Thanks for reply. No disagreement about the US health system from a command and control perspective. There actually isn't even a US health system, in the sense

Thanks for reply. No disagreement about the US health system from a command and control perspective. There actually isn't even a US health system, in the sense of other countries having a (public) health system. The US has a ton of private health systems, plus some large public ones for the elderly, poor, and veterans who are unable to buy into a private system. It is a mess. Issues with this mishmash of public and private systems aside, the primary failing I would argue is political- as a coordinated response to a pandemic involves education, housing, supply chain- lots of systems that have nothing directly to do with health. I would be curious if points you raise from a health system perspective were to some extent covered in the pandemic playbook that had been created and was handed over to the new political leadership following the election- then abandoned by them, as is well documented. If they were, it points even more strongly to political failure, as an aggressive political approach, building on prior planning work, could have greased so many administrative wheels- instead of, as is clearly happening now, simply and shamelessly lining the pockets of political allies. Cheers.