COVID-19 IS POISED TO enter the history books as a catastrophic pandemic. While combating a new disease is difficult, we can't blame this outbreak's losses on the pathogen's novelty alone. We also suffered from a lack of preparedness. As early as February 2020, there were signs that the virus, which had emerged in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, would spread globally, notes Jeremy Konyndyk, an expert in outbreak readiness and a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development think tank. Most nations didn't implement preventive measures until March or April. "A big distinguishing feature of countries that have done well-or even, in the US, areas that have done well-is timing," he says. The other half of the equation, Konyndyk points out, is how well governments reacted once the pandemic hit.
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