It’s been over a year and a half since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Since then, over 700,000 Americans have died from Covid and nearly 120 million have been infected. While vaccination rates have increased and cases have retreated in recent weeks, the virus continues to affect the lives of people across the country.

Former Food and Drug Administration commissioner and Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb argues in a new book that America was not able to control the spread of the virus due to structural failures and gives recommendations on how to prepare for the next pandemic. He joins FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver and Maggie Koerth on the Politics podcast to discuss why the U.S. was so unprepared and how much the country’s response to the public health crisis has improved since the onset of the pandemic.

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