You may be surprised, but sometimes people know bad things are going to happen yet still let them happen. The almost incomprehensible complacency and passivity of many Western governments in the face of the Covid-19 threat may be one of those instances. Much ink has been spilled over how China’s authoritarian government caused the novel coronavirus outbreak . That may be so, but now it’s Western democracies that have failed to contain its global spread and allow it to become a pandemic. Of course, many factors – social, economic, technological – contribute to a country’s response to a pandemic, but its political system and leadership are surely a big factor. Why couldn’t Western governments have been more proactive, when many of their own experts were already warning against the danger long beforehand? Perhaps they couldn’t. People sometimes quote Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the influential financial writer, by describing the pandemic as a “black swan” event. But it’s something else he wrote in his eponymous book that I find more enlightening. Imagine, he asks his readers, someone who has the foresight to warn against a coming disaster. People listen and take precautions. Then nothing happens. Did he just save the day or waste everyone’s time and resources? We would never know. But he would, in a free society with a free press, get a lot of blame and criticism, however unfairly. The only way you could know for sure is if no one listens and disaster strikes. He is proven right, but then you are dead. In a democracy, politicians always have an eye on the next election. A few of them may be smart cookies and foresee a disaster like the Covid-19 pandemic. Face mask culture during the coronavirus: East vs West But would they start shutting down offices and schools, borders and major transport routes, and/or order expensive free testing for millions – as Italy, Canada, the United States, Germany, Japan and Britain are only doing now, well after community outbreaks – when there are only a handful of confirmed cases in their countries? You know how angry parents get when you shut down day care centres and schools, and how the press will be going after you. Farsighted politicians will be accused of causing unnecessary panic. So, you wait until there is a spike in the number of confirmed cases – by which time, it’s already too late. And that’s exactly what we are seeing in many Western countries.