Andy Slavitt, a senior adviser to Biden, opened the Covid-19 briefing on Monday with a reminder that the country was about to hit “a dark milestone”.
“Everyone lost is someone whose life and gifts have been interrupted,” said Slavitt. “Our hearts are with all those who are mourning and loved ones that they miss so much. For us in the administration, the occasion makes us more determined to turn the tide on Covid-19 so that losses decrease and healing can begin. “
With him was Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s leading infectious disease specialist, who predicted at the end of last March, at a time when just over 2,000 Americans were lost to Covid-19, that up to 200,000 Americans could die of the disease – a number that seemed astronomical at the time. Today, that would seem like a blessing.
“As worrying as that number is, we must be prepared for that,” said Fauci at the time.
In an interview on Monday on ABC’s “Good Morning America” program, Fauci said that while part of the devastation was inevitable, much of it could have been avoided.
“It’s so hard to just go back and try and, you know, do a metaphorical autopsy on how things went. It was just bad. It’s bad now, “said Fauci, adding:” If you look back, historically, we have done worse than any other country and we are a rich and highly developed country. “
The latest public health disaster of comparable proportions was the 1918 influenza pandemic, which is estimated to have killed some 675,000 Americans. Nancy K. Bristow, president of the history department at the University of Puget Sound and author of “American Pandemic: The Lost Worlds of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic”, learned a lesson from this.
“There will be a real impulse to say, ‘See how we are doing,'” she said, warning against trends now of “rewriting this story in another story of American triumph.”