Who had it worst during the corona virus pandemic, or ended up worse off as a result? First off, let’s exclude the millions of people who died. Some were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, some just had terrible genetic luck (the virus seemed to target them directly regardless of their overall health), some had comorbidities that made them especailly vulnerable, and some fell victim to overcrowded hospitals or treatments which ultimately proved counter-productive. They weren’t “losers,” they were victims. I like the way comedian Norm MacDonald (who died from cancer last year) corrected the phrase that someone “lost a battle with cancer.” He said that was BS; you die, but so does your cancer. “That, to me, is not a loss. That’s a draw,” and he was right!
So here’s my list of corona virus losers:
(1) #1 with a bullet, as they say, is Donald Trump. This is a no-brainer. Whatever yout think of the man or of his presidency, he was riding a wave toward re-election. Yes, he continued to tweet and do outrageous things. But the economy was humming, the working poor were registering unprecedented gains in income relative to the wealthy, the long-running refugee flow across the southwest border had been slowed to a trickle (albeit by brutal methods), and even his forays into international policy hadn’t stumbled America into any new wars. A non-pandemic match-up against Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden would have been a lopsided win for Trump. Now the pandemic didn’t have to be a disaster for Trump, but it played on all his worst traits and exaggerated his worst tendencies. Having to rely on experts? Being told exactly what to say and when to say it? Throttling the economy with health restrictions? Sitting quietly through long public answers by people who work for him? Not being the center of attention? Avoiding going off half-cocked on new treatments or drugs? Trump was singularly unprepared for such a role and failed miserably, still almost eking out a win against a weak opponent.
(2) American Media. Perhaps this is related to the Biggest Loser, above, but the US media served horribly during the pandemic. They often fed the counternarrative battle that raged over everything Tump said or did, blindly going to the opposite extreme. Media in general were already held in low regard, but media performance during the pandemic only solidified their low position. The US media routinely understated the uncertainty involved in scientific efforts (vaccine efficacy, side effects, mortality rates, etc.,) and emphasized negative news, at least until the political situation changed. Foreign media sources were far more balanced and did a better job of handling uncertainty and avoiding politicization.
(3) Bureaucrats. Bureaucracy developed to bring standards and norms to the everyday operations of large organizations and governments. So it might be unfair to grade bureaucracy poorly for how it responded to an abnormal situation. But it still remains the case that during a crisis like a pandemic, the public requires some sense of normalcy and some level of competence despite the uncertainty; here is where the bureaucrats failed. The European Union couldn’t bring itself to indemnify vaccine manufacturers and ended up last in line for the drugs. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) completely mucked up the initial covid tests then failed to quickly fix them, leaving the country without a critical tool at a critical moment. Much of their messaging was also weak and featured walk-backs, reversals, and flat out denials. It was so bad that Dr. Rachel Wallensky, the CDC director, has initiated a review to fix “some pretty dramatic, pretty public mistakes.”
(4) Expert Opinion Leaders. You might think a fast-moving pandemic would be the kind of situation where experts and talking heads would tread carefully; you would be wrong. Time and again, opinion leaders got out ahead of the science or the policy or the facts and got into trouble. Some like Dr. Anthony Fauci just got too much exposure. It is a rule of public appearance that you cannot get that level of exposure over time without making mistakes. He started to opine on things like shutting down airlines or closing schools that were complex matters beyond the science or medical realm, yet he felt comfortable giving an opinion. He is an expert, but became over-exposed, then responded to off-base critics by increasing his exposure. A pandemic requires understated, calm expertise . . . with an emphasis on understated. In policy matters (and the pandemic in the end was a policy matter), you should never become the story.
(5) Teachers’ Unions. Wait just a minute, put down those rulers and listen to my argument! I am only calling out the unions here. They have always held that public education is not only a right, it is essential to our nation. Then the pandemic hit, and scrambled our education system. After a short while, data became evident that schools weren’t the cause of outbreaks (in general) and could operate safely with social-distancing rules. But the unions dug in, refusing to cooperate and making a series of demands on pay, facilities, and student-teacher ratios among other things, effectively refusing to reopen some schools for two years. It wasn’t that some of their demands weren’t legitimate; they were. It wasn’t that conservatives hadn’t been complaining about the teachers and the curriculum for years; they had. It wasn’t that some students and some teachers would get sick; they did. It was an “in-your-face” refusal despite the science and the parents and even the local governments’ cries to reopen. Nothing would get back to normal without normal schools. Unions stood in the way of that, and it brought about a sustained drop in public school rolls, greater parental activism, and a general disdain. Imagine you’re a trashman who gets told he has to work because he is “essential,” but also gets told to find care for his kids since schools are “unsafe.” All the while, schools in other countries and private schools in America kept running. So much for “essential to our nation.”
(6) Of course, the other related group which lost even more was students. The preliminary data are in, and they’re all bad. Students did not advance during the remote learning phase, and in many cases they regressed. The psychological development of an entire generation was deformed, and little can be done to fix that as it is a delay in development. Teachers at all levels point to increased truancy, inattentiveness, lack of motivation, and loss of social skills. We will be paying for this mistake for decades to come.
(7) Enthusiasts for globalist economics, like those who cheered for sending manufacturing jobs to China or Southeast Asia, or the streamlining (to the extreme) of the supply chains. Among economists, there has always been the understanding that there are some national security issues where you just don’t rely on the market for solutions (one doesn’t hire up a Seal Team on demand). Over time, those exceptions got whittled down to the bare bones: mostly the military hardware you use to kill people and break things. The pandemic was a reminder that even the computer chips we needed were at risk, as was much else. I trust we will reinvigorate domestic or regional agreements which give us greater resilience across the full spectrum of national security (e.g., public health).
(8) Bosses. First they had to deal with shutdowns. Then they had to figure how to manage “work from home.” I contend it was easier to figure out how to “work from home” then it was to manage someone who is “working from home” but I am open to counterarguments. Then they faced resistance to resuming office operations, because who wants to go back to the water cooler when you can be comfy in a dress shirt-and-shorts for your Zoom meeting? Now they are bombarded with demands for raises and more flexible work environments, with seasoned employees quite willing to take their skills out on the market. Some of these trends were already underway, but mostly bosses were resisting them rather than adapting to them (in my opinion). Then they faced a massive transition in a short time. Tough-sledding, but that’s why they get paid the big bucks, right?
(9) I am going out on a limb here and putting China in the losers’ camp. Some may think “wait, I thought they beat this thing early and often.” That is true in that that is what they say, and what they want you to think. It is also what the Chinese government wants its people to think. The problem is, the truth is out there, as they used to say on the X-Files, and the Chinese people know it. They got lied to. People who spoke up are missing. People died from Covid without being accounted for. The pandemic is still recurring in China due to low vaccination rates, poor vaccine efficacy, and low herd immunity. And the Chinese government continues to lockdown entire megacities as its main tactic. Worst of all, China’s leadership crows about their superior performance and how much better their authoritative system did. Which is to say they learned nothing from their many, disastrous mistakes. Meanwhile, the pandemic caused the roaring growth they rely on to placate the masses to falter, the health system failed, they clamped down on their golden goose technology firms (Alibaba, Tencent, Didi, which may not be household names in the West, but rival Apple, Meta, Amazon, etc.) for political control, the overbuilt real estate market remains a tilting house of cards, and they just figured out their population is already decreasing with only an accelerating decline in sight. China’s claimed Covid success is already one of the biggest shams of the 21st Century.
Next up, who are the winners coming out of the pandemic?