I still believe a President Cruz would have 'nipped this in the bud' and been reelected. He wouldn't have let covid get out of hand like Trump did.

*I'm taking advantage of my probation officer being on vacation
If we're going to place blame, let's put it on the people who really should wear it. Fauci had been in his position as Head of NIAID for years, trusted by presidents going back to Reagan. You're supposed to be able to trust the people who are allegedly there to keep you safe from epidemics, and Fauci was that guy.
Trump is only guilty of following what was considered to be the best medical advice.
And, of trying to reduce/mitigate the impact on America and Americans. Unfortunately, it sure looks like the people who had that public trust were violating it at every turn, not just to Trump, but at all of us.
Fauci was not alone, and it is possible that this was a politically motivated conspiracy that used an illicit, lab created pathogen as a tool to shift power. (I'm not saying that was
why the virus was created, just that it was used that way. In a form of misplaced enthusiasm for discovery and the use of new technologies in novel ways, I can understand where scientists might get carried away, especially if they and those in their bubble are convinced it's the 'right thing to do' despite convention or even common sense. Just 'cause you
can, doesn't mean you
should, and some people forget that.)
The people who should be held to task are those who (pardon the term) capitalized on a capability to seize unprecedented amounts of control, from the NIAID personnel to the election boards that changed laws without the Constitutionally required okay from their respective state legislatures, to those who profited off of the disease and what appear to be less than useful shots, and the media who fomented Mass Formation Psychosis by doing virtually all in their power to sensationalize the disease and feed panic in the populace--all deserve credit for the outcome. In relatively short order, the situation was 'voted' out of Trump's hands, but with the censorship happening in social media platforms and the mainstream press it would be ridiculously difficult to see what was going on from within the filtered bubble of The Oval Office. (Maybe Trump should have been reading TBR and at least gotten something counter to the narrative to balance what he was being fed.)
At any rate, he did make everything at hand available to fight, from field hospitals to hospital ships to respirators--everything he was told was needed, and when he moved mountains, then no one showed up.
The whole time, Trump's information must have been filtered by the experts other presidents had trusted, people who were supposed to place the health of Americans first, who got paid more than the POTUS, and who were for a time, beyond suspicion. Note that this time around, the Secretary of Health and Human Services is not pulled from the ranks of the medical profession-possibly the result of the perfidy surrounding COVID.
We now question that trust, but in the context of the early days of the outbreak, especially, he was not remiss to trust them. Who would have thought that doctors would pursue their personal and perhaps political agendas at the expense of Americans' lives and well being, especially after having served in their official capacities for so long?