“Humanity Learned Almost Nothing From COVID-19” by niplav

LessWrong (Curated & Popular)

Summary: Looking over humanity's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, almostsix years later, reveals that we've forgotten to fulfill our intent atpreparing for the next pandemic. I rant.
content warning: A single carefully placed slur.
If we want to create a world free of pandemics and other biologicalcatastrophes, the time to act is now.
—US White House, “ FACT SHEET: The Biden Administration's Historic Investment in Pandemic Preparedness and Biodefense in the FY 2023 President's Budget ”, 2022
Around five years, a globalpandemic caused bya coronavirus started.
In the course of the pandemic, there have been atleast 6 million deaths and more than 25 million excessdeaths. Thevalue of QALYs lost due to the pandemic in the US alone was around $5trio.,the GDP loss in the US alone in 2020 $2trio..The loss of gross [...]
The original text contained 12 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.
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First published:
October 19th, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pvEuEN6eMZC2hqG9c/humanity-learned-almost-nothing-from-covid-19
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.