Is America too libertarian to deal with the coronavirus?

Why widespread testing in the country may not work.

America’s public health experts are working hard to map out a plan to combat the coronavirus in America. And there are indeed many proposals — from academic centers, from think tanks, and from the government.

While the plans differ, nearly all of them rely on some combination of surveillance, mass testing, isolation, and contact tracing. Many of them point to countries like Singapore, South Korea, and Germany as examples of how to intelligently respond to the pandemic.

But what if the...