The government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic was a failure on nearly every level. Initially dismissive of the threat posed by the novel coronavirus, government officials quickly reversed course and went into panic mode. Their response to impose a lockdown. This is the not the American way. “A Pro-Freedom Approach to Infectious Disease: Planning for the Next Pandemic” is the Ayn Rand Institute’s white paper on America’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Authored by the Institute’s chief philosophy officer, Onkar Ghate, the paper details what the government can do and should do in a pandemic.
In the words of one expert, the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic presents “the most pressing infectious disease challenge we have faced in over a century.”1 Our federal and state governments have so far failed the challenge. We dare not meet a second wave of infections, let alone the emergence of another novel disease, with the governmental attitudes and policies that have presently been guiding us.
When a new, deadly disease appears, we expect both illness and death. But who expected that for months our federal and state governments would be unable to test for and then isolate contagious individuals? Who expected the chaos and delays in purchasing ventilators and other supplies, or simply procuring them from federal stockpiles and the U.S. military? Who expected that emergency responders, nurses, doctors and other brave healthcare workers would be exhausted, infected, sick and even dead, unable to obtain adequate personal protective equipment and desperately trying to supply their own makeshifts, homemade masks and repurposed rain gear not excluded?
Click here to download the Executive Summary.
Click here to read the entire paper.