While figures are uncertain, the coronavirus may kill 2 percent of those infected; if correct, that would be similar to the lethality of the 1918 flu (it’s also possible that many more people are infected without significant symptoms, which would make the death rate quite a bit lower). Another similarity with 1918 is that the United States and the world are unready for a pandemic.

“We’re amazingly unprepared,” Dr. Irwin Redlener, a Columbia University professor and director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, told me.

President Trump exaggerates threats from caravans of migrants or from a hobbled Iran, and he has diverted billions of dollars from the military to build a border wall that smugglers hack apart with $100 saws. But he has not been attuned to pandemic threats: In 2018 the White House removed the position on the National Security Council to fight pandemics, while seeking to scale back anti-pandemic work to about 10 countries from 49. Experts warned at the time that this was dangerously shortsighted.

At a time when we need wise, scientifically informed leadership, we find ourselves with a president with little credibility and an antagonistic relationship with scientists. It doesn’t help that during the Ebola crisis of 2014, Trump was one of the most fiery critics of evidence-driven policies that actually succeeded in ending the outbreak.

The United States is also vulnerable because of longstanding deficiencies in our health care system. We are the only major rich country without universal health insurance and paid sick leave, and we have fewer doctors per capita than peer countries.

Consider a Florida man, Osmel Martinez Azcue, who returned from China and found himself becoming sick. As The Miami Herald reported, he might normally have gone to a drugstore and bought over-the-counter flu medicine. But because of the risk of coronavirus he did the responsible thing and sought medical attention: He went to a hospital for testing. In the end, it turned out not to be coronavirus — but he was billed $3,270.

We must ensure that no one is deterred from seeking help by the costs. The White House and Congress should immediately establish a system to ensure that patients need not pay for coronavirus testing and treatment. We should also ensure paid sick leave. Do we really want to go to a restaurant where a coughing, sneezing food preparer still goes to work out of financial need?