In the U.S., between late January and early March, large-scale testing of people who might have had the coronavirus did not happen because of technical flaws, regulatory hurdles, business-as-usual bureaucracies and lack of leadership at multiple levels nyti.ms/3bz3fYi
3 agencies in the U.S. responsible for detecting and combating threats like the coronavirus failed to prepare quickly enough. Even as scientists looked at China and sounded alarms, none of the agencies’ directors conveyed the urgency required to spur a no-holds-barred defense.
Dr. Robert Redfield is the director of the CDC and trusted the agency’s veteran scientists to develop a test for the coronavirus. But when test flaws became apparent in mid-February, Dr. Redfield promised a quick fix, though it took weeks to settle on a solution. 
Dr. Stephen Hahn is the commissioner of the FDA. He enforced regulations that paradoxically made it tougher for hospitals and laboratories to deploy diagnostic tests in an emergency.
Alex Azar, who led the HHS, oversaw the 2 other agencies and coordinated the government’s public health response to the pandemic. Even as he grew frustrated as public criticism over the testing issues intensified, he was unable to push the CDC or FDA to speed up or change course.
Together, the challenges resulted in a lost month, when the U.S. squandered its best chance of containing the coronavirus’s spread. Instead, Americans were left largely blind to the scale of a looming public health catastrophe. nyti.ms/39n1dcl
Here’s a timeline of the U.S.’s slow start to the coronavirus testing nyti.ms/39sbd40
