There’s no great way to mark the exact moment when the pandemic began in the U.S. Was it when the first domestic case of COVID-19 was confirmed? Was it the day when the U.S. Health and Human Services secretary declared SARS-CoV-2 a public health emergency? Or was it when the first death from COVID was reported on U.S. soil?
The best marker may be the day that then-President Donald Trump declared a national emergency – March 13, 2020. It was a Friday, the end of a scary week of news about the alarming spread of the new and deadly coronavirus, and the announcement precipitated a cascade of actions from coast to coast intended to “flatten the curve.” Six days later, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued the nation’s first statewide stay-at-home order.
We wish that the second anniversary of that momentous day in U.S. history had been an occasion to celebrate. Though many restrictions have ended, the pandemic is not over. Tens of thousands of new cases are reported every day, and more than 30,000 Americans are currently hospitalized with serious cases of COVID-19. Nearly 1 million people in this country have died from COVID-19, and more than a thousand continue to die each day. Millions of Americans are struggling with long-term effects of infection.
Still, the latest acute phase of the pandemic seems to be waning. The rate of transmission is dropping and state and federal officials have appropriately turned their attention to planning for the long term. This is essential, because scientists expect COVID-19 to be with us indefinitely.
At this time, as health officials consider whether the disease is moving toward an endemic stage, it’s appropriate to look back at the state and federal response. Not as an exercise in blame – there’s been enough of that over the last two years to fill a book – but a comprehensive, clear-eyed examination similar to that done by the 9/11 commission.