Why the Coronavirus Slipped Past Disease Detectives

Why the Coronavirus Slipped Past Disease Detectives

Experts say that like a fishing net with many holes, the surveillance network had numerous gaps, with too little money and manpower to be truly effective. “We’ve been gutting surveillance for too long,” says Michael Buchmeier, a virologist and associate director of the Center for Virus Research at the University of California, Irvine. “And by doing that, we’re creating blind spots in our ability to identify and contain threats of infectious disease in the world.”