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The transfer of the virus, which may have originatedin bats, to
humans was an unforeseen event. The response to that event has
been determined by the policies of nations. On December 31, the
Wuhan government publicly confirmed it was treating dozens of
cases of a mysterious new pneumonia outbreak and onJanuary 7,
officials identified a new coronavirus as the cause. The first con-
firmed case in Japan was identified in mid-January, with South
Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and the US following suit within days.
The East Asian countries went into action. Many had experien-
ced the 2003 SARS outbreak and had public health teams on alert
for new epidemics. More than two months later, the number of
confirmed cases has skyrocketed in the US, with more than 250
cases per million people, far higher than China, which has approxi-
mately 57 cases per million; Hong Kong, 60; Taiwan, 11; Singapore,
117; Japan, 11; and Korea, 180.
Trump bears direct responsibility for America’s unpreparedness
and failed response to the epidemic. Since Trump came into office,
he has systematically taken apart our protective public health
system. The pandemic unit at the National Security Council was
dismantled in 2018 under his watch. Trump slashed the CDC’s epi-
demic control teams in39 countries, including China. And when
the epidemic hit, Trump ignored it, downplayed it, and made re-
peated false claims. Even now, he spouts vulgar nonsense about res-
tarting the economy by Easter when public health experts say the
threat is going to persist for far longer.
Trump is profoundly culpable, but he is not the only reason
for America’s dismal situation in the face of this epidemic. Our
for-profit health care system rakes in money on disease, not on
health. Instead, we have a system that works for the rich, instead
of a public health system for all Americans that readily anticipates
and controls new pathogens through testing, contact tracing, and
quarantine.

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