From the confines of a rural burrow (!) in a republic reeling from 4 years of accelerated decline, the notion of national greatness has the consistency of a heat mirage.

Still, it comes as a shock, amid a pandemic, that 42 countries do genetic sequencing better than the United States.

Confirmation of reinfection [of COVID-19] requires genetic sequencing of paired samples from each episode to tell whether the genomes involved are different.

But the U.S. lacks the capacity for robust genetic sequencing, the process that identifies the fingerprint of a specific virus so it can be compared with other strains. Jeff Zients, head of the federal covid task force, noted late last month that the U.S. ranks 43rd in the world in genomic sequencing.

(JoNel Aleccia, “Why the U.S. is underestimating COVID-19 reinfection,” Kaiser Health News, 2-8-21)

<Sigh>. We used to better at scientific stuff.

(c) 2021 JMN