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Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You mentioned reading a book yesterday and shared some initial thoughts. What are your further impressions after reading more of it tonight?
Rick Rosner: I’m now about two-thirds through the book, and it seems to be divided into two major parts. The first part covers events from 15 years ago, setting the stage, while the second part focuses on the current pandemic. Interestingly, the book largely skips over the Obama administration. It highlights a general failure to anticipate and react to the pandemic in America, not just under Trump’s administration. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as portrayed in the book, was not proactive. They failed to intervene or provide guidance to mitigate the pandemic, even with mounting evidence of its inevitability. This lack of response wasn’t limited to the CDC; it was a widespread institutional failure.
The narrative continues to follow individuals who managed to infiltrate these unresponsive institutions, including the Trump White House and the CDC. These people would hold secret after-hours meetings to strategize on disseminating information and implementing measures while keeping a low profile to avoid losing their positions. As of where I am in the book, it’s February 2020, and only one death in the U.S. had been attributed to COVID-19. Despite this, a small group of about two dozen people could see the full extent of the impending crisis. China’s response, including extreme measures like welding shut doors of apartment complexes and rapidly constructing hospitals, indicated the severity of the situation, even though China wasn’t fully transparent.
At this time, President Trump was downplaying the threat, asserting that the virus would simply disappear. The book effectively narrates this story of institutional failure from an insider perspective. I’m hoping that by the end of the book, it becomes clear that the efforts of these behind-the-scenes individuals led to significant policy changes and responses. Currently, the death toll in America is staggeringly high, with about 1.1 million deaths, equating to one in every 300 Americans and more than one in every 65 senior citizens. This makes it the deadliest event in U.S. history, surpassing the American death toll of World War II by about three times. Yet, despite its severity, there’s a significant portion of the population, influenced by misinformation, who refuse to acknowledge the gravity of the situation.
The Spanish Flu claimed approximately 700,000 American lives at a time when the U.S. population was around 100 million. This death toll represented about two-thirds to three-quarters of one percent of the population. In contrast, the current COVID-19 death rate is around one-third of one percent, which, while still alarmingly high, is marginally lower. This lower percentage, coupled with the fact that the pandemic has spanned over two years and primarily affects older individuals (with the median age of COVID-19 fatalities being in the 70s), provides fodder for those inclined to downplay its severity. They argue that many victims were older and might have had limited lifespans regardless, and that the death rate is less than half of one percent.
In the realm of public discourse, we have figures like Dr. Oz, a television personality and now a political candidate, who has been criticized for spreading misinformation. He’s running for Senate in Pennsylvania, a state where he doesn’t reside, and has appeared on right-wing media outlets like Newsmax and OANN, challenging Dr. Fauci and labeling him a liar and tyrant. Dr. Oz has been accused of promoting questionable medical advice, although to the general public he may have appeared as a credible medical figure, partly due to Oprah’s endorsement.
During the early stages of the pandemic, Dr. Oz suggested keeping schools open, even if it resulted in a higher death toll, arguing for what he deemed an acceptable level of casualties to maintain societal functions. His stance seemed to imply that the loss of an additional 100,000 to 200,000 lives was a trade-off worth considering for keeping schools operational.
The denial and minimization of pandemics is not new; it was also present during the Spanish Flu. In Philadelphia, for example, business interests overrode public health measures, leading to a significantly higher death rate compared to cities like St. Louis, where public health officials were more successful in implementing safety measures. Today, with a population three times larger than a century ago, there is a sizable segment of COVID minimizers and deniers, bolstered by a potent right-wing media that opposes many of the Biden administration’s pandemic mitigation efforts. Despite COVID-19 being the deadliest event in recent history, its slightly lower death rate compared to the Spanish Flu has been a factor in ongoing denial and controversy.
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Authors
Rick Rosner
American Television Writer
Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Founder, In-Sight Publishing
In-Sight Publishing
License and Copyright
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at http://www.rickrosner.org.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen, Rick Rosner, and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen, Rick Rosner, and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Rick Rosner 