London Breed, San Francisco's current Democrat mayor, is the archetypical leftist politician.  She has spent her entire life as a student, working for a non-profit organization dependent on tax-deductible funding and government largesse, or working in government.  Her biography does not give any indication that she's ever held a job in the private sector.  Breed's background is relevant because it explains her shock at having to function independently from the federal government while partnering with the private sector.

San Francisco, in common with other densely populated urban areas, is grappling with a high coronavirus caseload.  The city has been under lockdown conditions since March 16, with people told that the lockdown will continue until April 7.  As of Thursday, San Francisco had 223 coronavirus cases and 2 deaths. 

For a city with almost 900,000 people, 223 cases seems like a relatively small number — but then again, we're not the ones having to deal with a surge in existing cases while worrying about an influx of patients who may yet overwhelm San Francisco's health care system.  From Breed's point of view, she has a serious catastrophe on her hands.

In keeping with her Democrat bona fides, Breed is extremely hostile to President Trump's leadership decisions and statements about the coronavirus pandemic.  On Tuesday, she was on a local San Francisco television statement, scolding people for continuing to socialize with each other.  She also had harsh words for Donald Trump's hope that he would be able to move the country back to normal by Easter:

"My response is, 'Why are we still listening to the president?'" she replied. "We've demonstrated we have to jump in and make this work without government support. ... The federal government just isn't moving fast enough."

[snip]

"The fact is we knew this was going to be a problem a long time ago," she continued. "This is when real leadership from the federal government should have happened, to prepare for this, to make sure hospitals all over this country have what they need. The fact that it's difficult to get things from other countries because of various federal issues is ridiculous, especially when we need these things the most ... . We're trying to make sure we have what we need."

On Thursday, Breed reiterated her message about Easter being an unreasonable deadline for a return to normalcy and about the federal government's ineffectiveness.  She also added that it was the private sector that was coming through for her (emphasis added):

"I think sadly what the president is asking for is ridiculous," she said. "We have people who are dying, we have people who cannot even be tested, we have folks who are infecting people who don't even understand they are walking around with the virus as we speak. And we're already talking about reopening places where we need to make sure cases never make it to in the first place. The whole point of why we're shutting major cities down and we're asking people to do something we've never asked them to do before has everything to do with public health. If we continue business as usual and put a deadline on things without listening to public health experts ... I don't know what we're going to be doing. It will be even worse."

[snip]

"We have had to basically go around the federal government in getting our own materials from other countries to have the PPE everyone is talking about," she said. "This is something the federal government should be leading on, and you have cities partnering with the private sector so we can protect our nurses and doctors and people on the front lines."

London Breed has just learned something important, although she seems not to understand the lesson and, therefore, will be unable to apply it to her life and her ideology.  The federal government is a vast, lumbering behemoth that is incapable of reacting quickly.  When the government has shown speed in response to the coronavirus, it's because Trump has slashed the red tape that binds it.

What can react quickly is the private sector.  When American ingenuity is freed from entangling federal regulations, businesses large and small can turn on a dime.  Suddenly, they're no longer manufacturing cars, or pillows, or alcoholic beverages.  Instead, they're making ventilators, masks, and disinfectants.

For Breed, having to rely on the private sector, which she views as a strange, foreign entity, constitutes a failure.  However, from the constitutional, American point of view, we're witnessing a massive success when the federal government, rather than becoming a tyrant, primarily provides guidance that allows Americans to respond with lightning reflexes to urgent needs.