As cases of coronavirus top 1,200 in the U.S., here's a tool to help gauge how prepared your state is for a health disaster.
With over 1,200 cases of the coronavirus, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. is in the midst of a viral outbreak that shows no signs of slowing down. In an effort to curb the spread, basketball tournaments, film festivals, marathons and even schools have been temporarily shut down — and cities in which it is spreading have enacted containment measures such as bans on large gatherings.
Each state is scored in those six domains, and the cumulative score of those leads to a final rating for each state. Measured on a scale of 0-10, the average overall score of readiness in the U.S. is 6.7. While the majority of states meet or exceed this, multiple states show signs of being underprepared.
For Mays, paying attention to this index in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak is crucial — specifically certain data points. “I would point out surveillance and containment, a lot of that work just requires boots on the ground, sufficient numbers of people,” he says. “The number of trained epidemiologists, for example. Those are your disease detectives, they’re needed to deploy testing, do outbreak investigation, contact tracing and [release] quarantine orders if those are needed.
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