From the WashPost, this Opinion piece: A closer look at the U.S. pandemic response reached an unsettling conclusion.

“Looking back at the U.S. response to the pandemic, many setbacks and mistakes are well-known. But a closer examination by a team of seasoned experts has brought to the surface a profoundly unsettling conclusion. The United States, once the paragon of can-do pragmatism, of successful moon shots and biomedical breakthroughs, fell down on the job in confronting the crisis. The pandemic, the experts say, revealed “a collective national incompetence in government.”

This warning comes through over and over again in “Lessons from the Covid War: An Investigative Report,” a book published Tuesday by a group of 34 specialists led by Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission and a history professor at the University of Virginia. Their verdict: “The leaders of the United States could not apply their country’s vast assets effectively enough in practice.”

Mr. Zelikow mobilized the experts to help get ready for a possible national commission on the pandemic. When Congress and the White House failed to launch a national inquiry, the experts wrote their own report. It is a compelling, disturbing account. They conclude the pandemic was not an inescapable tragedy. The United States could and should have done better.”