We can have legitimate debates about the decisions of governments to put so much of the burden of controlling a surging virus on vaccines and smartphone apps—as opposed to, say, maintaining indoor masking requirements and making greater investments in public health-care systems, including hiring many more nurses and giving them pay raises, to prevent hospitals from being overrun. Not to mention providing a steady supply of free at-home rapid tests, proper protective gear at work, and, critically, adequate sick leave for all workers so that no one feels obliged to show up to work in an infectious state. In the early phase of the pandemic, there could also have been major investments in contact tracing at the community level, which would have had the added benefit of creating jobs in neglected areas. And there could have been far more robust efforts to install high-quality air filters in public spaces, including schools, while hiring more teachers and teacher's aides so class sizes could be smaller—all measures proven to reduce the virus's spread, with plenty of knock-on benefits to students and educators. These are just a few of the ways that frayed social services and safety nets could have been expanded and reinforced in order to allow us all to live less stressed, happier, and fuller lives with the virus in our midst.

Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, loc. 245