The first lockdown in Italy was Feb 21. Trump had alread convened a task force to investigate and handle the spread of the virus on Jan 29, and was later called racist for the travel restrictions placed on people coming from China on Jan 31.
It's apparently been memory-holed, but during this period it was the US media calling it "no worse than the flu", not the other way around.
And what did that task force accomplish?
* Shipping a laughably insufficient number of test kits that didn't work, while banning private labs from developing their own tests. We still have a crippling test kit shortage.
* Asking people traveling from China to self-quarantine, and not following up.
* No stockpiles of necessary medical supplies.
Getting called names has never stopped him from rolling out bad policy in the past. I don't see why it can be credited for stopping him from rolling out good policy this time.
For the first two weeks of January.
When they got to the point of locking down an entire city, it became pretty clear to everyone that it was a serious situation.
We looked at that, and did... Nothing.