I can't find the studies at the moment but there's at least one looking at previous pandemics that supports your suggestion. They found that economies that instituted weaker public health responses had bigger casualties from illness directly, and longer times to economic recovery because of bigger losses in personnel etc.

I wonder if lack of public health infrastructure in the us will come to haunt it in the coming months as other countries recover faster and get a head start. That sort of economic opportunity cost from not having more public health infrastructure tends to have been left out of past discussions completely.