American Contagions, hot off the press, by Yale University Professor John Fabian Witt, is a concise (150 pages) must read for those who seek a deeper understanding of the US response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
To quote the author: Our institutions powerfully constrain the pathways of our response to epidemic….the decentralized police power channels epidemic policy into state governments and private actors rather than the federal government.
The end result is a heterogeneous, poorly coordinated national response to the greatest infectious diseases threat of the last 100 years.
