ok, while i don't think what you wrote is a strong refutation of what i posted, or that you necessarily meant it to be, here goes, keeping in mind that, by far, the best way to slow a pandemic is at the start. also, presidents get credit for stuff they shouldn't, and blame for stuff they shouldn't:
1) trump closed travel from china january 31st, 9 days after china itself stopped internal travel from wuhan. too late, in my book [Would have been tough to move any faster. Lots of resistance when he moved. No identified cases in US then. WHO didn't declare global health emergency until Jan. 31. First death reported outside of China on Feb. 2. China cut off Wuhan on Jan. 23. China and WHO were finally not denying that there could be human to human spread.]
2) trump stopped travel from europe march 11 - that is way, way too late, given the obviously quick spread of the vaccine. [Yes, it would have been nice to know that much spread on East Coast was coming from Europe and closed Europe sooner. But the US didn't know this until later. The US took some flak for closing European travel when it did. Perhaps not having the 3-week or so testing snafu would have helped on this. Italy experienced a surge in Feb 23. Italy instituted lockdown on March 24.]
3) trump might have listened to fauci and birks several times, but shouldn't he always have been listening to experts? [I think Trump listened to therm on all major decisions in the spring. Not sure what major things he may not have acted on. Agree in general on getting advice from them, but elected leaders should make decision after getting advice, not scientists, many of whom don't know the big picture, including economics.]
[First multi-billion dollar US stimulus/covid billed signed on March 27.]
4) regarding mask messaging, trump of course has been abysmal, but i'm not sure why so many are giving fauci a pass. as a scientist, i'm appalled by the man. he knowingly lied to the american public about masks, thinking he was going to save masks for the hospitals. if he would have told the truth, perhaps a lot of the idiocy regarding masks wouldn't have happened. [Agreed. Probably a mistake. Don't know who made the decision, whether Fauci or others or both.] i recoil every time i hear him praised, even lionized sometimes. my opinion is that he has caused a lot of unnecessary deaths.
5) trump probably didn't order nursing homes to take covid patients, but he should have stopped it by having a real national strategy, which he never did. [Don't think it would have been possible for Trump to stop what Cuomo, etc. did.] i don't know that any governor is an infectious disease expert, and having 50 of them making different decisions created confusion that still exists today. [I see what you mean, but significant states rights is the US system under the Consitution and otherwise,. The feds were talking to the governors every week or almost every week, I read.] in this instance, the u.s. needed strong leadership at the top. this doesn't excuse governors for making stupid decisions, though. [Agree on both counts.]
6) i think any administration would have done something similar to the 'warp speed' tactic. i think it is really weak to try to give trump points, or the dems a negative evaluation on this when comparing them, because that just involves making stuff up. also, pharmaceutical companies smelled big, big money, and several had a jump on things as they'd already worked on vaccines for coronaviruses (SARS). some in the administration did do a good job cutting through the bullshit regulations, but i don't think trump gets credit for that, even though many will give it to him. [From what I've read, Trump and his people deserve significant credit for pushing hard for this and moving it along faster. Romney just said this on Jake Tapper. I think Trump moved it along faster than Dems would have. But yes, Dems would have also done something similar.]
7) trump publicly called for less testing. nobody listened to him. don't think he called for contact tracing [I took it more as an offhand and stupid comment, which the media overplayed.], but the u.s. is very big, and given the relatively rapid spread of the virus, don't know that it would work well here. also, there is a constitutional issue here that doesn't exist with the mask stuff. [Agree on Constititutonal and system issues. The US feds have lifted power. Americans generally are very independent and aren't going to do certain things. Again, I never studied tracking.]
8) the stimulus helped, but the hodge-podge way businesses has been regulated is a disaster. trump and the feds couldn't control it all, for sure, but here their job is messaging as much as anything. trump 'messaged' alright, but in the opposite way than was needed. [How did Trump message wrong on the stimulus?]
9) can't write any more now, but gave it a start. don't think you are totally wrong in your analysis, don't think you are totally right, either. also, sorry for all the typos.