geoff: Why the U.S. Fared so
badly during the pandemic,
especially when compared to
similar nations, was supposed to
be one of the many questions
examined by a national covid-19
commission.
But that commission was never
launched.
William brangham talks with the
co-author of a new report out
today that hopes to start that
reckoning.
William: There are still so many
questions about America's
response to covid.
Could the U.S. Have better
contained the virus in the very
early days?
Did so many schools and
businesses have to close for so
long?
Why was America's death toll so
high?
This new investigative report,
from a consortium of public
health and scientific experts,
does credit the fast development
of life-saving vaccines, it also
points to many tragic failures.
One example, it notes that if
the u.s.'s death rate was
similar to other European
nations in the first two years
of the outbreak, an estimated
391,000 Americans wouldn't have
died during that period.
The report is titled "Lessons
from the covid war, an
investigative report."
Phillip zelikow was one of the
leaves on them.
He is currently a professor of
history at the university of
Virginia, and was executive
director of the 9/11 commission.
Welcome back to the newshour.
Phillip: Thanks.
William: Near the top of your
report, you write this was a war
that the U.S. Fought without an
army and without a battle plan.
How is that possible that we did
that?
Phillip: We pass programs.
We appropriate money.
You have science and money but
you don't have preparedness?
Suppose someone comes into the
emergency room and they're
gasping for air you don't know
what to do.
And then someone hands you an
emergency medicine textbook.
Someone says, well here, here's
$10,000 to save this person's
life.
But you really want is telling
me what to do.
And train me to do it.
It give me the tools I need to
do it.
William: And hopefully you spend
that money to buy those supplies
earlier.
Phillip: Yes.
If you're not really ready at
that moment, bad things are
gonna happen in that emergency.
Well, we had a national
emergency.
And we weren't prepared.
A lot of countries were prepared
more than we were.
A lot of countries are organized
for emergencies differently than
we are.
And what was striking to us is
we're the country that prided
ourselves on, we are the
practical problem solvers, we
know how to get things done.
Berlin airlift, Marshall plans,
d-day.
And then here we are, once
again, finding kind of a
collective national incompetence
at practical problem solving.
And so that's why we wrote this
report.
Because we think if people
understand what really happened
from origins to warp speed from
morning to medical
countermeasures, they'll
actually see that this is
fixable.
It doesn't have to be like this.
There's all kinds of low hanging
fruit about ways we could be
better prepared and rebuild
trust in government instead of
losing it.
William: Could you tick through
the particulars?
Are there things he would point
to about testing or data
gathering that you think were
real problems for us?
Phillip: Well, we we were flying
blind all through the pandemic.
Even though we have magnificent
electronic health records and
hospitals and health care
systems, which don't share these
records, even with each other in
a given city.
For proprietary reasons and
regulatory reasons that are
highly fixable, actually.
We flew blind unnecessarily.
China has more gene sequences at
the local level than we take the
-- then we do.
Take the example of testing.
Testing is a really interesting
case.
Everybody's heard the story that
maybe the CDC botched the test.
We didn't have enough tests.
They weren't produced at scale.
But suppose we'd had enough
tests.
Suppose we'd had 10 million
tests in warehouses.
We had no strategy for how to
use the tests to use the tests
for biomedical surveillance.
Do you use them to open up
10,000 drive thru centers so
anxious citizens can find out if
they're sick?
Do you use them for point of
care testing in nursing homes?
Do you use them to help you
reopen schools and make workers
feel safe?
Well, then for every one of
those things, you actually then
ok, how many tests is that need?
Used in what way?
Coordinated with the fda to get
the clearances.
Coordinated with the financing.
Then you see, even if 10 million
tests are in the warehouse, if
you don't have a strategy for
what to do with those tests,
you're gonna fail again.
William: Help me put former
president trump's role in all of
those.
One of your co-authors referred
to him as a "Comorbidity" in
this crisis.
How do you see the former
president's will?
-- Role?
Phillip: Well, a comorbidity is
a condition that increases the
risk of death or illness.
And trump's executive leadership
made things worse.
There is no denying that.
But a key point of our report is
this is not another book, all
about the back and forth and
shouting of the trump
administration.
Because the core problems went
much deeper.
We went into a 21st century
pandemic with a health system
fundamentally designed in the
19th century.
There is no national public
health agency in America, not
really.
We have hundreds of different
state and local entities that
are designed for a different era
for different kinds of problems.
In all sorts of ways we were
just not really ready no matter
who is the president.
William: Your report really
documents this terrible culture
clash that we went through as a
nation, which was this -- to use
bow gross terms -- trust the
science, follow the science,
versus that libertarian open
everything up, get schools,
prioritize the economics of it
all.
You argue that culture clash did
not have to occur, that it was
largely the result of poor
leadership that led us to that
schism.
Explain.
Phillip: That is a great point.
A lot of people think that GE,
-- that gee, everything was so
partisan and polarized that
that's why we failed.
In fact, we show mainly stories,
just the opposite, is because
folks didn't know what to do,
because there was kind of -- I
mean, even the public health
authorities thought they were
just going to be closing things
for a few weeks.
And they had no plan for what to
do after that.
Because folks didn't know what
to do because there was this
void.
Then all the toxic politics
flows in.
That's what invited and then
aggravated the polarization
because then you have people on
each side with their statements
of faith.
Follow the science wasn't really
a guide to what what you need
are practical toolkits to reopen
schools, and make people say we
closed schools much longer than
most other countries in the
world.
Because we never developed the
practical toolkits to reopen
them, which should have been
available probably by the fall
of 2020.
William: This book is full of so
many lessons that we could
implement, low hanging fruit, as
you describe them.
Do you think that there is any
real appetite to do those
things, to fix those things?
Because it does seem, as a
document, neither political
party seems interested in doing
that.
Phillip: You know, one of our
members was telling me that --
she really found rereading the
book empowering.
Because you go into this, you
feel kind of hope that this is
dismal and hopeless, there's
nothing we can do.
You begin to get into a
fatalistic mindset, or just put
this behind us as if this was a
bad storm.
When you read the book, it's
kind of empowering because you
see that there are all of these
things we can do.
I think the reason we're not
doing those things, is because
no one has really done this
analysis.
No one has really shown the way.
It's doable, here's what we can
do, and develop an agenda.
There is no movement, to do
anything to make our health
system stronger, coming out of
the pandemic.
That's not because people don't
care about it.
I think it's because they don't
really know what the public
agenda should be and what to do.
And it's into that void that we
wrote this report with this
tremendous group of people who
join me in doing this work.
William: The report is called
"Lessons from the covid war: An
investigative report."
Great to have you.
Thank you.
Phillip: Thank you.
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