The Free Market Isn’t Up to the Coronavirus Challenge

Amid all the breathless reporting on the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, one quote in Nature from one of the world’s leading experts on this family of viruses, structural biologist Rolf Hilgenfeld, stood out.

“The total number of people infected, if you combine SARS, MERS [previous related coronavirus outbreaks] and this new virus, is under 12,500 people. That’s not a market. The number of cases is too small. Pharmaceutical companies are not interested,” he told the scientific journal.

Hilgenfeld was on his way to Hubei province even as the Chinese government was...