> I'm not sure what your point is?

Simply to point back at an earlier PHEIC event ... providing contrast to a now [dead] comment.

> worth noting that there were repeated warnings something like COVID would come out of China

Or Africa, or India, or USofA intensive livestock practices, or {other places that intensified novel interminglings of humans, livestock, drugs, etc}.

> the US had been conducting a lot of "disease surveillance" around the world ...

Smart move, and cost effective ... had the responses remained in place.

> but...imagine if we'd had those programs, along with people in the federal administration and congress who believed in science

Yeah .. if so the US and UK may have had very different outcomes, perhaps even near zero deaths and few hospitalisations such as was seen in W.Australia. They did have an advantage with pre existing near isolation, but still had to stamp out a fair few sparks that could've gone wildfire.