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In the course of a couple of decades, British lost a national farm industry, but in exchange gained immensely from lower grain costs in a global trade boom that enhanced global productivity and freed up consumer wealth to pay for new agriculture products from around the world. That’s how trade works.

And so it is with today’s globalized world trade system, which generates wealth that has allowed the world population to grow, as they say, exponentially over the past two centuries, with rising living and health standards.

But that globalization-generated growth did not bring on the COVID-19 pandemic. Responsibility for that rests with nation states. Local governments of all nations — China, Italy, Canada and the U.S. — had been warned of the looming risks of a killer virus pandemic, by experts ranging from Nobel economists to the World Economic Forum.

Despite warnings, national governments did next to nothing to prepare their people or their health and risk-management systems.

One small illustration of pandemic risk neglect is the Canada-U.S. trade clash over 3M face masks. In the wake of the 2003 SARS event, the Ontario government in 2007 stockpiled 55 million N95 face masks. The expiry date on the masks lapsed years ago; most were reportedly destroyed. No replacements were ordered — too busy, one assumes, building emergency solar panels and desperately needed wind farms. The 2017 report of Ontario’s auditor slammed the province for ignoring its Emergency Management Office and pandemic readiness. “Over the past years, it has not fared well in this environment and has experienced significant staffing, budget and program cuts.” The EMO office “is the responsibility of the Cabinet Committee on Emergency Management — which has not met for several years.”