The New York Times
Lessons from one of the worst years of American life
WASHINGTON – The 365 days between the panicked withdrawal of the United States from offices and schools and President Joe Biden’s speech on Thursday night, celebrating the prospect of an end to a pandemic, could be one of the most important years in American history. . People learned about national vulnerabilities that most had never considered and the depths of resilience they never imagined they needed, except in times of war. Even the September 11, 2001 attacks, despite all their horror and the two decades of war that started, did not change everyday life in every city in the United States in the same way that the coronavirus did. Subscribe to the New York Times One newsletter The Morning. The president lost his job in large part because he handled badly a crisis the magnitude of which he first denied. His successor knows that his legacy depends on bringing the catastrophe to a swift conclusion. The hesitant response demonstrated the worst of American governance, and then, from Operation Warp Speed’s 10-month sprint to vaccines and the frantic pace of inoculations in recent days, the best. The economic earthquake with the closure of cities and towns changed the policy so much that Congress did something that would have been unimaginable a year ago this week. Lawmakers spent $ 5 trillion to pull the nation out of the economic hole created by the virus, and almost like a political upheaval, decreed an expansion of the social safety net greater than any seen since the creation of Medicare almost 60 years ago. No country can go through this type of trauma without being changed forever. There were indelible moments. In the spring, came the racial calculus caused by the death of George Floyd, after a police officer in Minneapolis knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes. On January 6, the crowd attacked the Capitol, which led many to wonder whether American democracy was still capable of self-correction. But Biden’s message on Thursday focused on the issue that the country has finally come together in a common cause – vaccines as the path to normality – and a glimpse of unity could emerge, while a still divided nation seeks solace. in millions of tiny jabs on the arm. In his speech, Biden presented two distinct dates of hope: May 1, when all adults in the United States will be eligible to receive a vaccine, and July 4, when modest Independence Day celebrations can look like life one little like before. Jill Lepore, a Harvard historian whose book “These Truths” tracks the changing dynamics of technology and society in America since its discovery, wondered if Americans were unconsciously considering the new year beginning in late March, as it did in Britain -Brittany and its colonies until the calendar changed in 1752. “Or maybe it starts on the day you get the vaccine,” she said. “Or the day when many of us get a vaccine.” For Biden, the question is when he will be able to pivot from what he called the “rescue” phase of the pandemic to the “recovery” phase after the pandemic. In his speech on Thursday, the president made it clear that the bailout is still ongoing. His goal, his chief of staff, Ron Klain, said in an interview, is “to define the next steps in this rescue and what, now that we’ve passed this bill, we’re really going to do in the coming months to go back to a more normal in this country. “All of Biden’s instincts tell him that declaring a recovery move too soon brings dangers. That would be a sign that states could follow the example of Texas, by eliminating the masks’ mandates, opening restaurants and bars very quickly. and becoming vulnerable to a resurgence – what Biden called “Neanderthal thinking.” He said this in his speech, arguing, “This is no time to give up.” “We need everyone to be vaccinated,” he said, an unspoken acknowledgment that there may soon be more offers than willing buyers. “Keep wearing a mask” because “beating this virus and getting back to normal depends on national unity.” Although Biden made no mention of this, the The main members of his cabinet emphasized that even eliminating the virus at home is not enough. As his secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said last month: “Unless and until everyone in the world is vaccinated, no one will be really safe, because if the virus is out there and continues to proliferate, it will also mutate. “” And if it’s changing, “he added,” it’s also going to come back and bite people everywhere. ” But the subtext of Biden’s message 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 may start thinking about controlling the virus to the point that it does not drive all political decisions, and families can find a way to go out to dinner or visit grandparents, without asking if it is a life or death decision. All of this raises the question of what will be changed forever and what, when the history of this national trauma is written, will be recoverable. And what will the country have learned? The past provides a mixed guide. There were very few lessons from the 1918 pandemic, an event that most history books ignored, and which many Americans heard about in detail a century later, when it again afflicted the nation in a different way. But in 1918, as in 2020, the president’s instinct was to minimize his severity, invoking the strange logic that Americans would be discouraged by the truth even if his family and friends succumbed around him. President Donald Trump was never a history student (although his grandfather Frederick Trump died of the flu in 1918) and told journalist Bob Woodward that “I always wanted to minimize it. I still like to minimize it ”, because“ I don’t want to create panic ”. No one will know how many thousands of lives it cost, as Trump ridiculed the use of a mask and did so little to promote the vaccine in the last days of his administration, when it moved from the laboratory to the market in record time. “Denials for days, weeks and then months,” said Biden on Thursday night, without ever mentioning his predecessor’s name. “This led to more deaths, more infections, more stress and more loneliness.” Dr. Anthony Fauci, whom Biden deliberately appointed as his chief medical advisor, also referred to those unnecessary deaths on Thursday when he told NBC that a year ago this week, “It would have completely shocked me” to know that more than half a million of Americans would die of the disease. But he noted that the country had paid a horrible price for its political divisions. political connotation, “he said.” It was not a pure public health approach. It was very influenced by the division we have in this country. “When Trump and his wife received the vaccine in January, they did not make it public. It was up to Biden and members of his administration to be vaccinated live on television as an incentive to Americans fearing the vaccine. The second big lesson may be that when well organized, the same government that mobilized for World War II and put men on the moon can actually save lives en masse. For the Biden government, that meant taking the vaccines developed in record time and designing a vital distribution The Warp Speed operation “It was a very important job, and I don’t intend to minimize it,” said Klain. “But there was no plan for how we were going to put this vaccine in the arms of dozens, and finally hundreds of millions of Americans.” strange moment is written, Biden will almost certainly get credit for getting a quarter of the adult population to be vaccinated with at least one injection, and 10% fully vaccinated, in his first few 50 days. After years when the government was denigrated more as an impediment to national greatness than a vehicle for progress, when conspiracy theories about a pernicious “deep state” still abound, he argued on Thursday night that a simple demonstration competence of the government was itself a turning point. “What we don’t know is whether it translates into encouraging people to work in the public service, or at least trusting that the government can do something right,” said Richard Haass, a longtime diplomat and now chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations. / 11, we take on the task of combating global terrorism. After COVID-19, we took on a different task. “It remains to be seen,” he said, “whether now we can also use the moment to lessen the effects of the domestic divide.” This article was originally published in The New York Times. © 2021 The New York Times Company