A Supposedly Developed Country’s Response to a Healthcare Crisis: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic for Future National Emergencies

Abstract

The world has just suffered through a pandemic that was responsible for the 7 million deaths. The expectation prior to this devastation would have been those countries like the United States, which are considered “developed”, would have been prepared and able to ameliorate the effects of such a catastrophic event. However, this was not the case. In fact, many countries not necessarily considered underdeveloped or undeveloped weathered this crisis by mounting a much more organized response. This chapter will review the history of similar episodic epidemics, the failures that led to over a million deaths in the United States, and most importantly what is necessary to a similar event in the future to be dealt preventing the devastation that did occur in a most “developed” country like the United States. These lesions and their possible extrapolation worldwide, hoping will prevent a recurrence of the devastation we have recently experienced in the United States.