The COVID-19 pandemic, five years later: A nation more divided and vindictive
'I think we're going to see people coming up with some very creative ideas to remember their friends and family members,' Jones told me.
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Perhaps that happened on an individual basis. But there has never been any national effort to remember the more than 1 million who died from COVID. In fact, as soon as bars and restaurants reopened, concert halls were again packed with music lovers, and
Beyond the obvious tragedies of COVID — people forced to die alone without the comfort of loved ones;
That was already apparent in 2020 when
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These days, much is being said and written about everything the experts got wrong about COVID, especially during those harrowing early months. But I believe this was the biggest mistake — telling people that wearing a mask protected others as well as themselves. What quickly became apparent as people defied mask mandates is that even in a collective, life-threatening crisis, they didn't give a damn about anyone except themselves.
People
COVID altered our national DNA. We are not the same people we were before March 11, 2020. That's due, in large part, to having a president at the start of the pandemic whose only concern was how it would affect his chance at reelection. As Jones told me, 'The most glaring similarity between AIDS and [COVID] is that both pandemics emerged with a president in the White House who did not perceive the gravity of the situation and made light of it.'
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During his two terms in the White House, Ronald Reagan largely ignored AIDS as it mostly ravaged people he and his fellow Republicans disdained, especially within the LGBTQ community.
Now Trump is back in the White House and Elon Musk is gutting institutions that were vital in keeping the public informed about COVID. This administration's indifference to a spreading measles outbreak, which has caused this nation's first death from the disease in a decade, is a sour hint of the medical horrors we may face ahead.
Five years later, COVID continues to reveal a country undone by selfishness, cruelty, and greed. And as devastating as COVID was — and continues to be for many — it's clear that the most dangerous threat wasn't the virus. It was us.
This is an excerpt from
, a Globe Opinion newsletter from columnist Renée Graham.
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Renée Graham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at
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