the unnamed Trump aide cited in the book indicated that the GOP standard-bearer may have spoken to Putin as many as seven times

It was a strange time also in the EU:

- French authorities confiscated four million masks from the Swedish health care company Mölnlycke [1] which were destined to Spain and Italy.

- The EU commission blocked the shipping of the vaccine purchased by the UK [2].

- At the same time, Boris Johnson wanted to launch a military operation to recuperate them in the Netherlands [3]!

- Italy blocked a shipment of 250,000 doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to Australia [4].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_France#Sh...

[2] https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-coronavirus-vaccine-s...

[3] https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uks-ex-pm-johnson-says-he-p...

[4] https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-56286235

Also In an interview with Bob Woodward for his book Rage, Kushner mentioned an incident during the early days of the pandemic when a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster aircraft was sent to retrieve cotton swabs for COVID-19 testing. The plane was dispatched to Italy to pick up over a million cotton swabs, which were in short supply at the time.

https://archive.is/rWeLa