"This president has essentially gone Awol from the job of leadership that he should be providing a country in trouble," Mr Panneta told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Wednesday, branding the situation a "major crisis".
"But the president, rather than bringing together some kind of national strategy to confront this crisis, simply resorts to tweeting about vandalism and other things to kind of divert attention from the crisis that’s there," Mr Panetta added.
The former CIA director, who served under President Barack Obama and as White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton, went on to signpost recent warnings from Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, that the outbreak in the US is spiralling.
"What we’ve seen over the last several days is a spike in cases that are well beyond the worst spikes that we’ve seen. That is not good news. We’ve got to get that under control, or we risk an even greater outbreak in the United States," Dr Fauci told the BBC on Wednesday.
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