U.S. Can’t Beat Coronavirus, But Americans Can Cope With It

Lots of Americans have been disappointed by the inability of their leaders to speedily deploy the tools public-health experts prescribed to contain the spread of the coronavirus: mass testing, contact tracing and isolation of people who are infected. As states ease life-saving lockdowns that devastated the economy, it’s reasonable to wonder whether the U.S. is catching up, or whether there are other ways to prevent a recurrence of the public-health emergency that struck in March. To find out, the economist and Bloomberg Opinion columnist Michael R. Strain spent a few hours this week with Dr. Scott Gottlieb, his colleague at the American Enterprise Institute and a physician, investor and public-health specialist who led the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for two years ending in 2019. His forecast was sobering but far from hopeless. These are excerpts of their conversation.

Michael R. Strain: The U.S. has partially reopened without adequate test-trace-isolate capability. What is the second-best strategy? It surely isn’t simply to hope for the best.