Trump on cutting the CDC budget for the past two years (including a proposed 16% cut in the most recent budget):
https://markets.businessinsider.com...nt-hire-doctors-coronavirus-2020-2-1028946602
He also fired the pandemic team in 2018.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/3...ited-states-public-health-emergency-response/
Which should confirm what the rest of us have been saying for a while - running a business (much less a private business in which you don't have to release audited annual reports) and running a government are completely different. It's one thing to tell people who can't afford health insurance to get better jobs in normal times, but it's something else when it gets in the way of those same people getting tested because of how easy it is to be a carrier. Things like free testing and vaccines (when it becomes available) isn't Venezuelan socialism - it's the common good.
I agree re the US having some deep problems at being able to respond to stuff like this, including a trainwreck of a healthcare system and worse employee protections such as sick leave. Hopefully it paves the way for some structural changes.
I'm not too up with the details of Germany's response, but the attitude in this part of the continent has been about personal responsibility (ie, if you think you have it, take a couple of Panadol and stay home) and tests are only being given out when shit gets serious. The parts that are responding the best are the ones that look the worst, like Denmark, because they've been carrying out a lot of tests. The gold standards have been the Asian countries with SARS experience though. Taiwan's a stone's throw from China but they've only had 50 cases. Singapore's another one, as are Thailand and Vietnam.
If you're interested in the spread of Covid from a global policy standpoint, this article is a bit long but it's well worth a read:
A couple of sobering points:
*The true cases and reported cases are on completely different curves.
*Where a lot of Western countries are in terms of confirmed cases, Wuhan had been in full lockdown for a few days.
*Because the growth is exponential (you affect three people, so soon that's nine people affected and then 27 and then 81 and so on), if authorities wait one day to respond that creates a 40% increase in cases. That also leads to a more severe collapse in the healthcare system.
For context, the first US case was in January (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_the_United_States) and Trump's Europe ban took two days to include Europe's biggest travel hub to the US.
Like you say, it would be negligent to not have some kind of systemic overhaul come out of this - no matter who's in the seats of government.