What did we learn from the pandemic?
Four years ago this week, the coronavirus pandemic achieved global status, and life as we knew it came to an end.
In Maine, the new reality arrived on Friday the 13th, 2020. Meetings scheduled that morning were canceled by evening and everyone who could returned home, “sheltering in place” as we awaited further instructions.
Yet except for a brief mention in the State of the Union and a few stray articles, there’s been almost no attention to this grim anniversary – the most important thing that’s happened to us in the still-undefined 21st century.
Perhaps that’s not entirely surprising. The memory of the previous worldwide pandemic, the influenza outbreak of 1918, had almost entirely vanished.
From 1918-19, an estimated 50 million people died worldwide, as against 16 million in World War I. The United States, a late combat entrant, saw at least 10 times as many deaths from flu.
Yet every history book covered the war extensively, while the influenza pandemic was hardly mentioned. We now begin to understand how that happened.
Almost from the start, there were two sharply different narratives about COVID-19 and the virus causing it, stories we haven’t attempted to reconcile, to our great cost.
To begin with, the nation did not endure “lockdowns” except in prisons, nursing homes and similar institutions. Countless millions stayed home and much of the economy shut down, but people weren’t confined.
We were free to go to the grocery store, warily, or drive where we wished. “Essential” employees stayed on the job, whatever the ultimate cost to themselves and their families.
Yet the ubiquitous “lockdown” description plays into a mostly false narrative that built quickly: Americans were losing essential liberties through masking requirements or bans on mass gatherings.
Some even wanted the virus to spread to achieve “natural immunity,” something no developed country attempted except Sweden, which later reversed course.
And when safe and effective vaccines arrived with remarkable speed, too many people refused to get them, an aversion continuing to this day. The “anti-vax” inclination now involves long-established childhood vaccines for measles and whooping cough, unnecessarily spreading infections.
With no national strategy from the Trump administration, states were on their own, and we quarantined or not as governors saw fit.
I tracked two states particularly: Maine and South Dakota, where I have relatives.
Maine Gov. Janet Mills kept public safety paramount and Maine suffered just 420 Covid deaths in 2020, when isolation was all we had.
In South Dakota, “freedom loving” Gov. Kristi Noem did nothing. Nearly 1,500 people died, a rate six times higher than Maine’s.
I’m still haunted by those unnecessary deaths, and wonder why more people aren’t – why there are no regrets, no rethinking.
Yet those on the other side had faults, too. We were constantly directed to “follow the science,” but science evolved so rapidly it was hard to know what that meant.
The federal CDC struggled with the problem, and sometimes gave unclear, even confusing advice that compromised its credibility.
The watchword became “better safe than sorry,” with prolonged shutdowns far longer than necessary.
Catholic and evangelical churches reopened after three months, with precautions, while some liberal denominations kept their buildings shut for more than two years.
At the Legislature, Democratic leaders insisted on online governing for an incredibly long time, keeping essential committee work remote through 2022; most legislatures left their state houses briefly, if at all.
The most grievous deficits occurred in schools, where young children and teachers struggled through shutdowns every time cases appeared, even though children rarely had severe infections.
Older people, who we failed to adequately protect, were most at risk, exactly the opposite of 1918, when young adults died in great numbers and – crucially – there were no vaccines.
We’ve done little to address or even discuss helping those students and their schools recover even as absences remain high.
Workplaces are also hard hit, with no consensus on whether remote work is truly suitable for most jobs, or merely what supervisors allow because so many employees got used to working at home.
Is Zoom a medium suitable for making major decisions? Can teams work effectively if they see each other only on screens?
“We’re all in this together” was an early mantra – one that turned out to be far less true than we hoped.
In short, we all have much to discuss, and much to learn, about experiences we still think about individually, but somehow can’t talk about collectively.
Before it all slips away as it did in 1918, we might resolve to do better. Could the fifth anniversary be that moment?
Douglas Rooks has been a Maine editor, columnist and reporter since 1984. His new book, “Calm Command: U.S. Chief Justice Melville Fuller in His Times, 1888-1910,” is available in bookstores and at melvillefuller.com . He welcomes comment at drooks@tds.net.