Very interesting piece by the @nytimes in regards to SARS-CoV-2 surveillance, or lack thereof, in the U.S.

Having been involved in sequencing SARS-CoV-2 among the population, I had a few thoughts.

The U.K.'s New Coronavirus Strain and How to Stop It https://nyti.ms/2KORogU 

Our group was one of the first to identify the D614G variant circulating and accumulating in North Carolina. Around the same time, other groups arrived at the same conclusion that this variant was becoming increasingly predominant. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211124720313413

These experiments and analyses take time, expertise, and resources ($!).
So where are those efforts coming from? Well, I've mostly seen them from non-profit academic institutions that have been hemorrhaging $ throughout this pandemic.

A few years ago, the U.S. passed a tax giveaway in the dead of the night to millionaires and corporations already sitting on record profits. We were promised it'd "trickle down". Shockingly it didn't. Much of it was spent on bonuses to large sharehold owners and stock buybacks.

Which brings me back to sequencing SARS-CoV-2 variants. Who do folks think does this stuff? The non-profit academic medical centers strapped for cash, or the corporate sector that was infused with massive financial liquidity a few years ago?

Don't get me wrong, I like my job.

But flying blind against SARS-CoV-2 variants highlights a more fundamental problem in the U.S.: we need a massive restructuring of public health in the U.S. This is an unsustainable pathway. The bill is being footed increasingly by taxpayers.