ABSTRACT
The United States’ response to COVID-19 marked an acute failure of cooperative federalism but did not alter the federal system because the federal government under President Donald Trump did not seek centralization; instead, he left the primary response up to the states in the fashion of dual federalism in which the federal and state governments occupy separate spheres of authority. The United States experienced three waves of COVID-19 in 2020: spring, summer, and fall/winter. The first confirmed United States case occurred in Washington State on 20 January 2020 in a man who had visited Wuhan, China. The United States has a dual federal system with three orders of government: national, state, and local, although local governments are the creatures of each state. The states are mainly responsible for health care, but the federal government plays a large role. The federal government has provided the bulk of pandemic fiscal stimuli.
