The Virus Will Win

Yascha Mounk: “A second wave of the coronavirus is on the way. When it arrives, we will lack the will to deal with it. Despite all the sacrifices of the past months, the virus is likely to win—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it already has.”

“In absolute terms, the United States has been hit harder than any other country. About a quarter of worldwide deaths have been recorded on these shores. And while the virus is no longer growing at an exponential rate, the threat it poses remains significant: According to a forecasting model by Morgan Stanley, the number of American cases will, if current trends hold, roughly double over the next two months.”

“Even so, the disease is slowly starting to recede from the public’s attention… Perhaps most important, it is now difficult to imagine that anybody could muster the political will to impose a full-scale lockdown for a second time.”