No petition to sign today.

Instead, I want to recommend a recent article by Ed Yong, who writes for The Atlantic:

“How the Pandemic Defeated America”

This isn’t the first time I’ve shared one of Ed Yong’s articles with you. Over the past seven months, he has been chronicling — in clear, engaging, and unvarnished language — the hows and whys of our nation’s ongoing failures in confronting the coronavirus emergency.

Here are some excerpts from the full article:

I’ve learned that almost everything that went wrong with America’s response to the pandemic was predictable and preventable. A sluggish response by a government denuded of expertise allowed the coronavirus to gain a foothold. Chronic underfunding of public health neutered the nation’s ability to prevent the pathogen’s spread. A bloated, inefficient health-care system left hospitals ill-prepared for the ensuing wave of sickness. Racist policies that have endured since the days of colonization and slavery left Indigenous and Black Americans especially vulnerable to COVID‑19. The decades-long process of shredding the nation’s social safety net forced millions of essential workers in low-paying jobs to risk their life for their livelihood.

To avert another catastrophe, the U.S. needs to grapple with all the ways normal failed us. It needs a full accounting of every recent misstep and foundational sin, every unattended weakness and unheeded warning, every festering wound and reopened scar.

COVID‑19 is an assault on America’s body, and a referendum on the ideas that animate its culture. Recovery is possible, but it demands radical introspection. America would be wise to help reverse the ruination of the natural world, a process that continues to shunt animal diseases into human bodies. It should strive to prevent sickness instead of profiting from it. It should build a health-care system that prizes resilience over brittle efficiency, and an information system that favors light over heat. It should rebuild its international alliances, its social safety net, and its trust in empiricism. It should address the health inequities that flow from its history. Not least, it should elect leaders with sound judgment, high character, and respect for science, logic, and reason.

“Recovery is possible, but it demands radical introspection.”

We won’t get through this crisis if we ignore or accept the ways we have failed so far.

We have to be honest about what has happened.

Then we have to demand better — from politicians and government officials, from corporate leaders and the media, from fellow Americans and even ourselves.

Read the article.

And be ready for more ways to stay informed and take action.

In unity,

- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen

P.S. Public Citizen — like many nonprofits and other small businesses — is feeling the financial strain of the coronavirus emergency. If you can, please consider donating to support the critical work we’re doing together. Thank you.
 
 
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