Posted.
March 20, 2020 13: 11:58
Of all the remarkable modifications to the world around us this week, among the most disconcerting was the change of Donald Trump.
Numerous pages have actually been written, including by this reporter, about the US President’s progressing method to one of the greatest risks to humanity in living memory.
He downplayed the risk for months, declaring the virus would disappear “like a miracle” and recommended contaminated people might improve by “sitting around and even going to work”.
When he lastly began to take the threat seriously, he bungled the message, sending out stock markets into a death spiral.
A lot of consequentially, his administration failed in the rapid rollout of coronavirus screening, losing essential weeks as the infection began to spread out through the community.
That frittered away much of the time the President bought with his early decision to impose a ban on foreign nationals from China, described at the time by his most likely electoral opponent Joe Biden as “hysterical xenophobia”.
But today, the President did something that seemed unimaginable even a week ago: he pulled back.
Trump went from blasé to frightened
When Trump stepped up to the White House briefing ro