The Next Pandemic

America is suffering from two public health crises. One is caused by a virus. The other, a brutal economic shutdown, is something we have brought on ourselves. Both the virus and the shutdown are deadly. But many more Americans will likely die from getting laid off than from the virus.

The shutdown wasn’t caused by the virus. It was a frantic response to America’s unpreparedness. For more than two decades, a dozen official reports sounded the alarm. The career pols and federal bureaucrats di...