No time for games

For the good of the country, Congress and the White House need to rise above their usual partisan sniping and name-calling and show a little unified leadership as the United States readies itself for the spread of the new coronavirus, COVID-19.

We know it will be hard, given the level of bitter polarization in Washington, but Democrats and Republicans owe it to the American people to swallow their differences. That’s what rational, responsible governments do in cases of war, natural disaster and, yes, a mass outbreak of infectious disease.

There’s a lot riding on the ability of the federal government to get things done fast to support states like California that are on the front lines fighting this new and frightening infection, which has killed more than 2,800 people, most of them in China, and has spread to 47 countries. An outbreak in the U.S. seems all but inevitable now. Transmission without a known connection to someone who is sick or traveled to a place where people are sick marks a concerning turning point in any disease outbreak.

Vice President Mike Pence must offer better, less ideological leadership than he did as governor of Indiana during an HIV epidemic in 2015. That outbreak was traced to drug users sharing infected needles, and public health officials recommended that the state institute a needle exchange program. But Pence, a religious conservative, disagreed with the experts and delayed action until the outbreak was well underway. That resulted in 173 more infections than might otherwise have occurred, according to a 2018 study.