The COVID-19 crisis has put an unprecedented strain on the developed world’s healthcare system. Horror stories from hospitals in Italy and the US frequently appear about the morally challenging decisions doctors must make, as they decide which patient gets to receive treatment or not. All of this while companies such as Tesla scramble to produce more ventilators to meet the increasing demand.

Even as the situation worsens in the US, CEO of Swiss diagnostics says the US “won’t be able to test broadly for coronavirus for “weeks, if not months”. The failing capacity of the US’s ability to meet the demand, plus the continuing privatisation of their healthcare, is drawing the question of whether capitalism can cope with a pandemic.

We were joined on The Daily by David Primrose from the University of Sydney, to talk us through some of the politics of healthcare.