WHY THE COVID DENIERS WON
Lessons from the pandemic and its aftermath(by David Frum, a
staff writer at the Atlantic)
Five years ago, the coronavirus pandemic ==struck a bitterly
divided society== .
Americans first ==diverged over== how dangerous the disease
was: just a flu (as President Donald Trump repeatedly insisted) or
something much deadlier.
Then they ==disputed== public-health measures such as
==lockdowns== and masking; a majority ==complied==
while a passionate minority fiercely resisted.
Finally, they split—and have remained split—over the value and safety
of COVID-19 vaccines. Anti-vaccine beliefs ==started on the
fringe== , but they spread to the point where Ron DeSantis, the
governor of the country’s third-most- ==populous== state,
launched a campaign for president on an appeal to anti-vaccine
ideology.
Five years later, one side has seemingly triumphed. The winner is not
the side that initially prevailed, the side of public safety. The winner
is the side that minimized the disease, then rejected publichealth
measures to prevent its spread, and finally refused the vaccines
designed to protect against its worst effects.
Ahead of COVID ’s fifth anniversary, Trump, as president-elect,
nominated the country’s most ==outspoken== vaccination opponent
to ==head== the Department of Health and Human Services. He
chose a ==proponent== of the ==debunked== and
==discredited== vaccines-cause-autism claim to lead the CDC. He
named a ==strident== critic of COVID-vaccine
==mandates== to lead the FDA. For surgeon general, he picked a
believer in hydroxychloroquine, the ==disproven== COVID-19
remedy. His pick for director of the National Institutes of Health had
advocated for letting COVID spread unchecked to encourage ==herd
immunity== . Despite having ==fast-tracked== the develop
ment of the vaccines as president, Trump has himself
==trafficked== in many forms of COVID-19 denial, and has
expressed his own suspicions that childhood vaccination against
==measles== and ==mumps== is a cause of
==autism== .
The ==ascendancy== of the anti-vaxxers may ultimately prove
==fleeting== . But if the forces of science and health are to
==stage a comeback== , it’s important to understand why those
forces have ==gone into eclipse==
From March 2020 to February 2022, about 1 million
Americans died of COVID-19. Many of those deaths occurred after vaccines
became available. 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.
Why did so many Americans resist vaccines? Perhaps the biggest reason
was that the pandemic ==coincided== with a
presidential-election year, and Trump instantly recognized the crisis as
a threat to his chances for re-election. He responded by denying the
seriousness of the pandemic, promising that the disease would rapidly
disappear on its own, and promoting ==quack== cures.
The COVID-19 vaccines were developed while Trump was president. They
could have been advertised as a Trump achievement. But by the time they
became widely available, Trump was out of office. His supporters had
already made up their minds to distrust the public-health authorities
that promoted the vaccines. Now they had an additional
==incentive== : 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.
A summer 2023 study by Yale researchers of voters in Florida and Ohio
found that during the early phase of the pandemic, self-identified
Republicans died at only a slightly higher rate than self-identified
Democrats in the same age range. But once vaccines were introduced,
Republicans became much more likely to die than Democrats. In the spring
of 2021, the excess-death rate among Florida and Ohio Republicans was 43
percent higher than among Florida and Ohio Democrats in the same age
range. By the late winter of 2023, the 300-odd most pro-Trump counties
in the country had a COVID-19 death rate more than two and a half times
higher than the 300 or so most anti-Trump counties.
In 2016, Trump had boasted that he could shoot a man on Fifth Avenue
and not lose any votes. In 2021 and 2022, his most ==fervent==
supporters risked death to prove their loyalty to Trump and his
==cause== .
Why did political ==fidelity== express
itself in such selfharming ways?
The ==onset== of the pandemic was an unusually confusing and
==disorienting== event. Some people who got COVID died. Others
lived. Some suffered only mild symptoms. Others spent weeks on
==ventilators== , or ==emerged== with long COVID and
never fully recovered. Some lost businesses built over a lifetime.
Others refinanced their homes with 2 percent interest rates and banked
the savings.
We live in an ==impersonal== universe, indifferent to our
hopes and wishes, subject to extreme randomness. We don’t like this at
all. We crave satisfying explanations. We want to believe that somebody
is ==in control== , even if it’s somebody we don’t like. At
least that way, we can blame bad events on bad people. This is the
eternal appeal of ==conspiracy theories== . How did this
happen? Somebody must have done it— but who? And why?
==Compounding== the ==disorientation== , the
coronavirus outbreak was a rapidly changing story. The scientists who
researched COVID-19 knew more in April 2020 than they did in February;
more in August than in April; more in 2021 than in 2020; more in 2022
than in 2021. The official advice kept changing: Stay inside—no, go
outside. Wash your hands—no, mask your face. Some Americans
appreciated and accepted that knowledge improves ==over time==
, that more will be known about a new disease in ==month two==
than in ==month one== . But not all Americans saw the world
that way. They mistrusted the idea of knowledge as a developing process.
Such Americans wondered: Were they lying before? Or are they lying
now?
In a different era, Americans might have ==deferred== more
to medical authority. The internet has upended old ideas of what should
count as authority and who possesses it. The pandemic reduced normal
human interactions. Severed from one another, Americans deepened their
para social attachment to social-media platforms, which
==foment== alienation and rage. Hundreds of thousands of people
plunged into ==an alternate mental universe== during COVID-19
lockdowns. When their doors reopened, the ==mania== did not
==recede== . Conspiracies and mistrust of the
establishment—never strangers to the American mind—had been nourished,
and they grew.
The experts themselves contributed to this loss of
trust.
It’s now agreed that we had little to fear from going outside in
dispersed groups. But that was not the state of knowledge in the spring
of 2020. At the time, medical experts insisted that any kind of mass
outdoor event must be sacrificed to the ==imperatives== of the
emergency. In mid-March 2020, federal public-health authorities shut
down some of Florida’s beaches. In California, surfers faced heavy fines
for ==venturing== into the ocean. Even the COVID-skeptical
Trump White House reluctantly canceled the April 2020 Easteregg
roll.
And then the experts abruptly reversed themselves. When George Floyd
was choked to death by a Minneapolis police officer on May 25, 2020,
hundreds of thousands of Americans left their homes to protest,
==defying== three months of ==urgings== to avoid large
gatherings of all kinds, outdoor as well as indoor.
On May 29, the American Public Health Association issued a statement
that proclaimed racism a public-health crisis while
==conspicuously== refusing to condemn the sudden
==defiance== of public-safety rules.
The next few weeks saw the largest mass protests in recent U.S.
history. Approximately 15 million to 26 million people attended outdoor
Black Lives Matter events in June 2020, according to a series of
reputable ==polls== . Few, if any, scientists or doctors
scolded the attendences—and many politicians joined the protests,
including future Vice President Kamala Harris. It all raised a
suspicion: Maybe the authorities were making the rules based on
politics, not science.
The ==politicization== of health advice became even more
==consequential== as the summer of 2020 ended. Most American
public schools had closed in March. “At their peak,” Education
Week reported, “the closures affected at least 55.1 million students in
124,000 U.S. public and private schools.” By September, it was already
apparent that COVID-19 posed relatively little risk to children and
teenagers, and that remote learning did not work. At the same time,
returning to the classroom before vaccines were available could pose
some risk to teachers’ health—and possibly also to the health of the
adults to whom the children returned after school.
How to balance these concerns given the ==imperfect==
information? Liberal states decided in favor of the teachers. In
California, the majority of students did not return to in-person
learning until the fall of 2021. New Jersey kept many of its public
schools closed until then as well. Similar things happened in many other
states: Illinois, Maryland, New York, and so on, through the states that
voted Democratic in November 2020.
Florida, by contrast, reopened most schools in the fall of 2020.
Texas soon followed, as did most other Republican-governed states. The
COVID risk for students, it turned out, was minimal: According to a 2021
CDC study, less than 1 percent of Florida students
==contracted== COVID-19 in school settings from August to
December 2020 after their state restarted in-person learning. Over the
2020–21 school year, students in states that voted for Trump in the 2020
election got an average of almost twice as much ==inperson==
instruction as students in states that voted for Biden.
Any risks to teachers and school staff could have been
==mitigated== by the universal vaccination of those groups. But
deep into the fall of 2021, thousands of blue-state teachers and staff
resisted vaccine mandates— including more than 5,000 in Chicago alone.
By then, another school year had been interrupted by closures.
BY DISPARAGING public-health methods and
==discrediting== vaccines, the COVID-19 ==minimizers==
cost hundreds of thousands of people their lives. By keeping schools
closed longer than absolutely necessary, the COVID maximizers hazarded
the futures of young Americans.
Students from poor and troubled families, in particular, will
continue to pay the cost of these learning losses for years to come.
Even in liberal states, many private schools reopened for in-person
instruction in the fall of 2020. The ==affluent== and ==the
connected== could buy their children a continuing education
unavailable to those who depended on public schools. Many lower-income
students did not return to the classroom: Throughout the 2022–23 school
year, poorer school districts reported much higher
==absenteeism== rates than were seen before the pandemic.
Teens absent from school typically get into trouble in ways that are
even more damaging than the loss of math or reading skills. New York
City arrested 25 percent more minors for serious crimes in 2024 than in
2018. The national trend was similar, if less stark. The FBI reports
that although crime in general declined in 2023 compared with 2022,
crimes by minors rose by nearly 10 percent.
People who finish schooling during a recession tend to do worse even
into middle age than those who finish in times of prosperity. They are
less likely to marry, less likely to have children, and more likely to
die early. The ==disparity== between those who finish in lucky
years and those who finish in unlucky years is greatest for people with
the least formal education.
Will the harms of COVID prove equally enduring? We won’t know for
some time. But if past experience holds, the COVID-19 years will mark
their most ==vulnerable== victims for decades.
THE STORY OF COVID can be told as one of shocks and
disturbances that wrecked two presidencies. In 2020 and 2024,
==incumbent== administrations lost elections back-to back,
something that hadn’t happened since the deep economic depression of the
late 1880s and early 1890s. The pandemic caused a recession as steep as
any in U.S. history. The aftermath saw the worst inflation in half a
century.
In the three years from January 2020 through December 2022, Trump and
Biden both signed a series of major bills to revive and rebuild the U.S.
economy. Altogether, they swelled the gross public debt from about $20
billion in January 2017 to nearly $36 billion today. The weight of that
debt helped drive interest rates and mortgage rates higher. The burden
of the pandemic debt, like learning losses, is likely to be with us for
quite a long time.
Yet even while acknowledging all that went wrong, respecting all the
lives lost or ruined, reckoning with all the lasting harms of the crisis
, we do a dangerous ==injustice== if we remember the story of
COVID solely as a story of American failure. In truth, the story is one
of strength and ==resilience== .
Scientists did deliver vaccines to prevent the disease and treatments
to recover from it. Economic policy did avert a global depression and
did rapidly restore economic growth. Government assistance kept
households afloat when the world shut down— and new remote-work
practices enabled new patterns of freedom and happiness after the
pandemic ended.
The virus was first detected in December 2019. Its
==genome== was sequenced within days by scientists
collaborating across inter national borders. Clinical trials for the
Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine began in April 2020, and the vaccine was
authorized for emergency use by the FDA in December. Additional vaccines
rapidly followed, and were universally available by the spring of 2021.
The weekly death ==toll== fell by more than 90 percent from
January 2021 to midsummer of that year.
The U.S. economy roared back with a strength and power that
==stunned== the world. The initial ==spike== of
inflation has ==subsided== . Wages are again rising faster than
prices. Growth in the United States in 2023 and 2024 was faster and
broader than in any peer economy.
Even more ==startling== , the U.S. recovery
==outpaced== China’s. That nation’s ==bounceback==
from COVID-19 has been slow and ==faltering== . America’s
economic lead over China, once thought to be narrowing, has suddenly
widened; the gap between the two countries’ GDPs grew from $5 trillion
in 2021 to nearly $10 trillion in 2023. The U.S. share of world economic
output is now slightly higher than it was in 1980, before China began
any of its economic reforms. As he did in 2016, Trump
==inherits== a strong and healthy economy, to which his own
==reckless== policies— notably, his trade protectionism—are the
only visible threat.
In public affairs, our bias is usually to pay most attention to
disappointments and mistakes. In the pandemic, there were many errors:
the partisan ==dogma== of the COVID minimizers; the
==capitulation== of states and ==municipalities== to
favored interest groups; the hypo chondria and neuroticism of some COVID
maximizers. Errors need to be studied and the lessons
==heeded== if we are to do better next time. But if we fail to
acknowledge America’s successes—even partial and imperfect successes— we
not only do an injustice to the American people. We also defeat in
advance their confidence to collectively meet the crises of
tomorrow.
Perhaps it’s time for some national self-forgiveness here. Perhaps
it’s time to accept that despite all that went wrong, despite how much
there was to learn about the disease and how little time there was to
learn it, and despite polarized politics and an ==unruly==
national character—despite all of that—Americans collectively met the
COVID-19 emergency about as well as could reasonably have been
hoped.
The wrong people have profited from the immediate aftermath. But if
we remember the pandemic accurately, the future will belong to those who
rose to the crisis when their country needed them
Vocabulary, Phrases and
Sentences
| Word |
Chinese Definition |
Phonetic Symbol |
| strike a bitterly divided society |
引发一个严重分裂的社会 |
|
| diverge over |
在……上产生分歧 |
|
| dispute |
争论；争议 |
/dɪˈspjuːt/ |
| lockdowns |
封锁 |
|
| comply |
遵守 |
/kəmˈplaɪ/ |
| start on the fringe |
从边缘开始 |
|
| populous |
人口众多的 |
/ˈpɒpjələs/ |
| outspoken |
直言不讳的 |
/ˌaʊtˈspəʊkən/ |
| proponent |
支持者；拥护者 |
/prəˈpəʊnənt/ |
| debunk |
揭穿；揭露 |
/diːˈbʌŋk/ |
| discredit |
诋毁；使不可信 |
/dɪsˈkredɪt/ |
| strident |
尖锐的；刺耳的 |
/ˈstraɪdənt/ |
| mandate |
授权；命令 |
/ˈmændeɪt/ |
| herd immunity |
群体免疫 |
|
| fast-tracked |
快速推进的 |
|
| traffick |
非法交易；贩卖 |
/ˈtræfɪk/ |
| disprove |
证明……错误；反驳 |
/ˌdɪsˈpruːv/ |
| measles |
麻疹 |
/ˈmiːzlz/ |
| mumps |
腮腺炎 |
/ˈmʌmps/ |
| autism |
自闭症 |
/ˈɔːtɪzəm/ |
| ascendancy |
优势；支配地位 |
/əˈsendənsi/ |
| fleeting |
短暂的；飞逝的 |
/ˈfliːtɪŋ/ |
| stage a comeback |
卷土重来 |
|
| go into eclipse |
失势；黯然失色 |
|
| coincide |
同时发生；相符 |
/ˌkəʊɪnˈsaɪd/ |
| quack |
江湖郎中；庸医 |
/kwæk/ |
| incentive |
激励；动机 |
/ɪnˈsentɪv/ |
| redound |
产生某种结果；有助于 |
/rɪˈdaʊnd/ |
| fervent |
热烈的；热情的 |
/ˈfɜːvənt/ |
| cause |
原因；事业；使发生 |
/kɔːz/ |
| fidelity |
忠诚；忠实 |
/fɪˈdeləti/ |
| onset |
开始；发作 |
/ˈɒnset/ |
| disorienting |
使人迷失方向的 |
|
| ventilator |
呼吸机 |
/ˈventɪleɪtə(r)/ |
| emerge with long COVID |
出现长期新冠症状 |
|
| impersonal |
客观的；非个人的 |
/ɪmˈpɜːsənl/ |
| somebody is in control |
某人掌控着局面 |
|
| conspiracy theory |
阴谋论 |
|
| compounding the disorientation |
加剧迷失方向感 |
|
| month two |
第二个月 |
|
| month one |
第一个月 |
|
| defer |
推迟；延期 |
/dɪˈfɜː(r)/ |
| foment |
煽动；挑起 |
/fəʊˈment/ |
| an alternative mental universe |
另一个精神世界 |
|
| mania |
狂热；躁狂症 |
/ˈmeɪniə/ |
| recede |
后退；减弱 |
/rɪˈsiːd/ |
| imperatives |
必要的事；紧急的事 |
/ɪmˈperətɪvz/ |
| defy |
违抗；无视 |
/dɪˈfaɪ/ |
| conspicuously |
明显地；引人注目地 |
/kənˈspɪkjuəsli/ |
| defiance |
违抗；蔑视 |
/dɪˈfaɪəns/ |
| poll |
民意调查；投票 |
/pəʊl/ |
| politicization |
政治化 |
|
| consequential |
重要的；有重大影响的 |
/ˌkɒnsɪˈkwenʃl/ |
| contract |
合同；契约；感染；收缩 |
/ˈkɒntrækt/ /kənˈtrækt/ |
| imperson |
这个拼写有误，可能是intense（强烈的；紧张的），音标为/ɪnˈtens/ |
|
| affluent |
富裕的；富足的 |
/ˈæfluənt/ |
| absenteesim |
旷工；旷课 |
|
| disparity |
差异；悬殊 |
/dɪˈspærəti/ |
| vulnerable |
脆弱的；易受伤害的 |
/ˈvʌlnərəbl/ |
| incumbent |
在职者；现任者 |
/ɪnˈkʌmbənt/ |
| injustice |
不公正；不公平 |
/ɪnˈdʒʌstɪs/ |
| resilience |
适应力；复原力 |
/rɪˈzɪliəns/ |
| genome |
基因组 |
/ˈdʒiːnəʊm/ |
| toll |
伤亡人数；损失；钟声 |
/təʊl/ |
| stun |
使震惊；使昏迷 |
/stʌn/ |
| spike |
尖峰；激增；长钉 |
/spaɪk/ |
| subside |
平息；减退 |
/səbˈsaɪd/ |
| startle |
使惊吓；使吃惊 |
/ˈstɑːtl/ |
| outpace |
超过；比……快 |
/ˌaʊtˈpeɪs/ |
| bounceback |
反弹；恢复 |
|
| falter |
犹豫；蹒跚；衰退 |
/ˈfɔːltə(r)/ |
| inherit |
继承；遗传 |
/ɪnˈherɪt/ |
| reckless |
鲁莽的；不顾后果的 |
/ˈrekləs/ |
| dogma |
教条；教义 |
/ˈdɒgmə/ |
| capitulation |
投降；屈服 |
/kəˌpɪtʃuˈleɪʃn/ |
| municipality |
市政当局；自治市 |
/ˌmjuːnɪˈsɪpələti/ |
| heed |
注意；听从 |
/hiːd/ |
| unruly |
难以控制的；不守规矩的 |
/ʌnˈruːli/ |
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