Despite ample warning, the U.S. squandered every possible opportunity to control the coronavirus. And despite its considerable advantages—immense resources, biomedical might, scientific expertise—it floundered. While countries as different as South Korea, Thailand, Iceland, Slovakia, and Australia acted decisively to bend the curve of infections downward, the U.S. achieved merely a plateau in the spring, which changed to an appalling upward slope in the summer. “The U.S. fundamentally failed in ways that were worse than I ever could have imagined,” Julia Marcus, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School, told me.
Ed Yong is one of the best health writers around. This is definitely worth a deep read.Since the pandemic began, I have spoken with more than 100 experts in a variety of fields. I’ve learned that almost everything that went wrong with America’s response to the pandemic was predictable and preventable. A sluggish response by a government denuded of expertise allowed the coronavirus to gain a foothold. Chronic underfunding of public health neutered the nation’s ability to prevent the pathogen’s spread. A bloated, inefficient health-care system left hospitals ill-prepared for the ensuing wave of sickness. Racist policies that have endured since the days of colonization and slavery left Indigenous and Black Americans especially vulnerable to COVID‑19. The decades-long process of shredding the nation’s social safety net forced millions of essential workers in low-paying jobs to risk their life for their livelihood. The same social-media platforms that sowed partisanship and misinformation during the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Africa and the 2016 U.S. election became vectors for conspiracy theories during the 2020 pandemic.
The U.S. has little excuse for its inattention. In recent decades, epidemics of SARS, MERS, Ebola, H1N1 flu, Zika, and monkeypox showed the havoc that new and reemergent pathogens could wreak. Health experts, business leaders, and even middle schoolers ran simulated exercises to game out the spread of new diseases.
The United States has correctly castigated China for its duplicity and the WHO for its laxity—but the U.S. has also failed the international community. Under President Donald Trump, the U.S. has withdrawn from several international partnerships and antagonized its allies. It has a seat on the WHO’s executive board, but left that position empty for more than two years, only filling it this May, when the pandemic was in full swing. Since 2017, Trump has pulled more than 30 staffers out of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s office in China, who could have warned about the spreading coronavirus. Last July, he defunded an American epidemiologist embedded within China’s CDC. America First was America oblivious.
Even after warnings reached the U.S., they fell on the wrong ears. Since before his election, Trump has cavalierly dismissed expertise and evidence. He filled his administration with inexperienced newcomers, while depicting career civil servants as part of a “deep state.” In 2018, he dismantled an office that had been assembled specifically to prepare for nascent pandemics. American intelligence agencies warned about the coronavirus threat in January, but Trump habitually disregards intelligence briefings. The secretary of health and human services, Alex Azar, offered similar counsel, and was twice ignored.
It's sad to think of the lives that might have been saved had our government taken the virus seriously from the beginning.
I don't mean to gang up on Trump, but when he chose to downplay the virus to avoid a "panic," he was underestimating the public's ability to handle a crisis. After all, he, himself, didn't panic, so why did he think everybody else would?
We certainly didn't panic when 9/11 happened. Nor did we panic when JFK was shot, nor when Pearl Harbor was attacked.
Yes, hindsight is 20/20, but I'm just sorry we weren't really given a chance to get this virus thing under control as early as we could have.
i think one of the more harmful things was early on the CDC said that masks didn’t help and they didn’t advise people to wear them. So that when the position got reversed people saw it as a political things.
i think one of the more harmful things was early on the CDC said that masks didn’t help and they didn’t advise people to wear them. So that when the position got reversed people saw it as a political things.
But that's how science works. They gather evidence, make predictions, gather more evidence, make better predictions, and so on. That's just how accumulating knowledge always works. That process didn't point to anything political. What made it political was Donald Trump gambling that Covid would just go away on its own so that business closures wouldn't hurt his stock market numbers.i think one of the more harmful things was early on the CDC said that masks didn’t help and they didn’t advise people to wear them. So that when the position got reversed people saw it as a political things.
Press Briefing Transcript February 12, 2020. That recommendation changed within about 30-45 days of the start of the pandemic."CDC talks regularly with health care industry partners as well as PPE manufacturers and distributors to assess availability of PPE. At this time, some partners are reporting higher than usual demand for select N95 respirators and face masks. CDC does not currently recommend the use of face masks for the general public. This virus is not spreading in the community. If you are sick or a patient under investigation and not hospitalized, CDC recommends wearing a face mask when around other people and before entering a health care provider’s office, but when you are alone, in your home, you do not need to wear a mask. People who are in close contact with someone with novel coronavirus, for example, household contacts and care givers of people with known or suspected 2019, I’m sorry, nCoV 2019, we should wear a face mask if they are in the same room as the patient and that patient is not able to wear a face mask."
But that's how science works. They gather evidence, make predictions, gather more evidence, make better predictions, and so on. That's just how accumulating knowledge always works. That process didn't point to anything political. What made it political was Donald Trump gambling that Covid would just go away on its own so that business closures wouldn't hurt his stock market numbers.
And it became hugely political when Trump persisted in downplaying the pandemic long, long after the CDC and almost all immunologists concluded that social distancing and masks were essential to slowing the spread. In Trump's White House, not wearing a mask is a sign of loyalty to the president--which is why the White House is a hot spot with two outbreaks within this last month.
It wouldn’t have been political if Trump had put his full support behind mask wearing. Unfortunately for the country he did the opposite and encouraged the anti mask movement.i think one of the more harmful things was early on the CDC said that masks didn’t help and they didn’t advise people to wear them. So that when the position got reversed people saw it as a political things.
It wouldn’t have been political if Trump had put his full support behind mask wearing. Unfortunately for the country he did the opposite and encouraged the anti mask movement.
The CDC and other scientists acted correctly on the mask issue. At first, no one knew that people without symptoms could spread the virus. Most viruses are only transmissible when people have symptoms. Back then the proper course of action was to isolate people who had symptoms. Everyone else should be able to go about their business as usual. Masks were in short supply then and the logical course of action was to save them for hospital workers who have to deal with symptomatic people.
Unfortunately everything changed when scientists figured out that people without symptoms could spread the virus. That meant there was no way to figure out who needed to isolate and thus the need for everyone to wear a mask. That’s when the CDC and other scientists started recommending everyone wear a mask.
Unfortunately scientists do not possess God like omniscience. However, once they had the necessary evidence they quickly made the right decision. With Trump working against them though it’s been an uphill climb.
That is ENTIRELY a false narrative. You should know better, but I don't expect it to change your behavior. Repeating the same lie incessantly does not make it true. Last opportunity to correct your error.no the scientists acted silly. Other SARS transmitted asymptomatically that’s why Asia did so well in their COVID response. The CDC acted just like Trump in not wanting people to panic and it really hurt the country
That is ENTIRELY a false narrative. You should know better, but I don't expect it to change your behavior. Repeating the same lie incessantly does not make it true. Last opportunity to correct your error.
Wrong.no the scientists acted silly. Other SARS transmitted asymptomatically that’s why Asia did so well in their COVID response. The CDC acted just like Trump in not wanting people to panic and it really hurt the country
What do you think Trump should of done that he did not do?It's sad to think of the lives that might have been saved had our government taken the virus seriously from the beginning.
I don't mean to gang up on Trump, but when he chose to downplay the virus to avoid a "panic," he was underestimating the public's ability to handle a crisis. After all, he, himself, didn't panic, so why did he think everybody else would?
We certainly didn't panic when 9/11 happened. Nor did we panic when JFK was shot, nor when Pearl Harbor was attacked.
Yes, hindsight is 20/20, but I'm just sorry we weren't really given a chance to get this virus thing under control as early as we could have.
Remember as well, there was a real mask shortage at that time, and the supply of masks for frontline care givers was questionable.Just a point of clarification: the CDC never said masks didn't work. (That was the surgeon general.) The CDC only said that they weren't necessary for non-essential personnel, except in certain circumstances. Press Briefing Transcript February 12, 2020. That recommendation changed within about 30-45 days of the start of the pandemic.
It is an entirely false narrative, as numerous posts have demonstrated. You've built up this narrative in your head and are impervious to admitting error. The CDC acted responsibly, followed the science, advised accordingly. You're fixated on something that just isn't true. Other countries implemented mask mandates, built effective testing regimens, and established tracing and isolation protocols. We did none of that, not because it wasn't recommended or feasible, but because the White House headed by, and people by, the dregs of society, intellectually inferior boobs, anti-science fanatics, and sycophants refused to follow sound advice. The proof is in the body bags.it is not false. Previous SARS did transmit asymptomatically and the Asian counties had mask requirements from near the beginning. I was speculating as to why the CDC didn’t recommend masks and I went with they didn’t want people to panic because the other option is they are incompetent and I do not want to believe that
Wrong.
“Based on our data in Singapore, transmission from asymptomatic patients appears to play no or only a minor role, as all but 1 of the pneumonic cases of SARS had a definitive epidemiologic link to another pneumonic SARS contact. Lack of transmission from asymptomatic patients was also observed in other countries with SARS outbreaks (1; http://www.who.int/csr/sars/en/WHOconsensus.pdf, 2003).”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3371799/
How the Pandemic Defeated America (Ed Yong, Atlantic):
Ed Yong is one of the best health writers around. This is definitely worth a deep read.
It wouldn’t have been political if Trump had put his full support behind mask wearing. Unfortunately for the country he did the opposite and encouraged the anti mask movement.
The CDC and other scientists acted correctly on the mask issue. At first, no one knew that people without symptoms could spread the virus. Most viruses are only transmissible when people have symptoms. Back then the proper course of action was to isolate people who had symptoms. Everyone else should be able to go about their business as usual. Masks were in short supply then and the logical course of action was to save them for hospital workers who have to deal with symptomatic people.
Unfortunately everything changed when scientists figured out that people without symptoms could spread the virus. That meant there was no way to figure out who needed to isolate and thus the need for everyone to wear a mask. That’s when the CDC and other scientists started recommending everyone wear a mask.
Unfortunately scientists do not possess God like omniscience. However, once they had the necessary evidence they quickly made the right decision. With Trump working against them though it’s been an uphill climb.
Trump has the most half-as*ed thinking on Coronavirus I have ever heard. "Corona, Corona, Corona, Corona. You know why we have so much Corona? Because we do more testing than anybody." So let's see--there 8 million people out there infected with Coronavirus who are spreading it like wildfire. But in Trump Fantasyland if we do no testing, statistically we have 0 cases of Coronavirus and we're in the clear. Meanwhile hospital ICU's are packed with so many COVID patients they're spilling out the hospital windows. But remember, under Trump's scenario if we didn't do any testing we wouldn't have any Coronavirus.
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It is an entirely false narrative, as numerous posts have demonstrated. You've built up this narrative in your head and are impervious to admitting error. The CDC acted responsibly, followed the science, advised accordingly. You're fixated on something that just isn't true. Other countries implemented mask mandates, built effective testing regimens, and established tracing and isolation protocols. We did none of that, not because it wasn't recommended or feasible, but because the White House headed by, and people by, the dregs of society, intellectually inferior boobs, anti-science fanatics, and sycophants refused to follow sound advice. The proof is in the body bags.
It appears you didn't even understand what you read. No one ever said there were no asymptomatic cases. The issue is asymptomatic transmission. Big difference.from your own article
Of all exposed HCWs, 7.5% had asymptomatic SARS-positive cases.
that’s quite a lot, COVID-19 is higher but still it was known that there was a significant amount of asymptomatic transmission which is why a lot of Asian countries instituted mask recommendations/mandates at the very beginning of the outbreak
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