How a Fragmented Country Fights a Pandemic

Over the past week, Americans have seen a sudden, dizzying variety of social-distancing measures ordered by mayors, county officials, and state governors. For better or worse, the nation’s defense against pandemics depends on such local decision making. This is because the unique system of federalism in the U.S. makes it one of the most decentralized public-health systems in the world.

The U.S. legal system has been here before—just over a century ago, during the pandemic influenza of 1918–1919, the most severe pandemic in recent history. Then, too, public officials faced constraints on their knowledge, authority, and capacity to deal with the crisis. The result was a patchwork approach that radically, if temporarily, changed American life.

[Read: What you need to know about the coronavirus]

Were they still with us, that generation could tell us much about what we face now—what it was like to go on with daily life in the midst of travel shutdowns, school and business closings, and bans on public.”