Meanwhile, during COVID, the most recent acute global crisis, the world performed miserably. I’m not one of those people who thinks you could have tweaked one or two things and prevented the pandemic. But even with every incentive to get it right,[*42] we got it nearly all wrong, winding up with a worst-of-all-possible-worlds outcome of both a massive death toll and unprecedented constraints on liberty, well-being, and economic activity—and we can barely lift a finger to prevent the next pandemic.
