Lessons from Covid-19: the dangers of an illusion of invulnerability

While still very early, over the past two months countries have begun to administer vaccines for COVID-19, and the world has breathed a collective sigh of relief with cautious optimism that we would begin to turn the corner on the epidemic. The investment of considerable financial resources and scientific knowledge has shown impressive results. We wonder what the new “normal” will look like post-COVID and if there are any lessons society has learned that might help us to cope with other looming crises facing humanity. Have we learned that science will come to the rescue, or have we learned the importance of being prepared and acting responsibly and proactively to reduce the impact of things like climate change​ and systemic racism? Put differently, are we now less likely to suffer from an illusion of invulnerability?

Two months before the world’s first suspected case of COVID-19, the Global Health Security Index had published a scorecard that ranked 195 countries on their preparedness to tackle a serious outbreak: USA was ranked #1, and UK #2. However, as the world turns the corner on the pandemic, both countries were among the six worst worldwide in terms of COVID-19-related deaths per capita.[1] There are many possible reasons for this, but one might be that these two countries and/or their leaders suffered from having an illusion of invulnerability, which is something that occurs when people think that they are better than others.[2] It seems that even when you have more resources and are better prepared than others, you may get a false sense of confidence that leaves you more vulnerable to failure.

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Question: When it comes to the businesses dealing with issues like climate change and pandemics, do you think that the world’s leading corporations—who have the most resources to deal with them—are in danger of suffering from an illusion of invulnerability?


[1] Yamey, G. & Wenham, C. (2020, July 1). The U.S. and U.K. were the two best prepared nations to tackle a pandemic—What went wrong. Time.  Mortality analyses, John Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center. 
[2] Darío Páez & Juan A. Pérez (2020): Social representations of COVID-19. International Journal of Social Psychology.