By the time the World Health Organization officially designated the coronavirus a pandemic, COVID-19 had already swamped northern Italy, reducing its formidable modern healthcare system to something resembling a MASH unit. The National Guard rumbled into New Rochelle, New York, to secure the perimeter of a viral hot spot. Universities began closing their physical campuses for the remainder of the academic year. The NBA, NHL, and MLS all suspended their seasons. Broadway went dark, the NCAA pulled the plug on March Madness, and businesses around the world told their workers to log in from home, with millions likely to lose their jobs.
Was it all going to prove too little, too late, this desperate, eleventh-hour race against a rapidly spreading virus? Surely you saw the chart—that ubiquitous graph of the epidemic curve, illustrating the role that a rapid response plays in mitigating death and destruction, reducing the giant spike of mortality, flattening the curve.
We have all since then borne witness to the effects of delayed response to a global crisis, have seen how much harder it is to contain the damage the longer we wait to act.
