I’d call it a disease of experience, first and foremost.

The US missed the worst of SARS-Cov1 and MERS, which were catastrophic in some parts of the world. East-Asian Democratic countries had public debates about what are and are not reasonable public health measures. They passed enabling laws, built public health infrastructure, and established cutting edge novel virus surveillance programs.

The US did not. We were creating homeland security departments and starting stupid trillion dollar wars.