It is not hard to imagine an alternative reality where the CDC-FDA testing fiasco did not occur, there was some test-and-trace early in the epidemic, and the cost and extent of the shut-downs were lesser and far fewer deaths occurred.
It is a bit dismaying to say this: but CDC and FDA have a lot of blood on their hands.
"To be fair, what’s on display here is a broader institutional malady. The US version of the WHO, the CDC, took a similar stance with another controversial topic—quarantines for health care workers returning from treating patients with Ebola. Four states—New York, New Jersey, Florida, and Illinois—instituted policies to quarantine anyone who had contact with someone infected with the Ebola virus while in west Africa, including medical personnel who cared for patients. No less than the Obama administration, backed by the CDC, attempted to squash these policies, arguing that this would serve as a disincentive for US health workers to travel to Africa to combat the disease at a time this help was sorely needed."
My takeaway from the 9/11 debacle is we learned that the Clinton Admin had a "shaking the tree" process. In response WTC bombing, USS Cole, embassy attacks, etc.
There are always organizational problems. Reasons data isn't shared. Legal, turf, bureaucratic, inability to correlate with others, whatever.
Their workaround was to have a daily standup where all the agency heads shared info.
Bush Admin (eg Condi Rice) discontinued such nonsense, choosing to focus on Russia (ending bans on nuke testing, chemical weapons, missile defense).
Trump Admin didn't choose to discontinue Obama Admin's preparedness so much as outright rejected anything and everything Obama related, and pandemic stuff was swept away with the rest.