Ask yourself this question: How did we get here? How did the richest nation in the world, with the most expensive and most technically advanced health care system in the world, completely fail to contain a pandemic when we had been warned well in advance that it was coming?

Other nations, like Italy, made early missteps, and saw large increases in cases and deaths in the early weeks of the pandemic.

But almost every other advanced nation in the world acted decisively, and their governments mounted a coordinated effort to bring the virus under control. While more than 1,000 Americans die every day, less than 10 people a day are falling victim to the virus now in Canada, and in most of the nations in Europe and Asia. Even Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, is controlling the pandemic better than we are.

A nation indoctrinated to think that government is the enemy, to mistrust experts, and to view any call for collective action as an infringement on freedom was easy prey for this virus, and for all the pandemics to come. Let’s hope we can learn this lesson before it’s too late.