Are you sure the US failed here? From what I can tell we had a combination of technology to make a medical solution and the capital and drive to order enormous numbers of vaccine doses, to the point where we've been able to reopen (with thousands of people in close proximity without masks).
China is not in that situation. What they got right was initial containment (the US got that wrong, but that's because we had an ineffective leader and have a populace which is highly resistant to social control). The initial containment didn't completely help, because the chinese vaccine appears (I say appears because I'm not 100% sure yet) to be much less effective than Pfizer or Moderna, and China still has outbreaks that lead them to quarantine large sections of cities.
I don't think anybody really failed here. This was an event that the world partly prepared for for decades (vaccine tech, study related viruses) and partly ignored (our public health apparatus feels very slow and old now), and realistically, if we hadn't done what we did it woudl have been far worse.
I think US is great, and it didn't fail itself. I don't worry about developed world to be honest, they have the technology and resources to deal with this problem. US and Europe is so far ahead than anyone else in this field.
I believe many developing countries are lack of good decision makers, they blindly follow US and UK, without realizing that the reason behind US and UK's decision. Developing countries couldn't develop vaccines, not well equipped for medical support, and didn't have resources, they are not the same as US or UK.
China is not in that situation. What they got right was initial containment (the US got that wrong, but that's because we had an ineffective leader and have a populace which is highly resistant to social control). The initial containment didn't completely help, because the chinese vaccine appears (I say appears because I'm not 100% sure yet) to be much less effective than Pfizer or Moderna, and China still has outbreaks that lead them to quarantine large sections of cities.
I don't think anybody really failed here. This was an event that the world partly prepared for for decades (vaccine tech, study related viruses) and partly ignored (our public health apparatus feels very slow and old now), and realistically, if we hadn't done what we did it woudl have been far worse.