The US Needs a 9/11 Commission for Covid
In the first year of the pandemic, leaders badly fumbled. We need a nonpartisan investigation into how things went so wrong.
It was not the start of a beautiful friendship.
Photographer: Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesDuring the third week of March 2020, with little public debate and less warning, Americans were told to stay in their homes indefinitely as Covid cases climbed. There were only a few days between bland reassurances and lockdown orders — just enough time to go panic shopping for toilet paper.
The first pandemic year represents a crisis distinct from the period after vaccines became widely available. Congress should establish something like the 9/11 Commission — independent and bipartisan — to reexamine why our early response was so disruptive and yet so ineffective. A report issued in time for next year’s anniversary of the start of the pandemic might identify weaknesses in the country’s general inability to deal with the next crisis, whatever that entails.