You mean Pandemic Insurance exists?

Did your company take out pandemic insurance? Did you even know it existed? If anyone tells you COVID-19 was a “Black Swan” this is one article you need to show them. Who bought the policy? NO ONE, well almost nobody “one company in the health care industry in the US had bought some level of pandemic protection, although the insurer that sold it had later quit selling the policies due to lack of interest”

Not a short read, but a fascinating one. It clearly demonstrates how much difficulty we humans have in thinking about the future, particularly about low probability events. It also demonstrates how linear we are in believing that the future will be like the (immediate) past.

And the next pandemic will no more be a “Black Swan” than COVID-19. But will governments learn the lesson, will we be any better prepared and will science win over politics? I’m not too confident in the latter!

“You want to honor the devastation that this virus is going to have on families, on livelihoods. But in the grand scheme of history, it may also be seen as a very costly inoculum against future events. I believe that the world has no choice but to respond in such a forceful way that will make humanity safer.”

To finish on a more positive note this pandemic has revolutionised viral vaccine development and anti-viral research. In that particular way we will definitely be more prepared.