BAY VILLAGE, Ohio — It didn’t have to be this way.
More than 220,000 dead. More than 12 million unemployed. The death toll rising. Retail workers murdered for asking people to wear masks. Death threats made against public health officials. Damage to the economy so severe that it will take years to recover. And now, the Trump administration has given up even the pretense of containing the virus.
Previously unknown, highly contagious, with no known treatment or vaccine, COVID-19 would have killed thousands of Americans no matter how smartly we responded. But we could have mitigated the economic impact, drastically reduced the death toll, and preserved millions of jobs had we responded differently.
We knew how to do it. The federal government, state governments, and thousands of local governments had spent decades preparing. Plans had been written. Surveillance systems were in place. Supplies had been stockpiled. Public health, emergency management, and public safety personnel had been trained. No nation on earth was better prepared to manage COVID-19 than the United States.
We know what could have happened.
Imagine an America led by a president who did not squander years of preparation and precious months of warning in a callous attempt to save his reelection bid. Imagine an administration that followed the pandemic response playbook they had been given. Imagine an America where officials carefully tracked early cases, tested aggressively, and took forceful steps to reduce transmission. Where the administration coordinated a nationwide response and provided critical resources to state and local agencies while providing timely and accurate information about the threat to the nation. Most importantly, imagine a U.S. government that valued data, respected science, and was focused on saving lives and minimizing social and economic disruption.
It was all possible. We were prepared to do it. Other nations did it. But Donald Trump chose a different path, and today our employment and health outcomes are worse than virtually all other high-income nations. Under Mr. Trump, our response has been uncoordinated, ineffective, and dishonest. The president’s mishandling of the COVID pandemic has produced the biggest economic collapse since the Great Depression and has directly led to the unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands of Americans.
Paradoxically, a competent response would have boosted Mr. Trump’s electoral fortunes far higher than anything else he could have done this year. Every politician knows that nothing brings the country together more quickly than an external threat. Managing the pandemic properly would have boosted the president’s approval ratings and today he would be cruising along, ten points ahead in the polls, his reelection assured.
Now we face a grim future. The federal government has surrendered. There is no plan to reduce transmission rates to a level that supports full economic recovery. Instead, there is talk of relying on “herd immunity” and letting the virus burn through the population. Meanwhile, deaths continue to mount.
Yet, in spite of Trump’s cruel determination to ignore the ongoing disaster, we have made progress. Better treatments and widespread use of protective measures – even if openly derided by the president – have enabled us to avoid worst-case projections. Vaccines are being developed. But we remain trapped on a perpetual roller coaster, where infections and deaths rise and fall, but never fall far enough to stop the spread.
We are wearily waiting for a vaccine that is many months away. Even after an effective vaccine is developed, the logistics of producing it in quantity, transporting it, distributing it, and inoculating many millions of Americans will be brutally complicated. Tens of thousands more Americans will die.
We can still contain it. We can still save many thousands of lives. We know that masks, social distancing, careful hygiene, testing, concern for one another, and capable leadership will work. We need only to do it. If only someone could explain why we will not.
October 23, 2020
This post appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer and on Cleveland.com on October 23, 2020.