I firmly believe that with the right leadership we would be entering the tail end of this crisis having suffered only a fraction of the economic damage and lost lives. Had Trump recognized back in Nov-Dec-Jan what was coming and acted decisively (gradually shut down all international travel over Jan-Feb, immediately gotten started provisioning PPE/tests/treatments/vaccines, nationwide shelter-in-place during all of March), the US would have <50,000 total cases, and there would be almost no risk of overwhelming the healthcare system. We really would be looking at Easter as a realistic time to reopen the country.
I don’t know what previous presidents would have done. I don’t know if they would have had better information to work with or if they’d have acted more decisively. But it’s almost impossible to imagine anyone handling this in a more divisive, dishonest, and confusing way.