Coronavirus reveals just how unprepared America is for a biological attack

Coronavirus looks a lot like a test for how the U.S. would handle a biological attack — and it's failing.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has revealed major areas where America's health care system is lacking: insufficient testing supplies, ventilators, and ICU beds, to name a few. The U.S. is now relying on a strategy of slowing infection rates, but that wouldn't apply in a biological attack and the mass sickness it would likely bring, Politico reports.

The current philosophy for stopping COVID-19 revolves around "flattening the curve:" reducing exposure to other people to avoid overwhelming hospitals. But that wouldn't be possible in a bioterror attack. "The people in that cloud would be infected all at once, so you would see a very large spike of very sick patients," former Department of Homeland Security official Daniel Gerstein told Politico.

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Biowarfare could come as a sudden cloud of anthrax, or as mass releases of botulism, smallpox, tularemia, or other diseases that affect the respiratory system. But the U.S. wasn't ready for a pandemic even after weeks' worth of notice, and that makes it "crystal clear we are not even close to being ready" for a bioterror attack, Gerstein said. Read more at Politico.