No, they weren't. In fact, history will show that he had better instincts than just about anyone else in public office. Two things from the spring of 2020 stand out to me even to this day:
1. Trump's initial assessment that the health toll of COVID-19 would be comparable to a bad flu season. He was right about this.
2. The public and political outrage directed at him when he did one of the few things a U.S. President has the legal authority to do in a situation like that -- namely, banning travel from China in late January of 2020, while morons like Nancy Pelosi were encouraging people to go out and visit Chinatown in San Francisco.
He was. True.
Which makes his later disastrous cave to his populist politician instincts so disturbing.