I did not get everything right about the path of the pandemic, but goddamn did I ever call the general course we’d take in the US.

Here’s what I said on February 29, 2020:

“I suspect Covid-19 will likely reveal America’s true status as the world’s richest Third World nation as we’ll be completely unable to deal with the disease and its consequences. The reasons I assert this is that we have:

• • A horrifically bad health care system that is about profit, not care. Many people simply will not visit a doctor no matter what because they know they cannot afford it.

 

• • Work cultures and workplace tyranny that forces sick people to work, which will cause exponential transmission.

 

• • Neglected agencies staffed by the fearful and the incompetent who will not be given the proper resources and haven’t had good leadership for years.

 

• Inability to impose adequate containment measures because concern with individual rights (metastasizing libertarianism) makes proper quarantine and isolation impossible.”

I hate being right. But it was honestly not that hard to call this one.