It’s been a little over two years since the SARS-Cov-2 virus (Covid 19) pandemic hit the fan in the United States. Over 80,000,000 Americans have contracted the virus, I million have died from it, and many millions of citizens have been hospitalized, missed work, and have “recovered” but now have long-term health issues.
We’re not totally out of the woods yet, but most of America is returning to a semblance of “normal” with diminishing health measures being employed in most States. It’s about time.
What have we learned from this horrible drama?
First, it appears that our governments, Federal and State, were ill-prepared for a health emergency as insidious as the Covid-19 pandemic. Basic medical supplies were hard to come by and it took many months for supply chain and logistical coordination to be organized. As is so often the case with natural disasters, FEMA was slow to react and help in a meaningful way.
Second, the scientists who had to identify the virus, figure out how it works, how it could be remedied, and how Americans could protect themselves (and others) until a vaccine was developed were subjected to intense politics… by elected officials who had no experience in viruses, pandemics, public health, etc. There was a massive failure of leadership in this country at many levels of government.
Third, the second-guessing by politicians spread like the flu into American society, so that every Tom, Dick, and Harry had a strong opinion about… things that they knew nothing about. Joe Public was annoyed by public health measures which restricted his freedom and he made sure everyone knew about it. Craziness ensued to the point that low-level workers at grocery stores and restaurants were being physically attacked for advising patrons of public health facemask requirements. There was even an attempted kidnapping of the Governor of Michigan by crazies who disagreed with public health measures.
Fourth, misinformation underwent an epidemic of its own, as arm-chair “experts”, cable news “talking heads”, podcasters, and social media influencers filled the digital universe with bogus cures, slanders of public health figures, claims that the pandemic was a hoax, and that it was a terrorist attack on America by the Chinese. The President of the United States led the misinformation attack on science, scientists, and elected officials who took the pandemic seriously. President Trump personally and publicly recommended three Covid-19 “curative” medicines that had no proven efficacy, against the advice of his epidemiological experts. All of this “fake news” confused, and probably harmed, a great many Americans.
A lot of silliness went on and is still going on, trying to pretend that this pandemic was an overblown “flu”, and that government went overboard in its effort to contain it. An enormous “anti-vax” campaign was unleashed which, in essence, dragged out the pandemic a lot longer than necessary. Had everyone done their best social distancing, wearing of masks, and getting vaccinated as soon as they could, this horrible catastrophe could have been ended back in 2021. It’s now almost April of 2022 and about one-third of Americans have yet to get their free Covid-19 immunizations. It’s shameful.
The response from these selfish morons is, “See, I didn’t get vaccinated and I’m still here!” Unfortunately, over 1 million Americans are dead, another 80 million Americans were infected, millions of Americans were hospitalized, businesses lost hundreds of millions of hours of production to sick employees, millions of mothers quit work to care for their children who couldn’t go to school, and so forth. Many people who didn’t observe proper health protocols got Covid-19, survived, but spread it others who got sick. I believe that almost all our children and grandchildren living in Southern California were infected by Covid-19 (some twice!) before they got vaccinated. They caught it at work and at school from people who probably didn’t know that they were infected. Some of those folks took protective measures half-heartedly and probably could have been vaccinated but opted not to.
The whole pandemic catastrophe is a stain on the character of America in the 21st Century.
Back when I was young, diseases like polio, measles, mumps, diphtheria, and such ravaged our Nation. In the 1950’s, science and government worked together to develop and distribute vaccines, virtually everyone got the “shots”, and America wiped out those diseases. It was a team effort, there’s was no belly-aching, no blind-siding by politicians, and no public debate. It was something that had to be done and Americans did it.
All through the 1960’s, 1970’s, and 1980’s, it was mandatory that all children going to public schools be vaccinated against those same diseases. There was no “anti-vax” hoopla; everyone knew what was at stake and they got their children vaccinated. Those childhood diseases were virtually extinct in America.
Nowadays, it seems like there is way too much individualism and selfishness going on in this Nation. Sure, we have Constitutional rights to do this and that, but they are not absolute. Common sense must come into play. One cannot yell, “Fire!” in a crowded theater. One cannot bring a loaded gun onboard a commercial aircraft. I believe it is a crime for a person who has AIDS to have sex with another person without informing his or her partner.
Good public health requires the public to do sensible things to improve unhealthy environments and reduce contagion. As a society, we must rely on legitimate medical experts (real scientists) for best advice, not arm-chair philosophers. When a serious epidemic occurs, our rights need to be adjusted to accommodate the overall needs of society. Individual rights need to suffer, temporarily, when there is an emergency.
If this American society does not learn from this pandemic and “grow up”, the next one will probably do us in.