New Scientist
Volume 245, Issue 3275, 28 March 2020, Pages 20-21
Whyte, Chelsea
Introduction
The way society functions in the US has made it more vulnerable to pandemics. Could things be different, asks Chelsea Whyte.
The coronavirus outbreak is a once-in-a-century event – and it seems the US has spent the past 100 years unwittingly weakening its defences.
In fact, the US is probably the developed economy with the worst type of healthcare system to tackle COVID-19. Many economic and healthcare policies it has enacted don't prioritise public health, and it is finding out first-hand how dangerous that can be.
The impact of this has been seen in the past month or so in the lack of testing – as of 23 March, the US has done 238,632 tests compared with 338,036 in South Korea, a far smaller country.
Keywords
Epidemiology