In the early days of the outbreak, pundits rushed to the ramparts of Twitter to proclaim that “there are no libertarians in a pandemic.” However, this glee at the apparent failure of markets was soon dashed as more evidence accumulated showing that government intervention was actually the main impediment to success. From an economic standpoint, the channels by which government failure accumulated were legion:
Centralizing and restricting testing: the most egregious failure of government has been in its approach to testing, especially in countries not named Germany or South Korea. Highly centralized testing labs (especially in the UK), command and control over who has the right to test, and a monopoly on testing infrastructure have combined in many countries to