Only 60 Percent of Facilities Passed a Regional Outbreak Drill

New York health officials set up a regional test of healthcare facilities: could they identify and respond to a patient with a mystery infection that could pose a pandemic-level threat? Responses were slow, appropriate use of personal protective equipment was spotty, and only 60 percent of facilities passed the basics of the test. That pass rate is the number that sticks, because of what the exercise measured — not a stockpile or an alert system, but the first, most local step: one facility meeting one patient. Two in five failing at that stage is a gap at the front of the chain, and a drill is the cheap place to find it.