When the coronavirus pandemic began, public health experts had high hopes for the United States. After all, the U.S. literally invented the tactics that have been used for decades to quash outbreaks around the world: Quickly identify everyone who gets infected. Track down everyone exposed to the virus. Test everyone. Isolate the sick and quarantine the exposed to stop the virus from spreading.

The hope was that a wealthy country like the United States would deploy those tried-and-true measures to rapidly contain the virus — like quickly dousing every ember from a campfire to keep it from erupting into a forest fire.