Trump administration 'wasted' the last month -- and the results are 'devastating': disaster relief expert

President Donald Trump made April the month to "stop the spread" of COVID-19 in the United States -- but disaster relief expert Jeremy Konyndyk believes the administration utterly failed to make real progress.

Konyndyk, a former Director of USAID's Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance, has written a lengthy Twitter thread summarizing how the administration's efforts have only put the United States on a plateau when it comes to new coronavirus cases.

"As I feared, the federal government wasted April much as it wasted February," he explains. "That is a harsh assessment given how much the country has been suffering. But without competent federal leadership, the best we are managing is to tread water."

He then shows how there has been no definitive sign that the disease's spread is in decline, despite the fact that much of the country has spent the last month in social lockdown.

"It looks like US-style lockdowns are enough to freeze transmission in place (R=1) but not enough to drive it down (R<1)," he writes. "Which suggests that without further measures (more on that in a sec), we could remain on this plateau for quite a while. That of course would be devastating."

He then outlines what the Trump administration should be doing, although he expresses little hope that it will actually take his recommendations.

"The way forward is very clear: test, trace, isolate, protect," he writes. "Putting that infrastructure into place can bring down cases to a manageable level, enable us to relax lockdowns, and move to a posture of sustainable suppression. But that will be tough to deliver without the feds."

Read the whole thread here.