Lack of leadership has put all Americans at risk

Your Sunday Oct. 4 Opinion was pretty much on point until Paragraph 5, when you stated " ... if the virus can invade the six-foot radius around the most powerful, most closely guarded person in the world, it can reach any of us."

Where have you been? You didn't see the Rose Garden party the president hosted on Sept. 26 where not a mask can be seen and where people were shaking hands and socializing face to face?

Or how about the political rallies the president has orchestrated and led where not a mask can be seen and people are standing shoulder to shoulder while cheering, yelling and shouting?

No one in the United States has more flagrantly dismissed the seriousness and highly contagious nature of COVID-19 than Donald Trump; and his ignoring CDC guidelines that emphasize the need to wear a mask and to socially distance has sent the wrong message to millions of Americans.

COVID-19 doesn't care how many secret service personnel surround you; the secret service can't fight, shoot or put down this virus with guns, muscles or bodies.

Trump's failure to establish a national protocol like the one put into place in New Zealand, that has contained and almost eliminated COVID-19 in that country, has put every single American at risk. I don't wish him ill, but he has done nothing to protect himself except use his political influence to secure for himself an antibody cocktail that is still in clinical trials and unavailable to the rest of America. It is difficult to muster any compassion for Donald Trump or anyone else who thinks COVID-19 is a hoax and dismisses the science that provides the steps to try to stay safe and COVID-19 free.

Phyllis O'Neill

Elgin