those restrictions went into effect the first week of february. by then, the coronavirus was already widespread in the USA.
even after those restrictions, something like 20k americans returned from china in february-march, with apparently minimal screening.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/disaster-motion-34-million-travelers-poured-us-coronavirus/story?id=69933625But if by "nothing" you mean they didn't "stock up supplies, produce ventilators, an impose social distancing", then, obviously they were not going to do anything, there wasn't enough data (that's what Dr Birx and Dr Fauci from the coronavirus task force keep talking about ALL the time: data) to begin with so there was no reason to "do something" since nothing was happening in the US, at least according to the CDC and Health Department who seem to be hungry for more and more data.
south korea and taiwan curbed their outbreaks despite this supposed lack of data. now the USA will have a 1000x worse death toll than south korea.
why?anyway, is that the right way to approach a pandemic---wait until spread is out of control before doing anything?
other administrations were far better prepared for a pandemic like the coronavirus, because they recognized it was a basic emergency function of the federal government, and they understood their exponentially growing nature:
Bush did not just insist on preparation for a pandemic. He was obsessed with it.
"He was completely taken by the reality that that was going to happen," Bossert said.
"A pandemic is a lot like a forest fire," Bush said at the time. "If caught early it might be extinguished with limited damage. If allowed to smolder, undetected, it can grow to an inferno that can spread quickly beyond our ability to control it."
"To respond to a pandemic, we need medical personnel and adequate supplies of equipment," Bush said. "In a pandemic, everything from syringes to hospital beds, respirators masks and protective equipment would be in short supply."
Bush told the gathered scientists that they would need to develop a vaccine in record time.
"If a pandemic strikes, our country must have a surge capacity in place that will allow us to bring a new vaccine on line quickly and manufacture enough to immunize every American against the pandemic strain," he said.
Bush set out to spend $7 billion building out his plan. His cabinet secretaries urged their staffs to take preparations seriously. The government launched a website,
www.pandemicflu.gov, that is still in use today.
in contrast, trump and obama both pulled funding for a pandemic response, and both failed to rebuild the national stockpile of medical supplies. trump also dismantled multiple pandemic related programs for budget reasons, even just a few months before this outbreak occurred.
and maybe we can rationalize that. everybody lost sight that a pandemic was possible so they pulled funding---fine. but did they really need to wait 2 weeks to even place basic travel restrictions from china (while still letting tens of thousands through anyway)? did they really need to misinform people about the efficacy of masks? did they really need to wait this long to
start procuring PPE? did trump really need to downplay the seriousness of the pandemic, promising a return to normal within weeks
right as infections were going exponential?the most damaging thing the trump administration probably did was to downplay the whole thing, and openly advocate against taking it seriously. as a result, much of the country followed suit. the whole thing became highly politicized, with conservatives/republicans arguing against taking any public health measures seriously. people even started throwing coronavirus parties as a political rebellion. what a fucking shitshow. but what do you expect when the president kept saying "it's just a cold" and we need to go back to normal?