Thing about these problems (and others) is that bottle necks and red tape generally are problems in just about any country.
Political leadership in this situation involves noting the regulatory and bureaucratic hurdles to action and using your authority to supersede them when a pressing situation requires it. Someone has to sit down and say "what needs to happen, what's standing in its way? What orders have to be issue to stop this today?" Someone has to say "this priority is more important than anything else at this point", etc. Just as an example, it shouldn't be hard to notice tests are only being mailed and to stop that this case, etc.
A crisis always requires political leadership because of both the this bureaucracy and the general confusion created by crisis. Many if not all bureaucracy will act ineffectively by default unless someone forces their hand.
Which is to say that the current situation is an abject failure of leadership specifically.
It's not a matter of overriding everything or nothing. Any crisis is going to involve some level of standard operating procedures not working, even with the best planning (though the US through out planning beforehand). Effective action requires a chain of events all happening and some central institution has to look at the process as a whole because 9 out of 10 things happening well can easily not be enough.
Political leadership in this situation involves noting the regulatory and bureaucratic hurdles to action and using your authority to supersede them when a pressing situation requires it. Someone has to sit down and say "what needs to happen, what's standing in its way? What orders have to be issue to stop this today?" Someone has to say "this priority is more important than anything else at this point", etc. Just as an example, it shouldn't be hard to notice tests are only being mailed and to stop that this case, etc.
A crisis always requires political leadership because of both the this bureaucracy and the general confusion created by crisis. Many if not all bureaucracy will act ineffectively by default unless someone forces their hand.
Which is to say that the current situation is an abject failure of leadership specifically.