Bob Schwartz

Remember Covid?

Did you know that the CDC (Center for Disease Control) has a museum and that the museum includes a COVID-19 Timeline?

It is a summary reminder of the calendar of the worst days of the pandemic. At some point that felt like it would never get better or end, even though the worst days took only two years. (“Worst” being relative, since the effects still linger and the disease is now endemic.)

Remember Trump?

When you cross-match Covid and Trump, you find some interesting things.

Trump was first in office during the early days, though even then he demonstrated a known tendency toward absurdity not grounded in reality. For example, his suggestion of injecting bleach as a treatment. We don’t know what would have happened if Trump had been in office during the later worst days, but based on what we know now, we might still be seeing federally-funded bleach injections for a range of diseases.

The big point is that the worst days of Covid are behind us, thanks to scientific advances and to to a large number of citizens willing to treat it as the public health disaster it was. We have used the very human ability to selectively forget and move on, which in proper proportion is a psychically good thing, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of handling the next potential pandemic.

There is no official museum with a Trump Timeline. If the disease of Covid peaked in late 2022, Trump has not peaked yet. He is still with us as a pandemic, though hopefully not endemic. We continue to promote public information and vaccines, which ultimately worked for Covid.

If we had not found a way through the pandemic, the devastation would have been staggering and still ongoing. We will get through this lingering and still uncontrolled disease, if we have the will and find a way.