Virus Keeps Refusing to Follow Anyone’s Partisan Script
It ought to be clear, a year into the pandemic, that Covid-19 isn’t fake news and the U.S. isn’t a failed state.
Really?
Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty ImagesCovid-19’s path of destruction has not exempted the pieties about it. People who said it was “just the flu” don’t look wise after nearly 540,000 deaths in the U.S. But “14 days to flatten the curve” didn’t turn out to be prescient either.
The more partisan the narrative, the worse it has fared. Liberals have spent much of the pandemic fretting about red-state irresponsibility. But the four states with the highest percentage of Covid deaths all vote consistently for Democratic presidential candidates. Florida, though a consistent target of progressive criticism, has a death rate well below the national average. Some conservatives, for their part, predicted that we’d stop hearing about the pandemic as soon as the election was over. Instead, the deadliest weeks came after it, and both politicians and the press kept talking about it.