Covid-19 and health equity — Time to think big

It is not till it is discovered that high individual incomes will not purchase the mass of mankind immunity from cholera, typhus, and ignorance, still less secure them the positive advantages of educational opportunity and economic security, that slowly and reluctantly, amid prophecies of moral degeneration and economic disaster, society begins to make collective provision for the needs which no ordinary individual, even if he works overtime all his life, can provide himself.

— R.H. Tawney, Equality (1931)