March 12, 2020
Updated 9:15 a.m. ET
SYDNEY, Australia — Tom Hanks had a cold, or so he thought: slight fever, body aches, chills, the usual.
In the United States, those symptoms may not be enough to get tested for the new coronavirus. But he and his wife, Rita Wilson, who also felt sick, weren’t at home — they were in Australia.
Here, testing is free and widely available, thanks to early and coordinated planning for a pandemic. On Thursday, Mr. Hanks said he and his wife had seen the efforts firsthand, as they tested positive for the virus.
[snip]Days after China shared the genome of the virus, Australia’s private testing industry — which handles everything from blood tests to stool samples — was mobilized, with the government making tests free through Medicare, the national health care plan.
In the United States, little if anything about the process has been efficient or convenient. Tests have been slow to arrive across the country, in part because of a manufacturing problem, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Criteria for who should be tested have been widened only recently. At first, the C.D.C. recommended testing only those who had traveled to Wuhan, China, or had contact with a suspected coronavirus case and had a fever or respiratory symptoms.