The writer, a Nobel laureate, is Thomas W Lamont University Professor at Harvard

“We will meet again,” Queen Elizabeth said recently, invoking a 1939 song. It was an inspiring thought and exactly what we needed. But what kind of a world can we expect after the pandemic? Will we gain something from the experience of jointly resisting the crisis?

The world was full of serious problems before coronavirus. Inequality was rampant, both between countries and within them. In the US, the world’s richest country, millions of people lacked medical coverage, contributing to unnecessary illness. Ill-calculated austerity had weakened the EU’s ability to provide public support to vulnerable people. Anti-democratic politics was on the rise, from Brazil and Bolivia to Poland and Hungary.