ABSTRACT
A recent edition of the medical journal The Lancet concluded that an estimated 18.2 million persons have perished from this virus, excluding data from India, which is refusing to release information on its own deaths from COVID-19. In many parts of the world, people do not have access to hospitals, medical care, testing, or health professionals for treatment. Moreover, the vaccines are not equally accessible across, let alone within, all countries. It is an uneven picture, superimposed on what is now the biggest health and humanitarian crisis in more than a generation. An emergent trend from the pandemic, now into its third year, is that it is strengthening the institutionalization and reach of “big” government. This stands in contrast to several previous decades in which the role of government has been reduced in size and scope as societies have increasingly relied on the market.
