What does the impact of the COVID-19 virus in the United States tell us about the inter-connectedness of U.S.-based health care, the U.S. economy, and the rest of the world?

On January 19, 2020, the first case was diagnosed in the United States in Snohomish, County, Washington. The patient had just returned from Wuhan, China where the novel coronavirus allegedly began. In just under two years, the virus spread from that one international traveller to infect 72,310,575 people in the United States and result in 870,195 COVID-related deaths. (These numbers are staggering compared to the March 2020 data when there were just 5,738 positive cases and 80 deaths in the United States. Early in the COVID pandemic crisis, the United States did not have an adequate supply of personal protective equipment (PPE), such as respirators, gloves, face shields, gowns, hand sanitizers, etc. The PPE was needed to protect our front line health care workers from becoming infected. The United States was also experiencing a shortage of common medical supplies needed to treat hospitalized patients. You may recall news reports of ordinary people sewing home-made face masks and shipping them to hospitals across the country. China – where the COVID-19 virus originated, is a major manufacturer of the PPE and medical supplies that were in short supply. The shortage of PPE and medical supplies in the United States can be attributed to multiple causes, including problems with the global supply chain that were also impacting other countries. It was reported that China produced approximately half the world’s face masks before the pandemic. As the infection spread across China, it stopped exporting face masks to other countries. As China’s infection rate slowed, it began shipping masks to other countries as part of goodwill packages. The United States, however, was not a major recipient of the good will packages. The pandemic highlighted that healthcare in the United States has evolved such that it is dependent on global economic transactions. In addition to PPE and medical supplies, China produces pharmaceuticals, medical devices, technology and rare minerals that are essential to the delivery of modern U.S. health care services. The globalization of healthcare is also evident in health care transactions unrelated to the COVID-19 pandemic. India has developed a robust telemedicine industry to provide remote medical services to U.S. health care providers.