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At least Emperor Nero supposedly only fiddled while Rome burned; he didn’t tell the Romans that the fire was no big deal.
President Donald Trump squandered two precious months trying to downplay the new coronavirus while attempting to talk up the stock market. We still have no idea how many Americans are infected, because the administration bungled diagnostics. As of a few days ago, South Korea had conducted up to 700 times more tests per capita than the United States.
After speaking to epidemiologists and public health specialists, I have a list of a dozen practical steps that the president and other officials should take immediately, while there is time.
1. Invest in a huge rollout of free testing so that we know who is sick. The University of Washington set up a drive-through system so that certain people can be tested without contaminating a clinic; South Korea did the same. We urgently need “rapid tests” – offering results in minutes – and before long we will also desperately need tests to determine who has had the virus and now has immunity.