02/15/2025
If every adult in the United States had received two doses of a COVID vaccine by early 2022, rather than just the 64 percent of adults who had, nearly 320,000 lives would have been saved. Vaccines were developed while Donald Trump was president, but he was out of office when they were widely available, Frum writes: “Any benefit from vaccination would redound to Trump’s successor, Joe Biden. Vaccine rejection became a badge of group loyalty, one that ultimately cost many lives.”
Five years of pandemic politics have divided the United States, kneecapped a generation of students, and returned a conspiratorial fringe to power, David Frum writes. What could we have done differently? https://theatln.tc/LWXshXox
If every adult in the United States had received two doses of a COVID vaccine by early 2022, rather than just the 64 percent of adults who had, nearly 320,000 lives would have been saved. Vaccines were developed while Donald Trump was president, but he was out of office when they were widely available, Frum writes: “Any benefit from vaccination would redound to Trump’s successor, Joe Biden. Vaccine rejection became a badge of group loyalty, one that ultimately cost many lives.”
During COVID-19 lockdowns, hundreds of thousands of Americans embraced conspiracies and grew skeptical of experts and the establishment—and experts themselves contributed to this loss of trust, Frum writes. In the beginning of the pandemic, public-health authorities urged against mass outdoor gatherings. However, they abruptly reversed themselves after the murder of George Floyd, when hundreds of thousands of Americans left their homes to protest. “Few, if any, scientists or doctors scolded the attendees—and many politicians joined the protests, including future Vice President Kamala Harris,” Frum writes. “It all raised a suspicion: ‘Maybe the authorities were making the rules based on politics, not science.’”
The politicization of health advice extended to the debates over school closures and how to balance the needs of students against the health risks to teachers. Liberal states decided in favor of the teachers. During the 2020–21 school year, students in states that voted for Trump in the 2020 election had almost twice as much in-person instruction than those in states that voted for Biden. “Students from poor and troubled families, in particular, will continue to pay the cost of these learning losses for years to come.” Frum writes.
“Yet even while acknowledging all that went wrong … we do a dangerous injustice if we remember the story of COVID solely as a story of American failure,” Frum continues. “In truth, the story is one of strength and resilience.”
Read more: https://theatln.tc/LWXshXox
🎨: Ben Hickey
