A woman gets swabbed at a drive-through testing site in West Palm Beach, Florida, on 16 March. By Jon Cohen, Kai KupferschmidtThe United States and Europe have stopped hitting the snooze button.
After 2 months of mostly waiting and seeing while the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) alarm sounded ever more loudly, many countries have suddenly implemented strict measures to slow the spread of the disease, which the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared a pandemic on 13 March.
Thousands of events have been canceled; schools, restaurants, bars, and clubs have been closed; and transit systems are at a standstill.The countries saw little choice.