In the two years since the first known COVID-19-related death occurred in the United States, Americans have relentlessly argued about masks, school closings, business restrictions and vaccinations – with personal politics often determining where one stands.
The most important constant, however, has been a virus that pays no heed to political bickering or anti-vaccine fanaticism. Two years into the deadliest pandemic in a century, more than 2,200 Americans are dying daily from COVID-19, giving the United States a sharply higher death rate than other wealthy nations. The overwhelming majority of the deaths were unvaccinated people.
In this episode of History As It Happens, historian John Barry discusses what Americans, from political leaders to public health authorities and ordinary citizens, got right and what they got wrong about the pandemic, as the spread of the highly transmissible omicron variant begins to subside in some parts of the country.
“There will continue to be variants. The only certain thing is that any future variant will be able to evade the immune system, or it won’t be able to exist,” Mr. Barry said.
The author of “The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History,” which details the 1918 outbreak that claimed about 50 million lives worldwide, cautioned against complacency while acknowledging most people are exhausted by the drain of the past two years.
“If you look back historically, everybody says there were three waves of the 1918 pandemic. That’s because everybody in 1919 said it’s over, I’m done with it, I’m tired, it’s gone. The reality is, there was in 1920 another wave that was quite deadly. In some cities – Detroit, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Milwaukee – it was actually the deadliest few weeks of the entire two-year period,” Mr. Barry said.
To listen to the full interview with Mr. Barry about what we’ve learned from two years of COVID, download this episode of History As It Happens.
