Everybody is asking, how did the U.S. and most other nations get the coronavirus pandemic so wrong? Taiwan was a rare exception. Health officials and the democratic government of this island state sprang into action in the final days of 2019, and tried to warn the world of COVID danger.

Despite being just 80 miles from the coast of China and with a huge amount of travel back and forth to the mainland, Taiwan was remarkably well prepared. The outbreak was kept to a minimum.

"Taiwan knows that it is on its own," says our guest, Samson Ellis, Taipei Bureau Chief at Bloomberg News. "It does not have the backup of the World Health Organization or the World Bank... and that's why Taiwan backs itself up and is very cautious when it comes to issues like this."

The great Alaskan earthquake on Good Friday, March 27th, 1964, was surprising, and the lessons from the response are helpful in understanding how we respond to the COVID pandemic today.

"The earthquake overwhelmed people the way the strongest emotions do," wrote our guest, Jon Mooallem recently in The New York Times. "It was pure sensation, coming on faster than the intellect's ability to register it."

A big theme of Jon's new book, "This Is Chance!" is how the citizens of Anchorage almost instantly became "a wave of unofficial first responders." Despite officials' fears of panic, looting and violence, many people rose to the occasion, with countless acts of kindness. The crime rate plummeted, just as it has in recent weeks in New York.