A pandemic arises when biology meets politics. The biology may be universal, but politics are local. Some nations suffer many thousands of deaths; some hundreds. Same virus; different politics. Economic development accounts for some of the differences, but even nations at the same level of development can have radically different pandemics. If politics is destiny, then our fate is in our hands.

The threat of the coronavirus to a community raises a political question: What is the nation prepared to do? In the United States and the United Kingdom, the initial answer was “very little.” Other places – for example, China, Israel, or South Korea – were prepared to do quite a lot. The statistics show the consequences.