'A colossal missed opportunity': Trump official admits they blew COVID-19 crisis with slow response

An unnamed Trump administration official who works at the Health and Human Services department is admitting to Axios that the White House absolutely blew the response to the coronavirus pandemic.

In particular, the official said that the administration needed to start working with the private sector starting in mid-January in order to meet the demands of the pandemic while it was still possible to contain it.

"By waiting to fully appreciate and acknowledge this as a once-in-a-lifetime crisis, this was a colossal missed opportunity," the official said.

The report says that the Trump administration keeps falling behind the curve on the disease, whether it comes to being slow to ramp up testing supplies, dragging its feet on getting the private sector to produce more medical supplies, and pushing for the easing of social distancing measures at a time when the virus is still spreading like wildfire.

"At the end of the day, the virus has slipped through all those cracks," the HHS official tells Axios.

Read the whole report here.