[This piece is based on a prompt: It had to be exactly 26 sentences long, each one beginning with the next letter of the alphabet. One sentence had to be 100 words long. See if you can spot that one.]
Anxiety spread worldwide in early 2020 as a deadly, pernicious, previously unidentified virus infected millions, seemingly overnight. Because we were so ill-prepared, its symptoms caused unprecedented suffering everywhere it landed. Coronavirus, also known as SARS-Cov-2 and coronavirus, became the “global pandemic,” raining death and terror in its wake. Despite the obvious threat, then-President Trump repeatedly downplayed the severity of the virus, then went on to suggest drinking bleach, taking ivermectin, and claiming that the pandemic would “disappear” of its own accord. Eventually, medical science discovered effective treatments and a vaccine that greatly reduced the risk of infection.
For the large majority of Americans, Dr. Anthony Fauci, then the Chief Medical Adviser to the President, ably understood and tried to communicate how science could provide the best opportunities for survival during the worst parts of the crisis—things like masking, social distancing, availing oneself of the vaccines once they became available, and trusting that the experts (immunologists, virologists, epidemiologists, and other medical professionals) had both the knowledge and the best interests of the public in mind when they made recommendations using the most current available data and that the situation, though dire, was fluid, ever-evolving, and, ultimately, finite.
Getting to the point where the virus appeared under control proved elusive. Heroes abounded, in the form of first responders, doctors, nurses, transportation workers, manufacturers, grocery store employees, delivery people and so many more. In every part of the country, regular people stepped up to keep things running. Justice, as usual, took a back seat in terms of the availability of health care and other necessary services. Latinos, African Americans, and other folk who make up the bulk of our underclass, became the most at-risk communities. Mental health was identified as the potential “second wave” of the pandemic; that prediction has proved accurate.
Numbers don’t lie. Other countries suffered devastating losses, but both the number of cases and the number of deaths in the U.S. far exceeded everywhere else, despite the early availability of the vaccines. Paranoia about the supposed dangers of mRNA vaccines gathered steam among right-wing conspiracy theorists, while the facts showed that people who remained unvaccinated were many times more likely to be hospitalized and to die than their vaccinated counterparts. Quickly, the dukes went up on both sides of the “debate,” as the virus raged for two-plus more years. Ridiculous as it may seem, nearly four years later, a sizable, loud minority of people remain staunch anti-vaxers. Some people cannot accept the truth even if the facts belie their well-entrenched belief systems.
Television, radio, and social media companies like Fox News, Newsmax, One News Network, 8chan (home of QAnon), Twitter, and Facebook were largely responsible for the proliferation of these cockamamie theories. Under their delusional spell, Americans accepted absurd claims much the same way they embraced Donald Trump and those of his ilk. Very disappointing doesn’t begin to describe their irrational response to this nonsense. When the history of this epoch is written, the coronavirus pandemic will likely be as notorious as the Black Plague. Exactly when and how this will happen is yet unknown. Years from now, perhaps we will have learned something about ourselves. Zealotry will someday be supplanted by a belief in the power of information; that is my hope.