Quora: Why is the White House in “complete chaos” over the coronavirus?

Colin Riegels, admitted as a lawyer in five countries replied

A lot of this has been building for some time. Two of the more unusual features of the Trump administration were:

1. usually when a new administration comes in there is a ‘handover period’ when the new team bed in with the old team to get briefed on the role and get a handle on the big issues. The Trump administration didn’t do this - they just fired everyone from Obama’s staff and then tried to work it out as best they could.
2. A huge number of Federal posts still remain unfilled even after firing all the previous Obama staffers. This includes, amongst other things, the Federal task force (set up by the much hated Obama ) for dealing with infectious disease pandemics.

Trump’s staffing struggle: After 3 years, unfilled jobs across the administration

Did Trump Administration Fire the US Pandemic Response Team?

For bonus points: the US used to embed a member of staff permanently with China’s CDDC (equivalent of the US CDC) so that the US could be updated on any relevant developments in China. The Trump administration cancelled that post in 2017.

So, at the time when it really, really needs expertise and experience around it, the Trump White House finds itself very much alone. That has had fairly predictable consequences at the worst possible time.