In response to “Opinion: Now is Not the Time to Play Politics, says Ogdensburg man” which appeared online March 31: Before jumping to defend Trump as being unfairly criticized by the writer, take a realistic look at a map of the US as to which states are proactively using facts to handle the coronavirus crisis and which are following Trump’s version of downplaying it.

There is a distinct Democrat/Republican difference. On 3/20, NY was the second state to announce “stay-at-home” measures after California. By 3/23, eight more Democrat governors followed suit until all were taking part. As of this writing, ten Republican governors have no measures in place, three are only singling out cities/counties and four are simply “encouraging” people to stay home.

Republican governors’ desires to please their voters is putting the whole country at risk.

If our President wants to be a “wartime president", he needs to take command, follow the advice of our Surgeon General Jerome Adams and endorse a national “shelter-in-place” mandate. Dr. Fauci has tried to get the President to understand there is equal risk for low-density areas and low-population states. Fragmented regulation doesn't work.

Trump could save lives by asking all governors to unite in a uniform approach.

The coronavirus is not Trump’s fault. But there's concrete evidence that Democrat politicians and their supporters are using scientific data to take the virus seriously versus Republican politicians and their supporters using Trump’s initial dismissal that the coronavirus was just a flu.

The President will have to acknowledge the way the country is divided along political lines but in doing so he will lead us toward a unifying approach for fighting the disease and saving lives. That’s what a courageous leader, with compassion for people, can do to pull us together as a nation to prevent people we love from dying.

Martha Hodges

Massena