‘We don’t have the infrastructure’: COVID pandemic highlights nation’s neglected public health systems, including Baltimore’s

As the coronavirus began spreading into America last winter, Baltimore Health Commissioner Letitia Dzirasa was busy working on a new strategic plan for her department. Planning for an emergency quickly gave way to actually fighting one. The city needed to ramp up testing, contact tracing and other measures, she said, but it soon became clear that the health department didn’t have all the resources it needed, starting with staff that numbered about 900.