When you mix in the WHO denial of the virus being airborne

over the evidence of experts, when you have leaders lying about the efficacy of masks for the 'untrained', when you have health officials more concerned about the 'stigma' of travel restrictions than their effectiveness, and when you have political leaders decrying travel restrictions when 'they' did it but advocating them when its their ox getting gored...no, no the powers that be and officials didn't handle it well. Their repeated lies and hypocrisy is what did the damage, not the public.
Cuomo's bravado that "NY is better than Italy" flipping to the demand that respirators be seized rather than rationed, as well as falsifying stats by playing games with nursing home bed counts. Running the Comfort up to NY and then letting it sit mostly empty because policy and perception mattered more than medicine, . Newsome partying, letting movie companies run meal tents while shutting down small businesses. That's not the right f'ing things up.