The United States Coast Guard’s motto is semper paratus, which means “Always Ready”. Does it feel like the United States was ready for the Coronavirus? No. We, as a society, have not planned for this. And, if we’re being honest with ourselves, things could get much worse, whether it be with the Coronavirus or the next outbreak.

Winston Churchill had a saying that is still used today — “America will always do the right thing, only after they’ve exhausted every other possibility.” As a country, we should strive to prove Winston Churchill wrong. We should aspire to be always ready to lead the world through a crisis. Here are five realizations we should be learning right now. These societal realizations should be committed to memory for generations so that we are prepared for the worst the future has to offer.

1. We need rainy day funds. The coronavirus has made it abundantly obvious that every individual, company, nonprofit, municipality, state, and country needs a sizeable rainy day fund that is only used when natural disasters happen and public health risks occur. It is understandably not easy to achieve, as our society is debt-ridden.

2. We need more and better public healthcare. Unfortunately, healthcare has become an absurdly politicized topic. We will likely need to implement a Medicare For All type federal program while at the same time empowering local communities to increase the capacity of public health programs. We also need to focus deeply on personal and community health in our public schools and community centers.

3. We must eliminate the national debt. The Federal Reserve’s timely response this week has inherently increased the national debt. We need to shift the way we think about monetary economics. Quantitative easing is only serving the short term. As our national debt grows, more and more money will be siphoned away from public health, infrastructure, sustainability, security, and education to national debt payments.

4. We must consider Universal Basic Income. Until now, Universal Basic Income has been talked about as a solution to wide spread automation and artificial intelligence. These rapidly developing technologies are predicted to continue to eliminate and transform jobs performed by humans. What the coronavirus is showing us is that Universal Basic Income has a second use case. When there is an outbreak, the economy slows significantly. More people are not allowed to work. Social distancing impacts the flow of money. Savings depletes. Debt increases. Poverty spikes. A Universal Basic Income would mitigate the negative economic impacts of an outbreak.

5. We must acknowledge that productive remote work is possible. As more and more employers tell their employees to stay home, we as a society have to acknowledge and/or make possible productive remote work arrangements. Emphasis on productive. For people that think this outbreak is an opportunity to relax while working from home, instead consider making it abundantly clear to your employer that you can be equally as productive while working from home. If everyone working from home during this outbreak slacks off, then employers will be more likely to view remote work as unproductive and less efficient. This is an opportunity to make the case for more remote work in good times and bad.

There will undoubtedly be many more realizations as we experience this outbreak. There will also be many cracks revealed in the system of systems we have created in our country’s short history. In any case, we should view this as an opportunity to grow and get stronger as a society. We should strive to be a nation that is always ready to lead through crisis and uncertainty.