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The New York Times
Lessons from one of the worst years of American life
WASHINGTON – The 365 days between the panicked US retreat from offices and schools and President Joe Biden’s speech on Thursday night, celebrating the prospect of a pandemic ending, could prove to be one of the most milestones in American history. People discovered national vulnerabilities that most had never considered and depths of resilience that they never imagined they needed, except in times of war. Even the attacks of September 11, 2001, for all their horror and the two decades of war they sparked, did not change everyday life in every city and town across the United States like the coronavirus did. Sign up for the New York Times newsletter The Morning A president lost his job in large part for mismanaging a crisis the extent of which he initially denied. His successor knows that his legacy depends on the rapid conclusion of the catastrophe. The hesitant response demonstrated both the worst of American governance and then, from Operation Warp Speed’s 10-month sprint to vaccines to the frantic pace of vaccinations in recent days, the best. The economic earthquake that shut down towns and villages changed politics so much that Congress did something that would have been unimaginable a year ago this week. Lawmakers spent $ 5 trillion to pull the country out of the economic hole created by the virus and, almost as a political retort, enacted an extension of the social safety net wider than anything seen since Medicare was created. almost 60 years ago. No country can go through this kind of trauma without being changed forever. There were indelible moments. In the spring came the racial calculation caused by the death of George Floyd after a Minneapolis policeman knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes. On January 6, the mob attack on Capitol Hill led many to question whether America’s democracy was still capable of self-correction. But Biden’s post on Thursday centered around the theme that the country has finally come together in a common cause – vaccines as a path to normalcy – and from that could emerge a glimmer of unity, as one nation still divided seeks solace in millions of tiny strokes. in the arm. In his speech, Biden presented two distinct hopeful dates: May 1, when all adults in the United States will be eligible to receive a vaccine, and July 4, when modest Independence Day celebrations might resemble a bit to life as it once was. Jill Lepore, a Harvard historian whose book “These Truths” traces the evolution of the dynamics of technology and society in America since its discovery, wondered whether Americans subconsciously viewed the new year as beginning at the end of the century. March, as it did in Britain and its colonies until the calendar changed in 1752. “Or maybe it starts the day you get your vaccine,” she says. “Or the day we are already vaccinated.” For Biden, the question is when he can transition from what he called the “rescue” phase of the pandemic to the “recovery” phase after the pandemic. In his speech on Thursday, the president clarified that the rescue was still underway. His goal, said his chief of staff, Ron Klain, in an interview, is to “prepare for the next steps in this rescue and what, now that we have passed this bill, are we really going to do in the months to come?” to return to a more normal way of life in this country. All of Biden’s instincts tell him that declaring a recovery movement too soon comes with dangers. That would mean states could follow Texas’ lead, eliminating mask warrants, opening restaurants and bars too quickly, and making themselves vulnerable to a resurgence – what Biden called “Neanderthal thinking.” He said so in his speech, saying, “Now is not the time to let go.” “We need everyone to get vaccinated,” he said, a tacit acknowledgment that soon there may be more products than willing takers. “Continue to wear a mask” because “beating this virus and getting back to normal depends on national unity”. Although Biden did not mention it, his senior Cabinet members stressed that even eliminating the virus at home was not enough. As its Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said last month, “Unless everyone in the world is vaccinated then no one is really completely safe, because if the virus is there and continues to proliferate, it will also mutate. . “And if it mutates,” he added, “it’s also going to come back and bite people everywhere.” But the subtext of Biden’s post on Thursday night was that for the first time people can begin to imagine a post-COVID world. After a year behind closed doors, the government can start thinking about dealing with the virus to the point that it doesn’t drive all political decisions, and families can find a way to go to dinner or visit grandparents, without wonder if this is a life or death decision. All of this raises the question of what will be permanently changed and what, when the story of this national trauma is written, will be salvageable. And what will the country have learned? The past provides a mixed guide. There were too few lessons learned from the 1918 pandemic, an event that most history books overlooked, and which many Americans first heard about in detail a century later, when it was returned to afflict the nation in a different form. But in 1918, as in 2020, the president’s instinct was to downplay his harshness, invoking the bizarre logic that Americans would be disheartened by the truth even as family and friends succumbed around them. President Donald Trump was never a history student (although his grandfather Frederick Trump died of the flu in 1918), and he told reporter Bob Woodward that “I always wanted to play it down. I always like to minimize it ”because“ I don’t want to cause panic ”. No one will know how many thousands of lives cost when Trump ridiculed the mask wearing and did so little to promote the vaccine in the final days of his administration when it went from the lab to the market in record time. “Refusals for days, weeks, then months,” Biden said Thursday night, never mentioning his predecessor by name. “It has led to more deaths, more infections, more stress and more loneliness.” Dr Anthony Fauci, whom Biden has deliberately designated as his chief medical adviser, also spoke of the unnecessary deaths on Thursday when he told NBC a year ago this week. , “It would have completely shocked me” to know that more than half a million Americans would die from the disease. But he noted that the country has paid a horrible price for its political divisions. A political connotation, “he said.” It was not a pure public health approach. She was very influenced by the divisions that we have in this country. When Trump and his wife received the vaccine in January, they did not release it to the public. It was left to Biden and members of his administration to be vaccinated on live television to encourage Americans fearful of the vaccine. The second big lesson could be that, properly organized, the same government that mobilized for WWII and landed men on the moon can actually save lives on a large scale. For the Biden administration, that meant taking the developed vaccines in record time and designing a vital distribution. Operation Warp Speed ”was very important work, and I don’t want to minimize it,” Klain said. millions of Americans. When the story of that strange moment is written, Biden will almost certainly be credited with having vaccinated a quarter of the adult population with at least one vaccine, and 10% fully vaccinated, in his first 50 days. After years in which the government has been denigrated as an obstacle to national greatness rather than a vehicle for progress, while conspiracy theories of a pernicious “deep state” still abound, he argued Thursday night that a mere demonstration of government competence was in itself a turning point. I don’t know if this translates into encouraging people to join the public service, or at least confidence that the government can do something right, ”said Richard Haass, longtime diplomat and now Chairman of the Council. on Foreign Relations. / 11, we have taken up the task of combating global terrorism. After COVID-19, we moved on to a different task. ““ It remains to be seen, ”he said,“ whether we can now also use the moment to ease the effects of the domestic division. ”This article originally appeared in The New York Times. © 2021 The New York Times Company
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