The ongoing COVID-19 outbreak has revealed vulnerabilities in global healthcare responses. Research in epidemiology has focused on understanding the effects of countries’ responses on COVID-19 spread. While a growing body of research has focused on understanding the role of macro-level factors on responses to COVID-19, we have a limited understanding of what drives countries’ responses to COVID-19. We lean on organizational learning theory and the extant literature on rare events to propose that governance structure, investment in healthcare infrastructure, and learning from past pandemics influence a country’s response regarding reactive and proactive strategies. With data collected from various sources and using an empirical methodology, we find that centralized governance positively affects reactive strategies, while healthcare infrastructure and learning from past pandemics positively influence proactive and reactive strategies. This research contributes to the literature on learning, pandemics, and rare events.