Trump: He must appoint coronavirus czar

President Trump declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a national emergency on March 13, invoking statutes that explicitly state the federal government will coordinate all disaster relief assistance.

But he still hasn’t done the most important thing: Put somebody competent in charge.

Trump has one job now: Put an overall command-and-control officer in place who can, on his authority:

(1) Announce binding national policy and firm national guidance to governors and mayors.

(2) Federalize all supplies, resources and facilities needed to test, trace, isolate, triage, treat and eventually bury coronavirus victims.

(3) Pick someone who can oversee a massive production, procurement, purchasing, maintenance, allocation, distribution and redistribution system for those critical resources.

The president should mobilize the defense transportation system now to move critical resources around the country. He should actively use and not just cite the Defense Production Act.

He should let an experienced operations manager take the lead and fix this now. We’ve already lost too much time.

This story was originally published April 22, 2020 at 1:43 PM with the headline "Trump: He must appoint coronavirus czar."