ORIGINAL: Canoerebel
The USA benefitted from being a bit later in virus onset (in most places) and getting to see what was going on in Europe and how things were being handled. As a result, federal, state and local governments began taken strong action comparatively early and in some ways we've caught up to Western Europe (and perhaps surpassed some, in some ways).
That may not be the case with all states, like Washington State which saw an early outbreak back in February and dealt with far more uncertainty in what to do.
We do have that advantage, but IMO, we have squandered some of that through mis-management of testing. Truth is we have no way of knowing right now how widespread it is.
We are also behind in respirators; the US has a Strategic Reserve of Medical devices that includes respirators. We need to not only be deploying those right now, but also training additional staff in their use. In fact, we should be training additional medical help staff right now. We can't train up more nurses and doctors, but we can provide some basic training to Guardsmen and others to help in an emergency.
It's almost a certainty that as the hospitals admit more patients, there will be fewer nurses, because a) some will get sick, and b) 38% of the Nurses in this country have school-age children; some of those need to watch their kids!!!!
