NEW YORK – Despite its world-class medical system and its vaunted Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S.
fell behind in the race to detect dangerous coronavirus mutations. And it's only now beginning to catch up. The problem has not been a shortage of technology or expertise.
Rather, scientists say, it’s an absence of national leadership and coordination, plus a lack of funding and supplies for overburdened laboratories trying to juggle diagnostic testing with the hunt for genetic changes. “We have the brains.
We have the tools. We have the instruments,” said Ilhem Messaoudi, director of a virus research center at University of California, Irvine. "It’s just a matter of supporting that effort." Viruses mutate constantly.