Good morning.
Two of Fortune’s favorite alumni, Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera, have a new book out this week called The Big Fail, that examines how the U.S. badly bungled the COVID pandemic. Partisans will look to see where the authors come down on the great public health debates of the last four years: Lockdown or not; masks or no masks; vaccine or anti-vax. But partisans will be disappointed. McLean and Nocera are equal opportunity attack dogs. They have blistering criticism of Fauci and Trump, Cuomo and Abbott, Newsom and DeSantis, as well as the CDC, the teachers’ unions, The Business Roundtable, and just about everyone else. No one is spared. The only policy they find praiseworthy is Operation Warp Speed, which developed a COVID vaccine in record time. (For what it’s worth, I’d give more credit than they do to the economic policy makers who prevented a prolonged recession by stepping on the monetary and fiscal accelerators—even if they kept their foot on the gas for too long.)
So what’s the lesson? Here’s my takeaway: There’s little evidence that countries or communities with hard lockdowns and firm mask mandates did better than those without. There’s also little evidence that rich countries did better than poor, or authoritarian societies did better than democratic. In fact, the only variable that seems to explain COVID-fighting success is social trust. Societies with relatively high levels of trust—in each other, in their governments, in science, etc.—did better than those without.
Turning that conclusion into a prescription for the next pandemic, of course, is no simple thing. It’s hard to build trust at a time of tribal warfare, when both sides are determined to tear each other down. Positions become overstated, mistakes get exaggerated, and everyone ends up losing. As Nocera and McLean write early in their book:
“One can envisage a scenario where low levels of trust allow an epidemic to spread, and where the spread of the epidemic reduces trust in government still further, hindering the ability of the authorities to contain future epidemics and address other social problems.”
Welcome to the 21st Century. Healthy societies, like healthy economies, need healthy levels of trust to serve as a lubricant for their success. Without it, things go badly. And restoring trust once it’s been lost isn’t easy. But a bit of humility and some respect for each other’s positions might be a good place to start.
Also this morning, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has made himself a villain in Hollywood and a hero on Wall Street. Which does he need more to succeed? Read Alicia Adamczyk and Maia Samuel’s deep dive for Fortune here.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
