The Big Story: How the Virus Won

Atlantic staff writer Ed Yong has spoken with more than 100 experts since the early stages of the pandemic.

“I’ve learned that almost everything that went wrong with America’s response to the pandemic was predictable and preventable,” Yong writes. “The COVID‐19 debacle has also touched—and implicated—nearly every other facet of American society: its shortsighted leadership, its disregard for expertise, its racial inequities, its social-media culture, and its fealty to a dangerous strain of individualism.”

Yong joined The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, for a conversation about how the U.S. botched its response to the pandemic, and how we can prevent future health crises.