For two weeks the US has been following almost exactly the Italian curve (11 days later) for the number of cases of coronavirus, a classic exponential plot. But in the last two days we have broken above the Italian curve with a sudden explosion of cases. Our case rate is now increasing faster than any other country, if I read the data correctly. I think we should call this the "Trump Bump," because (unlike the stock market increase that he liked to take credit for) it is directly attributable to Trump.
There are two reasons for the Trump Bump. First, we have always had more cases than we reported, because we were much slower than other countries to get testing started. Trump turned down test kits available from WHO, and our own kits did not come on line fast enough, or work well enough, to meet the demand. As a result, we only tested people we were pretty sure had it, and all those others who may have contacted the ones we knew about, but showed no symptoms, did not get tested. Trump initially treated the whole epidemic as a PR problem rather than a health crisis, and he wanted to keep the reported numbers down so he did not look bad. He said this himself.
Second, when this virus arrived on our shores, our medical people knew what we needed to do. But Trump (and his mouthpieces at Fox News) told us that there was nothing to see here, no action necessary, it would go away on its own. As a result, people were going around for two weeks spreading the disease without displaying symptoms, while it grew inside them. Now they are finally getting sick, and getting tested, and lo and behold, we have far more infected people than we would have if we had started practicing social distancing immediately.
Some will die, and in my opinion, Trump is directly responsible for their deaths.