[Genuine Realist]

They weren't the only ones to figure it out.  Essentially all of the countries that were burned by China with SARS have in their pandemic response playbook to never assume China will tell the truth if a pandemic emerges from China.   Given that those countries had SARS issues, the people in those countries were ready to take action and discount any assurances coming from China.


The countries that ring China are doing fairly well with COVID-19, and will almost certainly benefit economically in 2020 & 2021 as a result.



Essentially, SARS served as a form of vaccine for COVID19.  The governments that had been burned by China's SARS stories were quick to take action when a familiar story emerged in late 2019 and early 2020.   The governments in Europe and the USA didn't have similar immune system responses.



Maybe when SARS-CoV3 rolls out of China the USA's government and citizens will be quick to respond too.

I believe it was a more fundamental vaccination. Those nations saw a preview of the COVID-19 situation and developed the ability to respond to the facts on the ground in their own country. They learned from hard experience that it doesn't matter what ANYBODY (China, Who, CDC, etc.)  is saying. Each nation must be ready to respond organically to health emergencies and do so without relying on the politicians to do the "right thing" immediately without fail. The early stages are key to containing the spread. It is hard to do if one needs a national emergency declaration just to get started. These nations have professionals on the job doing this task all the time. These professionals slowed things down enough that a "track and trace" approach was practical. The heads of state didn't have to be involved from day 1.
In the distant past the USA also had aggressive program in place to respond to epidemic disease. We haven't faced such a problem in a very long time. All levels of government have become complacent. The county health departments are not continuously getting ready for an epidemic and planning to fight it. The state health departments are not staffed or resourced to do so either. The Federal response is great in helping fight Ebola in Liberia but not so much for COVID-19 in Washington State. The countries that got hit by SARS and MERS were "inoculated" and mounted an immediate response. We weren't and Europe wasn't.
While I do understand the arguments that the Federal Executive branch "should" have responded more effectively than they did, I think it is unrealistic to expect much quicker action than we got. Some better leadership at the HHS would have been useful. Let's face it. The Presidents, be it Clinton, Bush, Obama, or Trump don't know anything about epidemics. They are reliant on those under them to guide the response. Some Presidents are going to be better than others in evaluating and reacting to advice. However, I don't think the response would have changed much unless somebody in the HHS department made a decision to sound the alarm so loudly it couldn't be ignored. It would involve being sure enough and courageous enough to risk your credibility and career. Nobody did that. Worse still, from ventilator maintenance to test production the "normal" functions of the Federal government were not effective. These are functions that don't require Presidential intervention or acts of congress to be executed successfully. Those failures were IMHO much more of a problem than slow reaction times at the top.
Equally bad in some similar respects were the state responses. Remember when Newsome was on the news at the company that was replacing batteries and certifying the ventilators from the federal stockpile that didn't work? In an "Oh, by the way..." he mentioned that the company was also fixing several hundred ventilators from the state stockpile with similar problems. The "rot" in our epidemic response was deep and wide.

+1 gazillion.

Nailed it again, Goose.

It IS a good post, but you have to remove the much under-appreciated George W. Bush from the President's list. Back in 2005, he read John Berry's book about the 1918 pandemic, became alarmed at the state of the unpreparedness of the US, and proposed and implemented a fairly comprehensive plan for response. Here's the link, from ABC News, not one of his admirers. Given the state of news reporting in 2005, I doubt the NYT even gave the speech front section coverage.

Evidently, Bush's plan was completely ignored by both subsequent Administrations, and fell into disuse.

[Genuine Realist]

They weren't the only ones to figure it out.  Essentially all of the countries that were burned by China with SARS have in their pandemic response playbook to never assume China will tell the truth if a pandemic emerges from China.   Given that those countries had SARS issues, the people in those countries were ready to take action and discount any assurances coming from China.


The countries that ring China are doing fairly well with COVID-19, and will almost certainly benefit economically in 2020 & 2021 as a result.



Essentially, SARS served as a form of vaccine for COVID19.  The governments that had been burned by China's SARS stories were quick to take action when a familiar story emerged in late 2019 and early 2020.   The governments in Europe and the USA didn't have similar immune system responses.



Maybe when SARS-CoV3 rolls out of China the USA's government and citizens will be quick to respond too.

I believe it was a more fundamental vaccination. Those nations saw a preview of the COVID-19 situation and developed the ability to respond to the facts on the ground in their own country. They learned from hard experience that it doesn't matter what ANYBODY (China, Who, CDC, etc.)  is saying. Each nation must be ready to respond organically to health emergencies and do so without relying on the politicians to do the "right thing" immediately without fail. The early stages are key to containing the spread. It is hard to do if one needs a national emergency declaration just to get started. These nations have professionals on the job doing this task all the time. These professionals slowed things down enough that a "track and trace" approach was practical. The heads of state didn't have to be involved from day 1.
In the distant past the USA also had aggressive program in place to respond to epidemic disease. We haven't faced such a problem in a very long time. All levels of government have become complacent. The county health departments are not continuously getting ready for an epidemic and planning to fight it. The state health departments are not staffed or resourced to do so either. The Federal response is great in helping fight Ebola in Liberia but not so much for COVID-19 in Washington State. The countries that got hit by SARS and MERS were "inoculated" and mounted an immediate response. We weren't and Europe wasn't.
While I do understand the arguments that the Federal Executive branch "should" have responded more effectively than they did, I think it is unrealistic to expect much quicker action than we got. Some better leadership at the HHS would have been useful. Let's face it. The Presidents, be it Clinton, Bush, Obama, or Trump don't know anything about epidemics. They are reliant on those under them to guide the response. Some Presidents are going to be better than others in evaluating and reacting to advice. However, I don't think the response would have changed much unless somebody in the HHS department made a decision to sound the alarm so loudly it couldn't be ignored. It would involve being sure enough and courageous enough to risk your credibility and career. Nobody did that. Worse still, from ventilator maintenance to test production the "normal" functions of the Federal government were not effective. These are functions that don't require Presidential intervention or acts of congress to be executed successfully. Those failures were IMHO much more of a problem than slow reaction times at the top.
Equally bad in some similar respects were the state responses. Remember when Newsome was on the news at the company that was replacing batteries and certifying the ventilators from the federal stockpile that didn't work? In an "Oh, by the way..." he mentioned that the company was also fixing several hundred ventilators from the state stockpile with similar problems. The "rot" in our epidemic response was deep and wide.

+1 gazillion.

Nailed it again, Goose.

It IS a good post, but you have to remove the much under-appreciated George W. Bush from the President's list. Back in 2005, he read John Berry's book about the 1918 pandemic, became alarmed at the state of the unpreparedness of the US, and proposed and implemented a fairly comprehensive plan for response. Here's the link, from ABC News, not one of his admirers. Given the state of news reporting in 2005, I doubt the NYT even gave the speech front section coverage.

Evidently, Bush's plan was completely ignored by both subsequent Administrations, and fell into disuse.