19 Truths We Must Face About Covid-19

Commentary: If we want schools and the economy to restart, we’ve got to accept some facts and deal with them

In reporting on the coronavirus since January, I’ve interviewed dozens of infectious-disease researchers, epidemiologists and other scientists and health experts, and this much is crystal clear: The terrible situation we’re in now was widely, loudly and frequently predicted since very early on. Many U.S. political leaders didn’t listen then. If they don’t listen now, it will just get worse. At least, that’s what the experts say. Here’s a review of lessons not learned, the foibles that got us here, and the sad fact about who must take responsibility to change the course of the growing pandemic.

1 We knew in early February that this already was or would soon be a global pandemic. And we knew then that the handful of U.S. cases were just a prelude…

“It’s very, very transmissible, and it almost certainly is going to be a pandemic.”
—Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, February 2, 2020

“We are preparing as if this were the next pandemic.”
— Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and…