COVID-19 and American Identity

America isn’t perfect. We never have been. But America is the pursuit of perfection.

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75

As a nation, we faced a brutal enemy together this year—one that started on the other side of the world and infected us on our own soil. One that left unprecedented economic damage in its wake. One that still continues to roil our country. One that bludgeoned my own family this year.

My wife Apoorva and I had our first baby, a son, in late February, right before the peak of the pandemic. She’s a doctor, and she skipped a normal maternity leave to treat patients at the hospital during the pandemic. She helped a lot of people, but she was ultimately infected. This meant she would have to be separated from our baby son for more than two months this spring. It crushed her to see our infant son on video chats, and not to be able to hold him in her arms. That’s real hardship—just like the hardships endured by thousands of healthcare workers and millions of hard-working Americans this year.

Seven months into a tough year, and with COVID-19 cases and deaths climbing again, it’s a good test to answer who we are as Americans. Are we survivors? Or are we victims?

The fundamental mistake made by some members of the political left is to think of hardship as “victimhood.”It’s not. Hardship is what reminds us of who we are. Victimhood is the choice that prevents us from overcoming it. Going through hardship and emerging stronger from it is the essence of what it means to be an American.

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  3. rktect

    Was laughing my way through these comments.
    Given the politicized nature of COVID, in which every aspect of the disease and response is parsed into “us” versus “them,” it shouldn’t be a surprise to read that “no liberals” oppose mask wearing. Try this: Google “Minneapolis protests” and look at the photos. You’ll see plenty “liberals” not wearing masks in crowded conditions with their mouths stretched open. According to science, COVID is present at Trump rallies and Bob's BBQ, but not protests against police.

    I despise Trump, and always have, but give me a break. He’s been completely incoherent on COVID, but if you don’t see how the left is politicizing this at least as much as the right you are willfully blind. Someone said Cuomo is unpopular, but his latest ratings are high – for managing New York into the largest caseload and highest death rate in the country by a huge margin. The states in the country with the highest incidence and death rates are blue, but so what? They’re not contracting the disease because they’re Democrats. But at the same time, if “no liberal” objects to masks, and masks are the answer, why does it fall out this way? If a state is “red” does that mean everyone in it spreading COVID is a Trump sycophant? The hotspots in Texas include Harris County (Houston) – run primarily by Democrats. What does that prove? That we are blindly partisan and grasping at straws?

    What I don’t see anywhere are the solutions. It’s easy to sit back and lob grenades at the people supposedly in charge. It’s a completely different story to be in a position of actual authority, with your credibility and livelihood on the line, expected to put forth a concise plan pertaining to a new disease that balances universal public health, incomplete science, the nation’s economic engine, the diverse contexts of 50 independent states, and the individual interests and prejudices of 330 million people into a workable plan that satisfies everyone and also works. That’s just a short list of interests in the balance. No one has succeeded.

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      Aylene Wright

      Cuomo's ridiculous self-congratulatory poster was the last straw for me (and even Jake Tapper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta recently, they both used that news tidbit as an opportunity to tear into Cuomo, even though his brother is their colleague). That was as arrogant, narcissistic, and tone-deaf as anything Trump has said or tweeted about this.

      There are actually pretty convincing images out there that the trajectory of the pandemic in the NY/NJ area as almost exactly the steep curve originally predicted to mount up with NO social distancing, while the current states with outbreaks are actually following the "flattened" version of the curve.

      As for the discourse, at least I haven't seen any Dispatch members openly hoping their political opponents, and only their political opponents, catch the virus, as I have on other sites. Hopefully they realize that the virus doesn't know or care if someone has an (R), (D), (L), or (I) next to their names, and that even an outbreak starting at a liberal or conservative event, wouldn't stay confined to just one group.

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      Rajeev

      I just think there is a big difference between outdoor protests and indoor rallies. I wasn't in overall support of the protests and thought they would be destructive to the people they were aiming to help in particular by both destroying property & business the most vulnerable need and by spreading the virus that disproportionately effect the same people. However, I noticed that the level of masking particularly after the first couple of days was significant and no one at any protest that I know of was making an anti-masking statement.

      As far as the politicians go, I think most governors did a good job with a difficult situation. While Cuomo's press-conferences were self-aggrandizing, they were very re-assuring to the citizens of New York that had been utterly failed in every way by their mayor. But most governors on both sides of the aisle did their best to help control the spread outside of a few that acted without any sense of reality (Fl, Ga, Az). Even governors in Utah and Texas kept their state open but did so in a responsible way. While some governors were maybe too irrationally restrictive you could tell their concern was genuine and they did what they thought was best.

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    3. 2357958

      Like, you, I despise Trump, but I would go one step further - I have looked at the data, and I can come to no other conclusion than that this virus is being politicized by the left almost exclusively. Somehow, Trump supporters are finally right about something - the virus is enormously overblown. Something about a blind squirrel and a nut.

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        Marty

        According to today's Morning Dispatch (which I presume you are a reader of), which gets its numbers from Johns Hopkins, "As of Tuesday night, 3,431,574 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the United States (an increase of 68,518 from yesterday) and 136,466 deaths have been attributed to the virus (an increase of 861 from yesterday)." By comparison, seasonal flu deaths from the 2010-11 season thru the 2018-19 season ranged from a low of 12,000 to a high of 61,000, https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html. The high number is from the 2017-18 flu season, one of the worst in a long time. In other words, the COVID-19 death toll over a period of roughly five and half months (February 1 to mid-July) is *more than double* the number of flu deaths during the worst flu season of the past 10 years. On top of that, there are several hundred new deaths every day; the number of new cases is skyrocketing in Florida, Texas, Arizona and California, and I'll be surprised if there aren't more to states come given the number of premature and rushed reopenings; and the daily death toll in those states will also be rising over the next few weeks -- it hasn't yet because of the lag time between infection and death.

        So, exactly how bad does it have to get before you will acknowledge that concerns about the ongoing (and increasing) illnesses and deaths due to COVID-19 are not, in fact, "overblown"?

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        1. 2357958

          When the IFR outside of Long Term Care Facilities is substantial. We already know it won't be. For most Americans under 60, the relative risk from this virus is extremely low.

          For example, NYT has found that LTCF represent 9% of all positive tests, but a whopping 42% of deaths. (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-nursing-homes.html)

          That's likely substantially pulling the IFR up, thanks in no small part to governors like Andrew Cuomo and Phil Murphy.

          I also see you seem to believe that "skyrocketing" cases mean that will continue. In reality, this virus has proven that exponential growth stops naturally on its own (look at a non-lockdown country like Sweden, where the virus has pretty much burned out at likely around 15-20% of the population being infected.)

          Many of those states are showing signs of peaking, especially Arizona, but also hotspots like Houston. Testing in America is also now well beyond what almost any other country has done, and adjusting case levels for testing shows much more of catching up to the curve rather than a giant spike. Yes, there is a real spike, but smaller than it looks.

          You say deaths have not yet risen because of lag time - how much longer do we wait? CDC says median time from symptom onset to death is 15 days (12 for 65+). Cases detected have been rising for MUCH longer than this. How many more "wait two weeks" do we have to hear? For whatever reason, the death rate for this virus has declined from what we saw early in this pandemic (I could go into likely reasons, but it would be too long for this comment).

          Another issue - you appear to be unaware that deaths reported daily are not all deaths that occurred the previous day. It is deaths REPORTED that day, many for which the actual date of death was weeks or months ago.

          Parroting the dashboard numbers without digging into them at the state and local level is really unhelpful. Look at ER Visits in AZ (one of the few states that reports that). Look at Admissions and ICU utilization in Houston. Talking about record cases, as we test and test and test, is not the whole picture.

          Are you aware that CDC guidance is to code anyone who dies with COVID as a COVID death? Regardless of why they died? That's right, if someone who tests positive for COVID dies in a car crash, they should be coded as a COVID death per CDC. There's more to the story than meets the eye on the Johns Hopkins Dashboard.

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            Marty

            Okay, let's look at Sweden. "Sweden’s per capita death rate was 35 per 100,000 as of May 15. Meanwhile, Denmark’s death rate was 9.3 per 100,000, Finland’s 5.2 and Norway’s 4.7. All three neighboring countries enacted stricter policies. For comparison, the United States had 24 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 as of May 15." https://newsroom.uvahealth.com/2020/07/03/covid-19-deaths-in-sweden/

            If people don't adhere strictly to the measures we all know about -- social distancing both indoors and out; wearing a mask in all indoor spaces (except your home, of course), and outdoors when social distancing isn't possible; rigorous hand hygiene; and not touching your face with unwashed hands -- then it will be a long, long time before the virus "burns itself out," and there will be many unnecessary death. Nothing you've written persuades me to the contrary.

            If you want the last word on this thread, it's all yours. I'm done.

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    Rajeev

    This article is completely devoid of any context surrounding the American response to the virus. China is irrelevant to the American response. The naming of the virus is as irrelevant as its origin. No American cares whether it should be called Wuhan virus instead of coronavirus or Covid-19. That's inside baseball for the Republican Party and Trump's most sycophantic defenders to deflect responsibility for the fact we have handled this virus worse than any country in the world.

    It took him a couple extra months but Donald Trump has passed Jair Bolsonaro as the worst response to this virus. Any competent leader from any party (even a Libertarian) would have mobilized the power of the strongest country in the world to be ready for this virus. Countries like South Korea and Japan are more urbanly dense than us with greater proximity to China and they have lost 1,300 people to the virus combined!

    President Xi may be a horrible human being and a repulsive dictator but no one is as incompetent and caused more damage to his citizens from the coronavirus than Donald Trump. The fact that this article ignores and minimizes the central issue of his lack of response is the real scandal not the fact that China was delayed in giving the world information. We watched as Italy suffered greatly throughout February and willfully failed to do the following:

    -Secure enough PPE supply or develop adequate testing, while stopping private companies from developing effective tests.

    -Coordinate hospital capacity with governors and mayors of large cities

    -Acknowledge even the possibility of the threat the virus posed to the country

    -Minimizing the threat over and over again even as it is killing our citizens and destroying our economy.

    In the case of the coronavirus, Donald Trump has single-handedly ensured that we are not a pursuit of perfection but a race to the bottom. Steve Hayes was correct on his last podcast that his ineptitude will be studied for decades if not centuries to come as we lose 200,000+ people from this virus while our so-called president continues to say the virus will go away, tries to force schools to open dismissing parents concerns, and holds a rally purposely ignoring social distancing in the middle of a pandemic hot-spot!

    Who knows which country the next pandemic will originate. Could even be the US it's irrelevant. What's relevant is if the Trump wing of the Republican Party is in charge that we will have another debacle of a response to it. While hundreds soon to be thousands of people die each day, the president mimics Bolsonaro's clown antics and literally tries to get people to ignore CDC health guidelines while encouraging his supporters to not wear masks while tweeting like an internet troll.

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      rlritt

      Love your rant.

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  5. @Fakejohn

    I'm struggling to see why this column was allowed to run. Mr. Ramaswamy starts out with the lame jab that the left see hardship as "victimhood". This statement must be taken as self evident since no examples, statistics, or anecdotes are supplied to support it. He then warns that we must not be seduced by the allure of tyranny in these trying times because Lord Varys' birds whisper we should be "more like China." Who is whispering this exactly? Please provide a serious person advancing this point of view. Also is any serious person defending the secretive, destructive, horrible way China handled the outbreak? He then goes on a long diatribe about how it's ok to call this disease the Wuhan Virus, he omits other colorful monikers Trump has used such as Kung Flu and instead uses the lame comparison to MERS that I first heard Karl Rove use to defend Trump's words. Does anyone still really give two shits what Trump calls this thing with 130,000 dead and 60,000 new daily infections? After spending a paragraph providing a false choice of the China method: forcible house arrest without due process to the 'Merican method which is {checks notes} uncensored internet? he finally gets to what we need to do to fight the virus. Here is the cure for what ails us:

    Build more ICU beds -- and magic up doctors and nurses to staff them

    wear masks -- this one sentence was the only thing of value in this column

    invent new medicines and treatments -- Cut the inventors' rations until output increases!

    Increase testing -- as Trump says, we do more testing than anybody. That doesn't do any good if 60,000 turn up positive daily, how do you contact trace 60,000 positive tests?

    The we can achieve all of these things, including creating healthcare workers and inventing faster without turning into China! Because becoming China was something that was seriously being discussed in the first place. Never in his poorly constructed false narrative does he mention Europe, Australia, or any of the dozens of countries that, last I checked, are not dictatorships and yet somehow have achieved infection and mortality rates orders of magnitude lower than ours.

    The Dispatch is my go to for serious thought on the most pressing issues we are facing today. This column is bush league and doesn't deserve to be here.

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      rlritt

      I agree. I didn't even think his wife was right to leave her newborn to help infected people. One doctor more or less would not have made a difference. And the result was 2 additional months of separation. Didn't she figure that would happen? Irresponsible.

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    Logical

    This article is naive, misstating facts, and directionless. Endearing personal story aside. TD should have better quality control.

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    DougAz

    Mr. Ramasway. Sir. You lost all credibility in your piece by the failure of your own internal logic.
    a. You call for a form of 9/11 unity
    b. You cite the "victimhood" of the left - so you lose it here.
    c. You now cast aside the facts:
    1. Every country had the SAME starting information, regardless of China's obfuscation or not !!!
    2. Every nation started the SAME race, with the same starting gun.
    3. It is absolutely in the end true:
    I. Donald Trump cost American Lives. 10,000s of them
    II. Donald Trump removed the in-CHINA early Warnting PREVENT CDC Virology team WE used for early warnings. You may not remember Reagan, or even the Nuclear warning Radar System called DEW = Distant Early Warning. Imagine if Reagan dismantled this. Same thing
    III. With sadness - the anti-Maskers are led by Republicans. President Trump, Governors in FL, AZ, TX.

    Your article is so off base and is nothing more than another Conservative apologia for the tragic, murdereous actions and inactions begat by Republican polical leaders - Arrogant and self-righteous in the science-denying ignorance.

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    Marty

    "The fundamental mistake made by the political left is to think of hardship as “victimhood.” It’s not. Hardship is what reminds us of who we are. Victimhood is the choice that prevents us from overcoming it. Going through hardship and emerging stronger from it is the essence of what it means to be an American."

    A gross oversimplification, because the nature of a hardship depends on what's causing it. If my business suffers because of the pandemic, that's a hardship. If I or a loved one is injured in a car accident caused by a drunk driver, that's a hardship. If the value of my house went way down in 2008-09 because of the financial crisis, that's a hardship. But when "Across the nation, 2019 had the most number of recorded anti-Semitic incidents in ADL’s 40 years of tracking such incidents in the U.S — 2,107 recorded acts of anti-Semitic hate, a 12% jump over 2018," (https://www.bostonherald.com/2020/05/12/anti-semitic-recorded-incidents-remain-high-in-massachusetts-most-ever-across-u-s-adl/) -- then I think it's fair to say that we Jews are the victims of antisemitism and not merely undergoing a hardship, and acknowledging that fact does not make one a member of the political left. (I consider myself center-left and have always registered as an Independent voter.) In fact, the same article just cited points out that the majority of antisemitic incidents here in deep-blue Massachusetts last year were committed against Chabad houses. The Chabadniks are all on the political right, and trust me, they are not dismissing this as a mere "hardship". This does *not* mean that Jews embrace "victim" status -- to the contrary, all of us -- left, right and center -- are actively engaged in the fight against antisemitism. But saying that "the political left" (which certainly includes the majority of Jews) is some sort of unified organization that thinks of all hardship is a thoughtlessly partisan remark and is simply not true.

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      rlritt

      Excellent response. I had no idea that antisemetic attacks had increased to that extent. That's horrendous! I hope something is being done about this.

      This is the worst year in almost every way.

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        Marty

        Thanks. Much appreciated.

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    Marty

    "Conservatives and liberals alike should embrace the act of wearing masks and heightened sanitization procedures not as hallmarks of fear or inconvenience, but as acts of personal responsibility. "

    I am not aware of any liberals who are opposed to mask-wearing. The entire anti-mask movement, which was encouraged until the day before yesterday by Donald Trump himself, is a creature of the extreme right. Conservatives -- including, I'm sad to say, many who aren't part of the fringe right -- are the only ones claiming that the imposition of an essential public health order by state and local governments is a violation of their constitutional rights. That simply reveals their complete misunderstanding of the police power (as it's called) of the state governments, which predates the founding and was expressly preserved by the 10th Amendment. All of the states that opened too soon and/or too fast have Republican governors (with the exception of California, which Newsom at least has the good sense to be shutting down again); they took that action under pressure from Trump, which doesn't mean they didn't agree with him (they clearly did); and the results of that rush to reopen are skyrocketing infections in several states and increased danger to the whole country. Let's place blame where it's due, please.

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    1. Harlon Martin

      My conservative friends all wear face masks and did so early-on, when it was just a suggested courtesy act of personal responsibility (before a legal requirement). Since the beginning of the March shut-down, my church has had a ministry making and distributing cloth face masks -- starting way back when there was shortage of N-95 and surgical masks available for the medical community.

      Before masks were legally required, I observed those not wearing masks in significant numbers -- avoiding suggested personal responsibility -- to be primarily among the demographic of millennials. That's the same demographic in my large metro-area with the most positive infections and the highest growth rate thereof, the same group that crowded into bars (no masks) and violated local ordinances to gather in large groups.

      Most of the resistance to mask wearing is not necessarily with politically motivation. It's true for some, but to say that is the defining corollary is an oversimplification with political motivation. IMO, mask wearing resistance is dominated by a bunch of stubborn people that don't like it (it is uncomfortable) and don't want to be told what to do. It reminds me of not long ago, there was similar stubborn resistance to laws mandating wearing of seat belts. Also, many resisting masks live in areas without much infection and don't see the real need applicable to them under the circumstances.

      I get it, you don't like Trump and Red-state governors -- that's OK. I don't like Trump either, but not everything is about him or necessarily the place where all blame is due. There is much blame that can be applied in Blue-states too, including to their governors. Much blame can be applied among individuals too -- liberals and conservative alike.

      Please, not everything is or has to be political or have political narrative attached to it! This is a big reason we are so divided as a nation today. Trump doesn't help and neither do Nancy and Chuck et al.

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        Rajeev

        It is clear the majority of anti-maskers are Trump's hardcore supporters. They take their cue from him like a cult. Yes there are a lot of young millennials that go to bars/gyms/nightclubs and spread the virus, but most of them still wear masks indoors in general. They just travel too much and party too much during a pandemic spreading the virus. But none of them are making it a cause to tell others not to wear masks. They are ignorant not malicious. If you want malicious look at the 6,000+ at Trump's Oklahoma rally that were purposely avoiding masks and social distancing or look at the churches throughout the country that are intentionally ignoring masking and social distance as a twisted religious statement.

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        1. Harlon Martin

          Mask resistance stupidity is not unique to 6,000+ MAGA people. It was certainly justified for those large gatherings in protest marching and occupying events, despite the warnings. All mainline protestant churches in my state and large metro area remain closed -- encouraging social distancing and masks. Rebelling churches get all the news coverage, but they are in the minority. Furthermore, my church (a large UMC church of 6,000+) has a ministry making cloth masks and distributing them. A side note here: The health experts inconsistency didn't help with the mask controversy either -- first saying that masks were ineffective (no need to use) and then reversing themselves later. Not every active of stupidity has a political narrative as its only corollary or the only explanation. The news coverage is drawn to controversy and resistance for its sensationalism. Stupid is as stupid does!

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      2. C Winter

        You underestimate the cult of personality. It's great that you are rational enough to not succumb, but tens of millions have fallen into the rabbit hole. Nothing he does can be criticized. That is not true of blue state democrats. NYers do not like DeBlasio for his incompetence and want him gone because of his mal-governance.

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        1. Harlon Martin

          Agreed, cult personality and its pull / attractions for membership in a tribe of believers is often unsavory and it can be dangerous -- the rabbit hole you mention should be avoided. Cult personality is not unique to Trump; Obama had his cult following too. I wish it were different, but the lure of belonging is strong and often overrides or disregards the truth. Seems politics has become a substitute for religion.

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            Idontdocute

            A moment to set aside the assorted cults and associated sacrifices to whatever the causes might be. After much delay the governor of Texas has now made masks required. No shoes, no shirt, no mask, no service. Magic, we have masks. We have racks of 99 cent masks at the door, pay when you check out. We have people swapping mask patterns, complimenting each other on their masks, little masks on small children. It is breathtaking what the power of the denial of the ability to obtain a What-a-Burger can do to motivate the general public.

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        Wes

        This hasn't been my experience.

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    Wes

    It's interesting what the author included and excluded in this article. What we say and don't say says a lot about us.

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