Unprepared for a pandemic

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As the nation remembers — or chooses to forget — the events of Jan. 6, 2021, we might also spare a moment to recall what was happening five years ago this month. In January 2020, a novel coronavirus was rapidly spreading in China, and had infected its first Americans. But alarm bells were not yet ringing — at least not publicly. Trump administration trade adviser Peter Navarro privately warned the president that Covid could turn into “a full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans.” For months, as hospitals and morgues filled, Trump minimized the danger, telling Americans that Covid would soon “go away.” He later admitted to journalist Bob Woodward he knew the virus was “deadly stuff,” but “I wanted to always play it down.” By the time Trump was voted out of office, Covid had killed 400,000 Americans, on its way to 1.2 million — the world’s highest death toll.

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