Would Obama have contained Coronavirus? ?

Just about every nation, including the US, had the same problem - initially they had a small number of cases imported by international travellers. Health authorities were on the look-out for these cases, but since Covid-19 was new, the tests at the time were new and were somewhat flawed. Countries caught these cases, and thought they were on top of things.

What we now know is that large numbers of people were asymptomatic. In others, symptoms could appear nearly two weeks after exposure. What it meant was that the point nations thought they were at was about two to four weeks behind the actual conditions on the ground.

So the reality is, who you had as President at that time really wouldn't have made a difference. The virus would have arrived and spread across the US. It is worth pointing out that Ebola and H1N1 have Ro values of around 1.6 and testing is well developed for those. Covid-19 is closer to 3 and can be as high as 5 in densely populated areas. Plus it was new. In other words, success in dealing with other outbreaks was unlikely to mean success in this outbreak. You can't act without information, and information was behind the reality.

Health authorities were suddenly caught off guard when all those 'hidden' cases resulted in a rapid explosion of 'detected' cases. From that moment onwards, speed was the essence.

This is where Trump's administration failed. They moved to downplay the seriousness, and played up the politics. Federal response was broken, slow, and uncoordinated. It was governors and mayors who took the lead, with federal government playing catch-up.

Whether Obama would have done better ... I think almost certainly. He wouldn't have tried to turn a pandemic into a political point scoring exercise. 

No. Please stop thinking that the USA has all the answers.

As a former democrat myself, let me point out one flaw in democrats mentality, we have a tendency to buy other peoples B.S. without researching facts, and even when were faced with facts contradicting our position, were still complacent.... Obama was heavily criticized on H1N1 and Ebola, I voted for the guy, I now know he is nothing but smoke and mirrors with his facts, eventually herd immunity comes into play before a vaccine does, so Obama didn't solve any great plague, he is a professional liar like his vice presidential pick.

Lets see H1 obama and biden let 60 million die then just gave up, a FACT!, So this one it may got up to 80 million just because the Communist democrats care for you and will kill off America if ever given the chance. Cnn, abc, cbs and huffing post, yahoo and others all should be put in prison for treason!

Nobody could have completely, but he certainly wouldn’t have been reckless with peoples lives like Trump. And he’d be hated by American people for doing it too. They’d see it as some kind of communism.

The simple answer to your question is yes, John.  But President Obama did not "fly solo" on problem-solving for the nation---he put into place a top-notch team of highly qualified professionals with whom he met on a daily basis, and after he'd gotten intelligence input, he then made a fully-informed executive decision using the best data and science from those group meetings.  

This is not what Donald Trump did or does, unfortunately. 

Look back on how the Ebola outbreak in Africa was handled, for example. The U.S. sent our own professionals to the hot spots, and simultaneously launched an exploratory research team to set up data gathering in order to learn as much as possible about the disease and its victims.  The Koch-controlled Republican party chose to badmouth the hugely popular Barack Obama at every level instead of trying to be part of the solution, if you recall---propagandizing if American nurses, doctors, or others from the infected areas tried to return to the U.S. after exposure, seeking treatment in our nation's high-quality hospitals.  Foreigner-owned hidden-agenda Fox News was especially hyperbolic in its anti-Obama, anti-government (domestic-terrorist) hysteria-generating propaganda against anyone with Ebola coming to America.  No-Drama Obama ignored all this right-wing propaganda, however, and took a strong leadership role in handling Ebola cases---and the result: Only TWO Americans died.  

President Obama, like Bill Clinton (a fellow Leo) before him, loves to read and also comprehends what he reads, so the early warning of a possible novel (newly discovered) deadly pandemic that came in the PDB (Presidential Daily Briefing) would not have been ignored or overlooked as the COVID-19 warnings were by illiterate Donald Trump.  Once read, President Obama (or President Hillary Clinton) would have maintained the connections our nation had with the WHO and with China where COVID-19 was first discovered.  Trump did not...he foolishly and abruptly pulled all of our professionals out, thus keeping our own professionals from having access to the crucial information.  The so-called "ban" was impulsive and deeply flawed, allowing more than 450,000 people to leak through to other travel sites.  Recall that NYC's huge outbreak came from Europe.  Trump made egomaniacal noises about using the authority of the President to have manufacturers convert their operations to making needed medical supplies and equipment, but he NEVER DID AUTHORIZE the changes not even now!!  How come?  NO COHENSIVE FEDERAL PLAN was ever formed by anyone in the Trump administration, other than the proposed instructions by Dr. Fauci and the CDC professionals---instructions that COVID-denying incompetent Trump undermined repeatedly.  A nationwide mandate to wear masks would have saved thousands of lives, but vanity-prone sociopath Trump refused to issue such a mandate in January when the first cases were reported in the U.S. When our Governors got no federal input or help from the WH, they took the initiative with limited resources in this national crisis and sought to get their own medical supplies and equipment, only to have the Kushner-Trump-led corrupt profiteers either steal the state-paid-for supplies or bid against the cash-strapped states!!!  

Even somewhat incompetent GW Bush would have done better than Trump.  

He and biden didn't take care of Ebola very well when it was here, perhaps most forgot about that one, only thing barry was good at was destroying america.

Nobody could have completely, but he certainly wouldn’t have been reckless with peoples lives like Trump. And he’d be hated by American people for doing it too. They’d see it as some kind of communism. This is because they are all uneducated red neck hillbilly’s. Every one of them. Without any exception to the rule. 

Yeee haa

He couldn't have done any worse than Trump the chump. 

Obama put into place a pandemic response team which Trump dismantled.  It was Obama's response to the Ebola and H1N1 crises that prevented these diseases from becoming an epidemic in the US.  If you remember there was only one death in the US from Ebola. If Obama were still president you wouldn't be seeing what is currently happening with Covid-19 in the US. 

No one could have contained it but you can bet Obama would have done a better job on slowing it down in the early stages.  He definitely would not have said we only have one case and it will not be a problem.