@BlessedMom : I don't think that we are the only country that did not take this too serious from the beginning. I have family in Germany and have been following the development on this before there was much talking about this over here in the US. Germany is having the same problems as we have, not enough supplies, they even sold needed equipment to China still in Jan/Feb. even so the suppliers were asking the government if it was o.k. to ship, or should we keep it for ourselves? Now they are scrambling also.
Just had an email from a personal friend, that thinks he may have the virus, he is on a 3 day waiting list to get tested. Sure, they seem to have more testing in place then we do. And I know of several cases right in the neighborhoods of my family and friends.
On the day, our governor in Texas, March 13, declared State of Emergency, in Germany nothing was closed, they did not close anything until the following week. My kids have been working from home since the 16th. The stay at home orders there did not come until around the 20th, and also the states decided on themselves, the government in Berlin was still discussing....
I don't think government can fix everything, sure there needs to be leadership and supplies, but there is still so much unknown about this virus and in my opinion this will still take a while to find out as well what the cure is. Of course we could have been better prepared. If we would have closed everything on February 1st to avoid, everyone would have said????.
We will just have to do the very best for ourselves to keep distance right now, maybe not run around shopping at Home Depot every day, and take the precautions we know at the moment.
Everyone stay safe.