I'm happy to say an initial few words on that, Larry.
It's a really great question. One of the things that we have seen from many countries is an underestimation of the risk this disease poses.
I wrote an opinion piece in The Washington Post that was published on February 4 in which I called for a “no regrets” approach. I urged the United States government, and really the world, to look at what was happening in Wuhan, China, at that point, and ask themselves whether it could happen here. This is because, in my view, as soon as we saw hospitals being overwhelmed in a wealthy metropolis like Wuhan, a city of 11 million people with a very modern health care system in a fairly wealthy upper-middle-income country, there was very little reason to think that any developed country—whether that was in North America, western Europe, east Asia or anywhere—would be immune.
I think that at a minimum, every country should have been preparing from that moment for the possibility that the conditions in Wuhan could happen in their own country. There was no good reason to think that would not happen. Every country should have been asking itself two simple questions on January 23, when Wuhan began shutting down: One, could that happen here? The answer in every country was clearly yes—if it could happen in Wuhan, it could happen anywhere. Two, are we ready for that to happen? Are we prepared if that does happen? That's the idea of a “no regrets” approach.
That was not the approach that the United States took. It was not the approach that most countries took. I think there was a certain magical thinking that somehow what happened in China would stay in China, but I don't think there was ever a scientific basis for believing that would be the case.
Therefore, yes, I did expect that this could happen in the United States. I was calling for preparedness and was disappointed to see that it didn't happen.