Across Europe, part of the explanation for the lethality of COVID-19 was indeed that health care services had been diminished to finance tax benefits for Davos Man. But structure was also a powerful element. When the interests of Davos Man seized primacy in the policy conversation, that relegated other concerns to secondary status. You could have the best-trained doctors, the most formidably equipped medical facilities, and access to the most advanced medicines and still fail to mount an effective response to a public health crisis.
