Here's some information I found from the CDC in response to a Facebook friend that was criticizing Trump for disbanding the pandemic team in 2018. While it may have been a poor decision, there are times when society's reaction to events would preclude this kind of move. For example, a few years ago some time after the major earthquake that triggered a tsunami that devastated Sumatra and Indonesia, there was another powerful quake near Chile. The national weather service issued a tsunami warning for Hawaii and when it didn't happen, they were criticized and ridiculed for it. We will never know if what we are doing now really has or had any effect on the spread of COVID-19 but check out my response to his criticism.
I suspect you're talking about when Trump's administration disbanded the pandemic team. Can chalk it up to a lesson learned.
Despite that, it seems that the US is handling it quite well compared to many other countries. As a measure of percent of population infected, the US so far is doing better than China, Italy, Iran, Spain, Germany, France, S. Korea, Switzerland, UK, Netherlands, Austria, Norway, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, Czechia, Qatar, Israel, Greece, Ireland, Finland, Singapore, Slovenia, Estonia, Bahrain, Iceland, Luxembourg, Kuwait, San Marino, Armenia, Latvia, Brunei, Faeroe Islands, Andorra, Malta, Liechtenstein, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Macao, French Guiana, Monaco, Gibraltar, Guam, Channel Islands, Seychelles, Aruba, St. Barth, Saint Martin, Greenland, Vaticam City, and Montserrat.