The Big Fail Quotes

“If the pandemic first revealed the limits of the expertise at the once-revered CDC, now it was revealing the limitations of the expertise at the Federal Reserve. Both were exacerbated by the same problem that had gripped so much of America: an unwillingness to hear outside voices that expressed disagreement.”
― Joe Nocera, The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind

“This was so even though, as everyone knows, the United States spends far more on health care than any other industrialized country—an average of almost $13,000 per person per year, according to CMS, over $5,000 more than any other high-income nation.”
― Joe Nocera, The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind

“In a study of twenty-nine high-income countries, the United States experienced the largest decline in life expectancy in 2020, and unlike European countries the United States did not recover in 2021. America was also the only country whose lowered life span was driven mainly by deaths among people under sixty. Whether deaths were caused by COVID-19 or the effects of the response to COVID-19 (such as increased suicides or untreated illnesses), America was far less resilient than comparable countries.”
― Joe Nocera, The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind

“Thank God for Steven,” Azar told a colleague. “If we had had to go to the Hill for a supplemental appropriation, Warp Speed would not have happened.”
― Joe Nocera, The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind

“Inside the White House, Kadlec had a reputation for “shoot first, aim later.”
― Joe Nocera, The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind

“To Slaoui, vaccines held out more promise to help people than politics ever could. He’d often tell people that vaccines had saved more lives than any other tool in history.”
― Joe Nocera, The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind

“There is a reason this all happened in the United States. As Akash Tewari, a biotechnology analyst with Jefferies, puts it, “If we didn’t have the U.S. system, we wouldn’t have the vaccines.”
― Joe Nocera, The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind

“What was very striking was that they were thinking about biological threats the same way they thought about other kinds of terrorism—something would go bang,” recalls Margaret Hamburg, then an assistant secretary at HHS[*] and one of the few officials who understood pandemics. “I mean, an FBI agent literally said to me that if there was a biological attack, they would go in and diffuse the pathogens.”
― Joe Nocera, The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind