In looking for that explanation of why some countries have largely dodged the coronavirus bullet while the U.S. is melting down, many people are focused on masks. I wonder if the almost total failure to screen airport arrivals could be the single most important factor. Thousands of plane loads of infected people from Italy landed in the U.S. northeast airports in February and March. The CDC’s screening and tracking protocols completely broke down, and it got out of control before there was any chance to contain it. Fast-forward to June, and they still aren’t effectively screening airport passengers!

Then we arrived in the US. No one at Dulles International Airport checked passengers’ temperatures. SAA had given each passenger health forms to fill in for the US authorities. No one asked for them. No sanitisers were on offer. No social distancing was practised in the immigration queues. People literally breathed down my neck. In Joburg the 2m apart rule was strictly observed.

At the immigration counter my passport was stamped and the very nice border policeman said: “Welcome to America.”

I waltzed over to baggage reclaim, got my luggage and left. I could have walked into the US coughing, sweaty and feverish and not a single authority would have known — they hadn’t bothered to do a basic check that I wasn’t indeed feverish.

JUSTICE MALALA: What three American airports taught me about Covid-19 and political leadership

Before it gets to the U.S. arrival, the article recounts the strict measures in place in South Africa (“one of the nations Trump included in the class of “shithole countries” – direct quote from the article). I’m not familiar with this person or publication, by the way, but it matches my experience traveling in Southeast Asia (Singapore and Thailand specifically) during the 2009 swine flu epidemic. Temperature screening and screening questionnaires were everywhere, beginning the moment I arrived at an airport, and continuing in shopping centers, on public transportation, etc. It was all polite and professional, but I knew that if I developed symptoms I would be taken to a government-run quarantine center for 14 days. (And as long as they had three meals a day and a decent internet connection, that didn’t sound like the end of the day!) Thailand and Singapore have both handled this pandemic very well. Thailand in particular is a middle income country with (until recently) a lot of back and forth travel to Wuhan, China.

You can argue that the “second wave” or “second peak” horror show now unfolding in the U.S. can be pinned on poor state and local leadership, but the early failures of airport screening, tracking, and testing were squarely on the federal government’s shoulders, and they not only failed spectacularly compared to most other countries, they haven’t learned anything!