How US leadership failed during COVID, according to former White House senior advisor

U.S. President Donald Trump points to a chart as he speaks about his administration's coronavirus disease (COVID-19) response during a news conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, U.S., September 16, 2020. Photo REUTERS/Leah Millis TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

LA County says the average daily COVID case rate and test positivity rate have doubled in the past week. That’s partly due to the highly contagious Delta variant, which is affecting unvaccinated people.

Andy Slavitt is President Biden’s former senior advisor on COVID, and the author of “Preventable: The Inside Story of How Leadership Failures, Politics, and Selfishness Doomed the U.S. Coronavirus Response.” He talks to KCRW about the risks the Delta variant poses, and how political leadership factored into America’s dismal response to the pandemic.