We learned from the financial crisis. We can learn from the pandemic.

We are now nearly a year and a half into the pandemic. Enough time has passed to start looking back and drawing lessons, especially when comparing it with the last great jolt to the international system — the global financial crisis. Did we learn any lessons from 2008? Have we handled this one any better?

At first glance, the comparison would seem to favor the present. About 18 months into the 2008 crisis — say, by the middle of 2009 — U.S. unemployment was climbing to its highest numbers in decades, the stock market was struggling back from one of its worst collapses in history, and housing foreclosures were spiraling to their worst levels ever.

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