Opinion: Why U.S. pandemic management has failed: lack of attention to America’s epidemic engines
Few U.S. journalists, politicians, or public health officials expressed any extraordinary concern when reports of a novel respiratory virus began to emerge out of China in late 2019 and early 2020. After all, the U.S. had just ranked number one among 195 countries in the 2019 Global Health Security Index — the first major comparative assessment of national capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease outbreaks.
Experts believed the wealthiest large nation on earth to be well-prepared to weather whatever might come its way.
