided a recounting of the actions Trump did take in the week before he declared an emergency, from securing $8 billion in healthcare funding related to the virus, to issuing an Oval Office address to the nation, to suspending some travel from Europe. Trump has also touted his decision in January to bar some foreign nationals who had recently visited China from entering the U.S.

The White House’s account of Trump's week omitted three of the days, including a Sunday and Monday he spent in Florida hosting a birthday party for his son’s girlfriend, golfing with Major League baseball players and headlining separate reelection fundraisers at Mar-a-Lago and a donor’s private mansion.

Deere responded to questions about those activities with a question of his own: "You don't think he does work while in Palm Beach?"

Shaking hands down the Eastern Seaboard

The virus’s devastating potential had been on display for months in China, where it had brought the country to a standstill, and in Italy, where an uptick of its lethal spread was considered a harbinger of America’s near future.

Trump started his workday on Friday, March 6 with a reality check that COVID-19 was going to be more expensive than he anticipated. That morning in the Diplomatic Room, wearing his situation outfit of khakis, a white dress shirt and a windbreaker jacket bearing the presidential seal, he signed a bill authorizing $8.3 billion for healthcare and vaccine research. Trump remarked that he had only asked for $2.5 billion.

“Came out of nowhere,” Trump mused of the novel coronavirus as he held up the signed bill for the clicking and flashing cameras, “but we’re taking care of it.”

MARCH 6: President Donald Trump, with HHS Secretary Alex Azar, signs documents related to a $8 billion funding bill to combat the coronavirus outbreak. Earlier that day, the World Health Organization urged governments around the world to unleash their full power to combat the spread of the virus. Photo: Win McNamee, Getty Images, Illustration: USA TODAY

Trump then tossed the pen to a Reuters reporter — "Here Steve, this is for you after covering me so well” — and moved on to more familiar matters. He suggested that Joe Biden wants to get rid of guns and called Sen. Elizabeth Warren a “very mean person.”

Then Trump left for Air Force One and several stops as he moved southward. The journey, and the rest of his week, was a highlight reel of how to ignore the social distancing guidelines the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had first mentioned in late February.

His first stop was a tornado-ravaged Tennessee, where he shook hands with his greeters who met him at the tarmac, including Gov. Bill Lee. At nearby Cookeville, he crowded in with residents near their flattened homes, shaking hands and patting shoulders. At a nearby church, roughly a hundred residents — ranging from children to the elderly — squeezed shoulder-to-shoulder and craned over a folding table to shake Trump’s hand. One man climbed over the table for a selfie with Trump.