Yeah it's a fundamental failure of government. One key function of government is to hedge against and plan for unlikely but serious scenarios just like these, e

Yeah it's a fundamental failure of government. One key function of government is to hedge against and plan for unlikely but serious scenarios just like these, especially when there is no money to be made by doing what's in the public interest. Helping to deal with crises like this is a big part of why epidemiological research gets public funding. Despite this deep underlying infrastructure, the weakest link is usually whoever is in power at the moment doing things like disbanding pandemic response groups and censoring experts.