◼ COVID-19 / GOVERNMENT Bloomberg Businessweek March 16, 202018
of Medicine paper. Snohomish County officials
allowed him to leave home isolation three weeks later.● What slowed testing down?
Early in February the CDC began shipping test kits
to laboratories around the country as news out of
Wuhan grew alarming—tens of thousands more sick-
ened and a virtual lockdown imposed to keep people
in their homes. Outbreaks hit Iran, Italy, and South
Korea. More cases around the U.S. were reported,
suggesting other travelers may have brought the virus
home with them. For every dozen cases the U.S.
caught, it probably missed 20 or 25, estimates Marc
Lipsitch, an epidemiology professor at the Harvard
T.H.ChanSchoolofPublicHealth.“Itmaybe,forAre American
workers ready?
Many working Americans lack health benefits,whilemoreworkersthaneverareinindustrieswhere they have to
show up to get paid, including heath care and restaurants.Olderworkers,whoareparticularlyvulnerable to Covid-19,
make up an increasing portion of the U.S. laborforce.Here’sa lookathowvariousriskfactorsvaryby income level and
industry. �Dorothy GambrellConstructionWholesale
trade* ManufacturingTransportation
Information and warehousing*Financial
activities Professional and business services◀ Highest weekly wagesWhat benefits do workersenjoyindifferentindustries?
Percentage of workers with Access to paid leave Health benefits Ability to work from homeexample, that Seattle got unlucky and had an early
introduction that did take off into a chain of trans-
mission, and other places that did nothing differ-
ent might have had better luck,” he says. “It’s quite
possible that we’ll see some places with lots of cases
once we start testing.”
Testing around the U.S. was hampered when
local officials reported flaws in the kits the CDC sent.
Replacements didn’t come until weeks later, which
left most hospitals and clinics short of tests. Shifting
guidelines for who should get the few tests available
also confused hospitals, Diaz says. At the time, there
still had been only the single case reported in Seattle.
Trevor Bedford, a Harvard-trained researcher and
viral genome expert at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson
Cancer Research Center, wondered why. He hadUtilities*