Most of the states which are currently dealing with large coronavirus outbreaks failed to build up their public health systems enough ahead of time, Axios reported on Monday.
This occurred in states such as Arizona, Florida and Texas, even though they had months to prepare after witnessing the mistakes early hotpots in the pandemic like New York had made.
Making this more frustrating is that part of the reason the American economy was shut down was in order to provide states enough time to build up their public health infrastructure, but the failure by many states to do so before reopening has helped lead to the current dismal results.
Although the United States has rapidly boosted its rate of testing and contact tracing capabilities, experts say the current levels are still not nearly enough.
People are having a difficult time getting tested in some hotspots, leading to situations where there are long lines and crowding, according to The New York Times.
The National Association of County and City Health Officials has stated that states should have at least 30 contact tracers per 100,000 people during the pandemic, but most states are far short of that metric.
In addition, the World Health Organization has recommended that at most 5% of diagnostic tests should come back positive for at least 14 days before governments allow reopening, but many states are now well above this threshold, Axios reported.
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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