It was a preview of what’s to come
Five years ago yesterday, the World Health Organization announced that COVID-19 was officially a pandemic and the whole world embarked on a shared experience like nothing before in any of our lives. Although the quick roll out of vaccines and accumulated knowledge about how to treat the illness saved millions, the pandemic lasted for over two years and took 1.2 million lives in the U.S. and over 7 million worldwide. Many people were left with serious lingering effects of the virus the reasons for which are still being studied.
Hospitals and morgues were overwhelmed and the world economy was brought to an abrupt halt in March of 2020 which quickly brought mass unemployment and a shortage of goods as the global supply chain was disrupted. We learned very quickly that the federal government under Donald Trump was so lacking in logistical and crisis management ability that America had one of the worst responses of any developed country in the world. The U.S. experienced 16% of the world’s deaths with just 4% of the population.
We should have seen it coming. As Judd Legum at Public Notice presciently posted on Twitter:
Months before that a prominent Democrats had warned the country about the possibility of a pandemic and the country’s lack of preparedness:
The President of the United States downplayed the threat and insisted that he wanted to “keep his numbers down” — he was beginning to understand that this was going to interrupt his plans for a triumphant return for a second term. On March 9th, Trump made one of his most famous public appearances of the COVID era when he went to the Centers For Disease Control in Georgia and declared himself a genius:
🚨FLASHBACK
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) January 24, 2024
Trump at the CDC in 2020:
“You know my Uncle was a great — he was at MIT. He taught at MIT for a record number of years. He was a great super genius, Dr. John Trump. I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it…Maybe I have a… pic.twitter.com/1b85AlHtzI
He said:
Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for President.
Over the next few months he proved that he had definitely not missed his calling as a medical expert or a president. In fact, it became more obvious than ever that his talents, such as they are, are completely useless in a crisis.
Two days after that memorable visit, when the W.H.O made its announcement (an act which Donald Trump has never forgiven and so petulantly withdrew the U.S from the organization) the world stopped. Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson announced that they had contracted the virus and the NBA suspended its schedule. The highly respected virologist Dr. Anthony Fauci testified before Congress that the pandemic could result in “many, many millions” of deaths.
That night Trump made the only semi-dignified announcement of the crisis from the oval office shutting down travel from Europe but the order was typically poorly drafted and had to be repeatedly walked back over the following days. It was the beginning of the Trump COVID response and it was a horror show.
Those of us who were not essential workers sat cloistered in our homes watching the unfolding horror on television as the news kept a countdown clock of cases, hospitalizations and deaths that grew exponentially over the weeks that followed. And unfortunately, it became clear that we were led by a man who was completely in over his head.
Before long Trump was blaming Democrats, his go-to, for the pandemic because they suffered the greatest death toll in the big blue cities in the first wave. He demanded that they lick his boots before they could get vital medical supplies and forced them to bid against each other for them. If they failed to adequately grovel and praise him, he punished their states by delaying the needed supplies and publicly derided them as incompetent.
He denigrated the use of masks, frequently mocking those who did and ignored the social distancing measures recommended by the experts because his “business friends” told him it hurt the economy. Within just a couple of weeks he was already exhorting people to stop worrying and learn to love the virus saying that “the cure cannot be worse than the disease“, (meaning that the crisis could not be allowed to disrupt his campaign. )
His main concern at this juncture was the effect it was having on the economy which he needed to be booming before the fall campaign. Unemployment was still very high and businesses were shuttered and he wanted them open now, whether people would die or not. He had signed the first relief bill called the CARES Act but did not want to extend any more government help and basically told the country he wanted them to get back to normal now.
Unfortunately, the vaccines were still months away and new variants were springing up so he resorted to his usual tactics of pitting people against each other. He encouraged anti-mask and anti-shutdown MAGA people to rebel against all mitigation efforts. He trained his followers to distrust the science and the scientists by pushing snake oil cures on television (now linked to at least 17,000 deaths) and encouraging them to believe crackpot conspiracy theories. By the time the vaccines came online, his MAGA voters had such contempt for scientists that they rejected them, ironically denying Trump the great moment of victory he had craved.
All that and much, much more happened with a federal government that still had a working CDC, NIH, HHS and friendly, cooperative relationships with the world’s leading scientific research institutions and their countries’ leaders. Now imagine what will happen if another pandemic comes along.
Here’s a little preview of the kind of scientific expertise we’ll be relying on going forward:
RFK Jr on the measles vaccine: "There are adverse events from the vaccine. It does cause deaths every year. It causes all the illnesses that measles itself cause." pic.twitter.com/Y0IVybltDa
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 12, 2025
RFK Jr: "It used to be that everybody got measles. And the measles gave you lifetime protection against measles infection. The vaccine doesn't do that … it used to be that very young kids were protected by breast milk. Women who get vaccinated do not provide that level of… pic.twitter.com/C3ALSwbmwz
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 12, 2025
Meanwhile, HHS is “reevaluating” existing contracts for MrNA vaccine development for a potential avian flu epidemic. Their plan is apparently this gobbledygook:
Kevin Hassett on Trump's avian flu plan: "What we need to do is have better ways with bio-security and medication and so on to make sure that the perimeter doesn't have to kill the chickens. To have a better, smarter, perimeter… they're killing chickens to stop the spread, but… pic.twitter.com/a3s8WvMWFg
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 16, 2025
It has struck me as very odd these last couple of years that the pandemic has gone so far down the memory hole that it’s like it never happened. But it did, millions died and our society was scarred by the experience even if we don’t want to admit it. Our political culture was divided even worse than before largely because the man in charge at the time didn’t know how to deal with an emergency and was more concerned with his re-election than saving lives.
Sadly, our national amnesia allowed that same man to be restored to the White House where he is furiously tearing up the federal government including the world class scientific research centers and public health institutions that were all that stood between him and millions more dead the last time he was confronted with a crisis. It will be a hundred times worse if it happens again on his watch.
Salon
