Pandemic is the test of our lifetime — and we’re failing

This should be a season of hope: We will shortly be getting a highly effective coronavirus vaccine, and the pandemic should wind down in the coming months.

Yet this is the most wretched holiday season of my life. Consider:

• More Americans have died from COVID-19 in nine months than in combat over four years in World War II.

• We’re sometimes now losing more Americans from the virus in a single day than perished in the Pearl Harbor attacks or 9/11.

• If American states were treated as countries, the places with the highest per capita coronavirus death rates would be: Slovenia, South Dakota, North Dakota, Bulgaria, Iowa, Bosnia, Hungary, Croatia, Illinois, North Macedonia, Rhode Island, Nebraska, Kansas, Arkansas, San Marino.

A pandemic is a test of a country’s governance, and this is one the United States has failed. Much of that is on President Donald Trump’s colossal failure, but it also reflects a skepticism about science and a proclivity toward personal irresponsibility — such as refusing to wear masks.

America’s unraveling was captured by the video of a district health board meeting in Idaho a few days ago to discuss a mask mandate. One member, Diana Lachiondo, received an emergency call and frantically interrupted the discussion.

Her 12-year- old son and his 8-year- old brother were home alone (their grandmother had taken the dog on a walk) as armed protesters arrived, screaming, blowing air horns and calling their mom a tyrant — for trying to save people’s lives with face masks.

“There is an ugliness and cruelty in our national rhetoric that is reaching a fevered pitch here at home, and that should worry us all,” Lachiondo wrote later in a Facebook post.

National crises have always stressed the social fabric. The plague led to attacks on Jews and poor harvests set off witch trials. Today as well, too many politicians and ordinary Americans disdain science or any iota of personal responsibility.

“Open America up,” Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., tweeted. “Masks don’t work,” said Ron Paul, the former Republican presidential candidate. Both these assertions defy science and public health recommendations.

Just as the Thanksgiving bump fades, I fear, the Christmas bump will arrive.

It’s not that the coronavirus can’t be controlled: Europe had a terrible autumn wave but reined in the virus — while keeping schools open. Yet the United States still can’t match Europe in rationally managing the virus. That goes back to weak American governance; if only Trump tackled a real virus as aggressively as he does fake electoral rigging.

“Most European countries are doing their best with government messaging, restrictions on hospitality and indoor house visits, testing, tracing, soft-touch border restrictions and face coverings, whereas the U. S. looks like a free-for-all,” said Devi Sridhar, an American who is a professor of global health at the University of Edinburgh. European countries have also put in place structures — universal health care, sick pay, free testing — that make it easier to address a crisis like this.

While Republicans have been irresponsible in resisting face masks, it is mostly local Democratic officials who have irresponsibly kept schools closed. As I’ve argued since May, that exacerbates inequality and learning gaps — without significantly curbing the virus.

“If the status quo continues, students of color stand to lose 11 to 12 months of learning by the end of the (school) year,” McKinsey & Co. warns in a new report. White students would be set back by less, four to eight months, it says.

The United States is also bungling the economic response. The nonprofit Feeding America warns that the pandemic could cause food insecurity to affect 1 in 4 American children, but Congress has been unable to pass a bill to support those out of work.

Folks, we should be celebrating now. We have a new Pfizer vaccine that is 95% effective! Just behind it in the approval process is a vaccine from Moderna! By next summer, we should be able to emerge from our caves and hug each other again.

Except that by then hundreds of thousands of us will no longer be around.