A Republican president gave all of this hysteria his seal of approval.
True, but there was no downside for the democrats to inflame the hysteria, and very difficult for Trump alone to combat it. I think he went with the least unsavory option the dems/media presented to him - either shut down the economy (and harm his reelection chances) or keep it open and get blamed for killing millions of seniors (and harm his reelection chances). What would have been truly "trumpian" (insofar as that is the image he has tried to create) would have been if Trump had created for himself an option that transcended these two, but that was beyond his talents. I like him but he's not magical.