The forgetting is how it happens again.
Five years after COVID-19 reshaped the world, the collective memory of its devastation has grown strangely thin — yet the dead remain counted, and the institutions built to prevent such losses are now being quietly unmade. The United States, home to four percent of humanity, bore sixteen percent of the world's COVID deaths, a disproportion that speaks not to fate but to the choices of those in power. History rarely announces its warnings twice in the same voice, and a nation that has chosen to forget what it survived may find itself unprepared for what comes next.
- A country that lost 1.2 million of its own has largely agreed, in the span of five years, to treat that loss as ancient history — and the man most responsible for its mismanagement has been returned to the presidency.
- During the original crisis, the federal government withheld medical supplies from disfavored governors, promoted treatments now linked to 17,000 deaths, and actively cultivated distrust of science among the very people most in need of protection.
- The institutions that partially buffered the catastrophe — the CDC, NIH, and HHS — are now being systematically dismantled, while mRNA vaccine development for avian flu has been halted mid-preparation.
- Public amnesia has become a political resource: the forgetting of COVID's toll is precisely what makes the current dismantling possible, and what makes the next emergency so much more dangerous.
Five years have passed since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, and the memory has grown strangely distant. Yet the numbers do not fade: 1.2 million Americans dead, over seven million worldwide, millions more left with lingering illness. Hospitals overwhelmed. Morgues beyond capacity. An economy seized in place.
What made the American experience uniquely devastating was not the virus but the response to it. With four percent of the world's population, the United States absorbed sixteen percent of its COVID deaths — a disproportion born not of misfortune but of misgovernance. From the earliest weeks, the Trump administration proved unable to manage basic logistics, and what followed was not mere incompetence but something more deliberate. Trump downplayed the threat because he understood it endangered his reelection. He mocked masks, ignored distancing guidance, and weaponized medical supplies against governors who failed to flatter him. He promoted unproven treatments now linked to at least 17,000 deaths, and so thoroughly eroded trust in science among his supporters that when vaccines finally arrived, his own base refused them.
All of this unfolded while functioning institutions still existed — a CDC, an NIH, an HHS, and working relationships with the world's scientific community. The infrastructure was there. The expertise was present. What was absent was a president willing to use it.
Now that same president has returned to office and is methodically dismantling what remains. The CDC is being gutted. The NIH hollowed out. The HHS remade. And contracts for mRNA vaccine development targeting a potential avian flu pandemic — the kind of crisis that could arrive without warning — have been quietly suspended.
The pandemic has slipped from public consciousness like a bad dream the nation has collectively agreed to release. But forgetting carries a cost. The political culture is more fractured than before, divided in large part because the man who led the emergency chose reelection over lives. Restored to power by voters who appear to have set that history aside, he is now dismantling the protections that would matter most if history decides to repeat itself.
Five years have passed since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, and the memory of it has become strangely distant—as if those years happened to someone else, in another country, in another lifetime. Yet the numbers remain: 1.2 million Americans dead, over seven million worldwide. The virus left millions more with lingering illnesses whose causes scientists are still working to understand. Hospitals filled beyond capacity. Morgues overwhelmed. The global economy seized up in March 2020, and unemployment spiked as supply chains fractured across the world.
What made the American experience particularly devastating was not the virus itself but the response to it. The United States, with four percent of the world's population, accounted for sixteen percent of global COVID deaths—a disproportion that reflected not bad luck but bad leadership. In the early weeks, as the crisis accelerated, the federal government under Donald Trump proved incapable of managing even basic logistics. Trump visited the Centers for Disease Control in Georgia and declared himself a natural genius at medicine, musing aloud that he might have made a better virologist than president. Two days later, when the WHO made its official pandemic announcement, Tom Hanks announced he had contracted the virus, the NBA suspended play, and Dr. Anthony Fauci warned Congress that millions could die. Trump's response was to announce a travel ban from Europe—poorly drafted, repeatedly walked back, and the beginning of what would become a catastrophic mishandling of the crisis.
What followed was not incompetence alone but something more deliberate. Trump downplayed the threat because he understood it threatened his reelection. He wanted to "keep his numbers down." He mocked masks and those who wore them. He ignored social distancing guidance because his business associates told him it hurt the economy. When Democratic-led states suffered the worst death tolls in the first wave, he weaponized medical supplies, withholding ventilators and protective equipment from governors who failed to praise him adequately. He pushed unproven treatments on television—remedies now linked to at least 17,000 deaths. He encouraged his supporters to distrust scientists and embrace conspiracy theories. By the time vaccines arrived, he had so thoroughly poisoned the well that his own voters rejected them, denying him the political victory he craved.
All of this occurred while the federal government still had functioning institutions: a CDC, an NIH, an HHS, and cooperative relationships with the world's leading scientific bodies. The infrastructure existed. The expertise was there. The only missing ingredient was a president willing to use it.
Now that same president is back in office, and he is systematically dismantling the very institutions that, however imperfectly, stood between the country and catastrophe last time. The CDC is being gutted. The NIH is being hollowed out. The HHS is being remade in his image. And while he does this, his administration is "reevaluating" contracts for mRNA vaccine development for a potential avian flu pandemic—the kind of crisis that could arrive tomorrow, or next year, with no warning.
The pandemic has slipped so thoroughly from public consciousness that it feels almost unreal now, a bad dream we've collectively agreed to forget. But forgetting has a cost. The political culture is more fractured than before, divided largely because the man in charge during the emergency cared more about his reelection than about saving lives. And that same man, restored to power by voters who seem to have forgotten what he did, is now tearing apart the institutions designed to protect them if it happens again. If another pandemic comes, it will be a hundred times worse.
Notable Quotes
Trump declared himself a natural genius at medicine during a CDC visit, suggesting he might have made a better virologist than president.— Trump, March 2020
Dr. Anthony Fauci warned Congress that the pandemic could result in 'many, many millions' of deaths.— Dr. Anthony Fauci, March 2020
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does it matter that people have forgotten about COVID? It happened. It's over.
Because the forgetting is how it happens again. If people remember what went wrong—the deaths, the chaos, the way politics poisoned the response—they might demand better. But if it's gone from memory, there's no pressure to keep the institutions that could prevent it.
But the institutions are still there, aren't they? The CDC, the NIH?
They are, but they're being dismantled right now. Staffing is being cut, leadership is being replaced with loyalists, funding is being redirected. The infrastructure exists in name only.
What would a pandemic look like under these conditions?
Worse. Much worse. Last time, despite Trump's sabotage, there were still career scientists, still institutional knowledge, still some resistance to the worst impulses. This time, there's less of all of that. The people in charge now have already shown they don't believe in the science.
Is there any reason to think it won't happen again?
No. Pandemics are not rare events. They're inevitable. The only question is when, not if. And when it comes, the country will be less prepared than it was in 2020.