How America's decimated pandemic response capabilities led to one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the world
Get the Full StoryREUTERS Al DragoThe US is the global epicenter of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The story of how the country got here was set in motion years ago, when the Trump administration began weakening the very agencies responsible for handling such an outbreak.
The result was a beleaguered public health system scrambling to come to grips with a looming crisis, and a disastrous failure to conduct early, rigorous testing.
The US response was further hobbled by a lack of interagency communication and ineffective leadership from top brass.
Meanwhile, the president spent the critical early weeks of the crisis downplaying its severity and claiming it was a "hoax" to hurt his reelection chances, even as his own intelligence officials briefed him daily about an impending pandemic.
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On January 20, a 35-year-old man in Washington state who had recently traveled to Wuhan, China, became the first case of the novel coronavirus in the US.
"We have it totally under control," President Donald Trump said in an interview with CNBC two days later. "It's one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It's going to be just fine."See the rest of the story at Business InsiderNOW WATCH: A law professor weighs in on how Trump could beat impeachmentSee Also:Georgia's governor orders state to 'shelter in place' while also opening state beachesThe Trump administration stopped funding a pandemic warning program just a few months before the novel coronavirus outbreakJared Kushner, who's operating a 'shadow' coronavirus task force, appears not to know why federal emergency stockpiles exist
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