Most of this is bunk. The government is really good at operations and incredible at capital spending and management. In general, operations in larger government entities are documented, audited and executed to a standard only found in regulated industries. Even then, companies suck too - look at Bank of America losing millions in cash due to incompetence and poor controls as an example.
The government’s key weaknesses are around change, which is difficult, and governance, which limits the ability of professional managers to run their business. At the Federal level, Congress tightly controls appropriations and sets priorities. Sometimes that means that the full resources of the US are deployed at a target, other times that means that a critical problem goes unsolved because the program is starved of resources.
Witnessing how COVID response was managed in different states was both horrifying and inspiring. You get the government you want.
All of that was enabled by the massive mobilization of Federal resources. The Trump administration, which suffered from many self-inflicted crises and issue with ability to execute, was able to leverage the bureaucracy to get the response going. In short, the US government accomplished something incredible through the pandemic. The capability is there, but the politics drive inaction.