I've been immersed in the issue of COVID-19 for several months now. I live in Washington state, 35 miles south of downtown Seattle, and the epicenter of the outbreak started in King County, where I was the emergency management director for 11 years.
What this article,
How the rapidly-spreading coronavirus evolved in the US, highlighted is that the virus as a "headline event" has only been being addressed as an issue
FOR A WEEK! To me it seems like it has been a month or more.
It puts things in perspective for me, anyway.
Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.