But what stands out to me is that Australia has a comprehensive track and trace program. So that when the virus pops up again, the newly infected are identified, as is everyone those people came into contact with, so the scope of the new outbreak can be quickly defined and contained. The U.S. has nothing like that, at least not on a national scale. Some local governments are trying to track and trace, but that only works if they get their numbers low enough. Even if a locality is doing everything right, you can't get low numbers if the communities around you are letting things get out of control.
The U.S. has no national policy whatsoever. Hell, our federal government is led by someone who is in denial that the virus poses any serious problem. The American outbreak is now worse than it ever was before (higher numbers than we had when much of the country was locked down in April). Except now we are opening up. We have pissed away whatever progress we made between March and May. Despite the President's sinking poll numbers I do not think the scope of Trump's utter incompetence on this issue has fully sunk in.
