April 16, 2020
On January 21, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the first case of COVID-19 in the United States. On January 29, President Trump announced the formation of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. On January 31, the President suspended entry into the United States for foreign nationals who had traveled to mainland China two weeks prior to visiting the country—the federal government’s first official action in response to the current global pandemic.
Over the subsequent two months, the U.S. government, and the world, saw a health crisis emerge that was unprecedented in scale and an economic collapse that broke nearly every major record. Although debate will go on for decades as to the timing of responses from world leaders, the accuracy of data at various points in the timeline, and the policy prescriptions that were most effective, one thing has become absolutely certain: the private sector has outpaced government bureaucracy at every stage of the process, and the world’s hope for effective treatments and an eventual cure lies in the work of private companies, not the government.
As of this week, current confirmed cases of the novel coronavirusin the United States top 600,000 and there are nearly 30,000 confirmed deaths. In spite of a near total-industry effort from the biopharmaceutical sector to leverage various core competencies to defeat the virus, the FDA drug approval process has been exposed as a monstrous maze of red tape and inefficiency. Further, the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile is nearly exhausted, and we are dependent on other countries to refill the shelves.
Thankfully, America boasts the strongest and most innovative private sector in human history. Our nation’s workers are doing whatever they can to pivot their businesses and work with governments to remove burdensome regulations and move full speed ahead in ending this crisis.
Automakers Ford, General Motors, and Tesla have raced to change over assembly lines to manufacture health-care equipment to fight the pandemic. Tech giants Apple and Google are partnering to amplify Bluetooth technology to reduce the spread of COVID-19 through contact tracing. An increasing number of fashion designers, jewelers, and other beauty brands are now manufacturing an assortment of masks, gowns, and hand sanitizer for hospitals. And for the quickest and most widespread mobilization, America’s pharmaceutical industry has over twenty potential treatments and vaccines currently in the drug pipeline, with even more existing drugs being tested for their effects against the virus as well.
Governments are typically reactionary, and they are inherently inefficient – a fact that is unfortunately exacerbated by this crisis. Private industry, on the other hand, is able to recognize problems early and mobilize quickly. Moderna Therapeutics, for instance, created a potential COVID-19 vaccine just 42 days after the genetic sequence of the virus was released by Chinese researchers in mid-January, and human testing could begin this month.
At nearly every stage of the process, federal agencies have been rolling back regulations that presented significant roadblocks to COVID-19 testing, experimentation, and treatment. In Early February, before the outbreak took hold in Washington state, a Seattle lab was told it could not test flu swabs for coronavirus. Even since, the Trump administration has worked to remove regulations at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in order to boost virus screening. As this crisis unfolds, it necessitates an examination of government’s role in a society and its relationship with the private sector.
All evidence points to a government that should primarily support individuals and families during times of crisis (the recently passed CARES Act was a step in the right direction), while ensuring a reliable space for markets to function independently in order to maximize efficiency and let creative destruction flourish.
There is a reason the world is looking to the United States as its primary hope in defeating this virus, and there is a reason the United States is looking to its private sector. In a recent meeting with pharmaceutical executives, President Trump referred to them as the geniuses that would get us through this crisis. In America, we have the luxury of a system that promotes innovation and competition, and we are especially thankful for that now. Private industry is able to leverage its flexibility and efficiency to tackle different problems as they arise in real time.
It is during this time that we should be thankful for the market-based system that has over twenty healthcare companies racing to treat or cure this virus and countless other industries mobilizing to aid hospitals and increase testing and prevention, not one government. In America, the odds are that we will end up with several treatments and possibly multiple vaccines. Anywhere else this would be nearly unfathomable. It is important that we walk away from this crisis remembering that it shouldn’t take a historic pandemic to remind us of why our country’s robust private sector is essential and, in this case, saves lives.
