To the Editor:

Re “Despite Timely Alerts, Trump Was Slow to Act” (front page, April 12):

The case can be made that, among industrialized countries, the United States has had the worst overall response. We were late in taking the threat seriously, our testing capacity is chaotic, hospitals are undersupplied, health care across the board is overwhelmed and behavioral efforts to “flatten the curve” have been piecemeal.

Oxford University has been ranking the stringency of government actions in response to Covid-19, comparing the efforts of six countries hard hit by the virus (China, South Korea, Italy, France, the United Kingdom and the United States). Its timeline shows that the United States was one of the slowest countries to respond and was late in ramping up its efforts. Its most recent data (as of April 5) puts the U.S. response in last place among the six nations. As a result, we are now first place in the number of Covid-19 deaths.

The United States may well have the best and most experienced cadre of pandemic expertise in the world, and we certainly have the resources to launch a robust effort in preventing the spread of novel diseases. Our poor response to Covid-19 reflects weaknesses in long-term preparation and planning as well as a failure of current leadership.

As additional waves of the virus work their way through the population, and as future diseases present themselves, we must either do a much better job of containment or be prepared to face even greater social disruption and an unprecedented loss of life.