How the U.S. Messed Up Covid-19 So Badly

Harvard social epidemiologist Nancy Krieger breaks down excess deaths and workplace safety findings

Customers wear face masks to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 as they line up to enter a Costco store on April 16, 2020 in Wheaton, Maryland. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

To call the state of coronavirus affairs in the United States grim feels like the understatement of the year. As the nation rounds the bend on Thanksgiving amid skyrocketing infection rates, we again find ourselves in a protracted moment of anxious chaos, which reliably erupts like clockwork in lieu of a coordinated response to an incredibly severe public health emergency.

The virus has America in its grip in part because we’re an easy target. We have not responded to its ferocity in an organized, national, mandatory, resourced way, as we would in wartime — and make no mistake, this is a kind of war.

The U.S. Is in a Pandemic Freefall. Why Isn’t There a Federal Lockdown?

Instead, we have reacted, often belatedly, in a variety of directions. U.S. border control measures designed to contain the coronavirus at the start were inconsistent at best. As the virus vacillates between erupting and quieting, we observe some states and cities enacting strict measures, others less…