Most governments since COVID started faffed about endlessly and took really poor measures all around for what it looked like eternity (with a few notable exceptions). Eventually they got around getting it half-right and here we are, massive death tolls that could have probably been avoided with earlier lockdowns, properly enforced mask wearing and so on.
At the same time a lot of countries where education has been and is poor are full with people who eschieve vaccination for the dumbest reasons possible and see in this manifestations of their freedoms (of spreading further a potentially deadly disease).
This pandemic brought the worst out of people and in a few situations the best.
No, human kind cannot rely on collective actions because human beings are way too selfish to do something for the greater good. And we can see it because we are in this point in time with climate change, the final hour - and still there are a LOT of people denying climate change just as there are people denying COVID is a problem.
Of course we can always do better, but the reality is that today, we have dozens of millions of people double-vaxxed here, and we're making progress.
Try to look outside the box, the world is more than just western EU.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Warp_Speed?wprov=sfl...
The government did very little to protect the most vulnerable and chose actions that massively disrupted people's lives. Shutting down schools was probably the most egregious of the many mistakes.
When you see large corporations putting money into something, it is 100% a for profit venture. Capitalism has taught them so.
No, the world did not come together, not with trump shouting the virus is "fake" at the top of his voice.
Corporations saw an opportunity, grabbed it. The opportunity is lax regulations in the hurry to get out the vaccine.
Also, this specific type of virus was being researched and vaccine formulations were being done at the time of the outbreak.
As a consequence, I am quite optimistic about what we could do if the effects of climate chang were as obvious as those of covid (which unfortunately is not the case). And in that respect, I believe in both government action and the intervention of brilliant minds/leaders. We'll need (and have) both.