Can’t Get Tested? Maybe You’re in the Wrong Country
By contrast, anxious citizens in the United States and many parts of Western Europe have endured byzantine delays, or have been denied testing altogether.
As the virus reached into the United States in late January, President Trump and his administration spent weeks downplaying the potential for an outbreak. The Centers for Disease Control opted to develop its own test rather than rely on private laboratories or the World Health Organization.
The outbreak quickly outpaced Mr. Trump’s predictions, and the C.D.C.’s test kits turned out to be flawed, leaving the United States far behind other parts of the world — both technically and politically.
Even before the virus began spreading in Singapore, the prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong reminded the public about the 2003 SARS outbreak and said he planned to overreact to the coronavirus. “We have built up our institutions, our plans, our facilities, our stockpiles, our people, our training,” he said on Jan. 31. “Because we knew that one day something like that would happen again.”
France says that it is able to test 2,500 cases daily, and health officials said earlier this week that more than 40,000 people had been tested. The United States has run about 25,000 tests. Neither country has contained the virus or tested aggressively for it. Korea and Singapore have so far been able to do both.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/...us-testing-world-countries-cities-states.html