The CDC, for its part, lagged about five steps behind where it should be. On March 1, it announced that the United States would screen people arriving from other countries for symptoms of the virus. “I wouldn’t waste a moment of time on travel restrictions or travel screening,” Carter wrote. “We have nearly as much disease here in the US as the countries in Europe.” Every passing moment could be measured in lives lost; and yet, a week after Carter had all the confirmation he needed for his mental model of the threat, nothing had changed. “I sense confusion among very smart people,” he wrote in
...more
