When financial markets collapsed and the world faced its last great crisis in 2008, major powers worked together to restore the global economy. But the Covid-19 pandemic has been striking for the opposite response: no leader, no united action to stop the spread of the new coronavirus, which has killed over 200,000 people.

The financial crisis gave birth to the leaders’ summit of the Group of 20, the world’s richest countries responsible for 80 per cent of the global economy.

But when UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres proposed ahead of their summit in late March that G-20 leaders adopt a “wartime” plan and cooperate on the global response to suppress the virus, there was no response.

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