The Perfect Storm: US Missteps,Belligerence,and Racial Legacies

US Missteps

Early responses by President Donald Trump to COVID-19 can be characterized as inept, unfocused, and lacking leadership. Even as the first cases of COVID-19 were being identified in Wuhan, China, President Trump was working to promote his anti-science stance by dismantling the science policy infrastructure installed to advise him. For example, he deliberately worked to thwart the efforts of his own administration’s health experts, pushing to defund the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the WorldWide Health Organization (WHO), while simultaneously promoting treatments and behaviors that at best aggravated the crisis and at worst encouraged it (Milman, 2020). These efforts ensured that the United States would have no plan, and guaranteed that misinformation, misguided policies, and unpreparedness would produce ineffective and inconsistent national responses (Karlawish, 2020).

Almost a full month after the first COVID case hit the United States, and we began to watch the spread across the globe, President Trump asserted the disease would run its course and weaken as “we get into April, in warmer weather-that has a very negative effect on that, and that type of a virus.” Not only has this proven to be ill-advised, but contrary to WHO, reporting at the time—that the new coronavirus could “be transmitted to all areas, including areas with hot and humid weather.” These comments were soon followed by Trump’s claims that deaths would be minimal, we had it under control, that the Obama Administration was at fault (for not leaving a plan, for limiting laboratory tests to states, and that there were no medical supplies), and that tests would be readily available (Quotes and Claims from Blake, 2020). None of these claims were true, as the casualties mounted and Trump’s missteps continued unabated.

Even as cases within the United States passed the million mark, Trump continuously dismissed the seriousness of COVID-19. Then to make matters worse, Trump began touting so-called cures with no factual basis. He announced, for example, that the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine or injecting disinfectant were safe treatments for the virus. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA was quickly forced to do damage control, urging people not to follow these suggestions. When challenged by governors, other politicians, and other experts, Trump frequently went on the attack. For example, he charged that New York Governor Cuomo had established “death panels” where lotteries were being used to determine who might get ventilators, triage treatment, etc. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, according to Trump, was encouraging residents in San Francisco’s Chinatown to party, ignore precautions, and thus increase the spread the disease. Finally, Trump declared that “Everyone is lying. The CDC, Media, Democrats, our Doctors, not all but most, that we are told to trust. I think it’s all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. . . . I am sick of it” (Forgey, 2020). In his 4th July South Lawn White House Speech, Trump continued to minimize the dangers as he asserted that 99% of coronavirus cases were harmless—a claim that was immediately disavowed by his own FDA three days later (Reston, 2020).

Shortly after Trump encouraged its use, the Veteran Affairs (VA) began aggressively treating veterans with hydroxychloroquine. At the peak, VA was treating as many as 400 patients per week in late March. After a few months, it halted such treatment as a major study raised serious questions about the efficacy and serious side effects, such as higher risk of death and irregular heart rhythms (Horton, 2020).

In April, while still avoiding recommending a nationwide system of testing and tracking of infectious diseases, the White House pushed forward its guidelines on how states could restart their systems. Ignoring many epidemiologists who cautioned otherwise, Trump announced that “we’re in the process of winning” and in response to those who protested the immediate openings tweeted “LIBERATE MICHIGAN,” ‘LIBERATE MINNESOTA,” and “LIBERATE VIRGINIA.” Some have concluded that Trump’s official response to the pandemic has been a “shitshow” with no leadership, coordination, and strategic plans. And even as countries around the world were demonstrating positive gains by instituting strong, consistent measures, Trump continued this path obliviously (Milman, 2020). Trump discouraged the wearing of masks, pushed for the reopening of the states, and encouraged the flaunting of social distancing regulations. Many Republican leaders took their position straight from Trump’s playbook, and we all have suffered the consequences. It is no wonder that Trump and several of his staff and followers, after attending a White House (WH) ceremony, were diagnosed with COVID-19.

Following Trump’s lead, many GOP local and state leaders trivialized the significance of COVID-19 early as it ravaged the country. Several examples can be found, but none so blatant as that coming out of El Paso County. In a rare move, republican-elected officials called for the resignation of their local party chair Vicki Tonkin after she posted on Facebook that COVID-19 was a hoax (Birkeland, 2020). Republican leaders were also quick to give vent to both racist and extreme conspiracy theories. One of the most bizarre conspiracy theories was leveled by Senator Tom Cotton, (R-Ark.). Accordingly, COVID-10 originated in a “super laboratory” in Wuhan, China. As this theory evolved, it was purported that Jews controlling these labs created the coronavirus as part of their continued attempt at world domination (Casen, 2020).

Even as the number of COVID-19 cases surged across the United States, republicans by and large continued to minimize the continued damage and risks. Many hard-core republicans dismissed the virus and declared victory as evidenced in a Pew poll taken in the week of 16–22 June. Consequently, as indicated in Figure 1, most republicans and republican-leaning independents (*61 %) believed that we had turned the corner and that the worst was behind us. Alternatively, less than a quarter (223%) of democrats and democratic leaning believed the worst was behind us (Pew, 2020). It would be ironic, if not so tragic, if rather than leveling off, this marked the surge in new cases and deaths across the United States in the same time period.

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Figure 1.

Majority of republicans now say “the worst is behind us” in coronavirus outbreak.

As late as July, Trump dismissed the testimony of both Fauci and Redfield (director of CDC), as he continued to ignore and encourage others of the need to wear a mask (Liptak and Valancia, 2020). Research conducted by the New York Times also found that partisanship influences the use of face coverings (see Figure 2). Therefore, democratic-identifying people more consistently self-reported wearing a face covering, regardless of whether they resided in a place with high case rates, whereas republicans self-reported increasing the wearing of masks in those areas where the crisis was worse (Gebeloff, 2020).

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Figure 2.

Share of respondents who said they wore a mask “frequently” or always.

Marion County, Florida Sherriff Billy Woods went even further by declaring that all deputies and visitors to the sheriff’s office were prohibited from wearing masks at the station. By the way, even as the good Sheriff was making his announcement, the State of Florida was recording more than 542,00 new cases, more than 8,500 new deaths, and Marion county set a record for daily deaths (Elfrink, 2020). Trump and other conservatives went so far as to blame the anti-racism protests following the police murders of George Floyd and Breanna Taylor, claiming they caused increased infection rates, even though no research has confirmed this proposition. Evidence abounds, however, that contempt toward mask wearing and other mitigation strategies is the primary cause of the pandemic’s spread.

Presidential Belligerence

Concerns about the economy, November’s Presidential election, and trying to project confidence in the face of uncertainty continue to put vulnerable people in jeopardy. This is becoming abundantly clear as one considers one of Trump’s most dangerous false claims—that children were “almost immune to COVID-19,” thus advocating for school openings in the Fall. These audacious claims, appearing first on a video posted to his official Facebook page in August of 2020, resulted in social networks taking the unprecedented action of removing this content from the President’s page. According to an official statement from Facebook, “This video includes false claims that a group of people is immune from COVID-19 which is a violation of our policies around harmful COVID misinformation.” The same video appearing on the President’s Twitter account was also removed for similar reasons. By the way, Harvard Medical Studies concludes that while children have lower infection rates, they can develop COVID-19 (Ellis, 2020).

Bolton, Trump’s former national security advisor, characterized him as being both “naïve and dangerous” (Cohen, 2020). This characterization, reflecting Trump’s near worship of authoritarian leaders, aptly describes his belligerence with reference to COVID-19. Going further, some believe that many of his key advisors are both “reckless and naïve” (Phillips et al., 2019). Trump, watching the meteoric drop in his poll numbers, was forced to back down from his claim that coronavirus was a democratic “hoax” and declared that he indeed would lead the country through this crisis. During the second rise in COVID, having killed over 140,000 people within the United States, Trump complained it was a “downer” and a “dampener” as his poll numbers plummeted. In typical, narcissistic bravado, he went on to declare that he was doing a “great job,” “sailing” through all obstacles and that even “George Washington would’ve had a hard time beating him” (Zoeliner, 2020). His demand for an economic stimulus package, aimed at appeasing the country, markets, and worried consumers, has been also characterized as a naïve attempt to influence the November elections (McDowell, 2020).

Trump’s belligerence clearly advanced his political agenda as he continued to find ways to blame others for his own incompetence. In July, for example, Trump blamed Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests and Mexicans for causing the spike in coronavirus cases in the Southwest and the West. Accordingly, he stated that the “Cases started to rise among young Americans shortly after demonstrations. . . as well as young people closely congregating at bars and probably other places, . . . We’re also sharing a 2,000-mile border with Mexico. . . and cases are surging in Mexico. . .” (Farley, 2020). Such claims have been refuted by many epidemiologists and researchers. Regarding the BLM protests, a recent paper that analyzed 315 US cities concluded that there was “no evidence that urban protests reignited COVID-19 case growth during the more than three weeks following protest onset” (Dave et al., 2020). Similarly, noted experts refute Trump’s claim regarding the spread of COVID-19 by Mexican migrants as “utterly without foundation” and that it had nothing to do with the rapid increase in COVID-19 in the Southeast, Northern California, or elsewhere (Farley, 2020). The primary reason for the spikes must be placed squarely on the table of Trump’s continued belligerence and what can only be termed naivety.

At the core of both Trump’s belligerence and naivety is an anti-scientific bias that runs at the core of his ultra-conservative base. Even as the virus was ratcheting up in the United States, Trump and his republican toadies relied heavily on experts not trained in epidemiology but what many regarded as pseudoscientific rationale that tended to disregard mainstream scientific research, findings, and conclusions. These science skeptics, such as Steven Milloy, early on dismissed the deadliness of the virus. Libertarian philosopher Richard Epstein advised the Trump White House that less than 500 American deaths would result. Trump and his chief advisors, to their and our collective angst, believed that scientific authorities were at best grossly incompetent and negligent and at worst conspiratorial, left-wing, groups aimed at controlling the economy and perpetuating hoaxes. It is these beliefs that undermined Dr. Nancy Meissonier, top CDC official, as she tried to warn about the spread of COVID-19. She immediately stopped speaking out on the virus after Trump threatened to fire her. Trump, refusing to listen to government experts, worked with a group of pseudo-experts. One such expert, Dr. Oz (a celebrity physician, alternative medicine adherent, and now a litigant in a class-action charging him with medical malpractice), is the source of hydroxychloroquine (Chait, 2020). Ultimately, such thinking would lead Trump to slash the BioShield account. This program, set up after the SARS epidemic and anthrax decades ago, allowed the federal government to fund pharmaceutical research in response to pandemic outbreaks or biological attacks.

Some have begun to question not only the accuracy but also the real purpose of such misdirection. These questions have caused some to point to the irony, if not duplicity, associated with the timing of stock and other financial transactions that coincided with the continued efforts to minimize the reality of COVID-19. For example, stock sell-off by Senator Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Senator Kelly Loeffler, R-GA seems to have been timed to avoid the drastic 30% stock market decline that occurred since late January. Reportedly, Barr, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, sold between $500,000 and $1.5 million in stock in February. During the same time, Burr was advising a select group of donors of the risk posed by COVID-19 to markets. Whether or not this is a case of insider trading is still under investigation, but the timing of these transactions certainly raised significant questions (Beals, 2020).

Perhaps the most belligerent move by GOP governors in Florida, Alabama, Arizona California, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, and Texas was their decision to reopen businesses, beaches, bars, and the relaxation of policies requiring social distancing and the wearing of masks. No sooner had these decisions been made, an alarming increase in infections and deaths occurred. Party affiliation be damned, as the virus spread across Red states, GOP governors began reversing their earlier stances. Republican governors in Arkansas, Alabama, and Arizona were among the first to set aside their previous orders, and began ordering face masks in public places. Conservative supporting retailers, such as Walmart, Target, and CVS, which traditionally serve low to middle consumers, waited until late July and early August to finally require all customers to wear face coverings (Garrett, 2020). Many die-hard belligerents still refused to hear the message.

Fueling much of the belligerence and the spread of right-wing conspiracies regarding the pandemic has been the growth of a group of Trump supporters, now in the hundreds of thousands, who believe there is a concerted effort to derail their president. One of the leading groups goes by the name of QAnon, with followers in both the military and police, whose conspiracy theories are now mainstream. Citing increasing evidence that material posted by QAnon is likely to encourage violence, Twitter decided in July to shut down over 7000 accounts. Even the FBI has gotten onboard, declaring that QAnon was one of several extreme right-wing groups that could drive “both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts.” Trump along with several republicans have been very outspoken in their support of QAnon, even going so far as to give official credence to their bizarre theories as part of official national and party policy (Breland and Rangarajan, 2020).

Now we are beginning to witness the fallout, GOP leaders are beginning to face the ire of their constituents. Governor Brian Kemp, who lobbied to open the state early, has yet to announce his reelection and just might be one of the first to fall on Trump’s sword. Across the states of Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee, the outbreak of COVID-19 has highlighted GOP governor’s decision-making, with republican governors, particularly in the Sun Belt, being blamed for moving too fast, dismissing the seriousness of the pandemic, and being more concerned with the economy than the lives of people. Polls taken in mid to late July show GOP approval ratings plummeting across the Sun Belt. The precipitous decline in GOP popularity matches the doubling of cases in places like Arizona and Florida and tripling in Florida (Brownstein, 2020).

Racial Legacies, Precarity, and COVID-19

Trump’s missteps and belligerence have had ripple effects throughout the United States but particularly within communities of color. The systematic failure of our national responses highlighted by the lack of national testing and downplaying the risk of the virus has disproportionately impacted racially isolated communities. As observed by David Williams, “We had information and we discounted it. We didn’t take it as seriously as we could have.” And by the time tests were available, already large segments of racially isolated communities were being hit the hardest. These early missteps reflect not only the vulnerability these communities continually face but also a repeated pattern of inaccessibility to health care, institutional neglect, and social isolation. The pandemic reflected the legacy of our racial disparities in health where Hispanic, Native American, Asian and Pacific Islander, and African American communities also reflect their economic precarity (Chakradhar, 2020). And the hardest hit was where these groups are most prevalent and most segregated, such as in New York, Boston, Connecticut (Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport), New Jersey (Camden, Newark, etc.), New Orleans, and Detroit.

As 29-year-old Alexis Rodriguez tried to laugh, she found herself coughing and forced to use an inhaler. Dismissing it as her annual bout of asthma that frequently starts up in early spring when the desert area of California’s Salton Sea begins to warm, and dust begins to circulate. But as the symptoms got worse, and the virus invaded her lungs resulting in pneumonia, she knew this was different. An emergency visit to the hospital revealed that she had something far worse: COVID-19. By early June, it had spread to her older brother, sister, and young child. Rodriguez along with a significant number of Latino communities living in this area of California have some of the highest rates of asthma caused by air pollution. Air pollution, like most environmental pollution, disproportionally harms communities where urban people of color live. This area, once a popular vacation destination, now is destitute as the water continues to dry out, salination rises rapidly, and decades of old contaminants are now being released. This community, already an environmental disaster, now faces one of the worst rates of pandemic in the state. With the second surge of COVID-19 that came in mid-summer, this area was again a hotspot, with some of the highest death rates in the state. The only hospital in the area, already overrun, was forced to house new patients in military-style portable tents at the same time thermometers hit triple digits temperatures (Green, 2020).

Latino residents in the Salton Sea communities join other racialized groups with similar underlying conditions, making them more vulnerable to both COVID infections and fatalities. Their neighborhoods are characterized by extremely poor air quality, food deserts, a lack of basic access to health delivery systems, and the resulting predisposition to underlying conditions such as asthma, hypertension, diabetes, and obesity—all of which make the disease more deadly. Further, these communities tend to have a larger percentage of multigenerational homes populated with workers deemed essential such as farm pickers, prison workers, and nurses (Green, 2020). As it happened in other countries, such as Italy, they simply could not afford to get sick; they had no safety net. Latinos account for 61% of the COVID-19 cases in California and almost 49% of the deaths while only making up 39% of the population (California Department of Health, 2020).

If we look at national data, we observe that Latinos and Blacks are more than three times more likely to be infected and nearly twice as likely to die from the virus than their White counterparts.

Clear racial and ethnic disparities are evident when one considers the actual numbers (see Figure 4). The CDC provides a breakdown of the demographic tragedies of COVID-19. On 25 August 2020, accounting for a total of 48% of all cases of infections and 92% of all deaths by race and ethnicity, racial realities hits home. What is obvious, is non-Whites accounted for 60% of those infected and 49% of those who died. Considering the reality that Hispanics only constitute 17% of the US population, they accounted for 31% of those infected. Alternatively, while Blacks accounted for 13% of the US population, they comprised almost 20% of those who died. Put differently, Whites who comprised 76% of the US population were only slightly less than 40% of those who were infected and about 50% of those who died. When you consider the other demographics, some interesting factors are observable. Therefore, while women and those below the age of 50 were more likely to become infected, men and those above the age of 50 were more likely to die of the disease.

These inequities (see Figure 3 above) are evident across the entire breadth of the United States, crossing both state and regional lines. They are present in large urban cities, rural towns, and suburban areas. This reflects the systemic racism so often evidenced in other institutions such as criminal justice, educational, and economic (Oppel et al., 2020).

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Figure 3.

Coronavirus by race and ethnicity across the United States.

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Figure 4.

National trends of COVID-19 demographics.

These inequities are also seen in communities dominated by Native Americans. When COVID-19 was first reported in the Navajo Nation on 15 March, infection rates among Native peoples were already among the highest in the country. Their death rates also are among the highest. Navajo Nation continues to have some of the highest infection rates in the country. For example, while Native people in New Mexico make up one-tenth of the population, they account for more than 55% of the cases. Similarly, American Indians and Alaskan Natives in Wyoming, with less than 3% of the state’s population account for over a third of the coronavirus cases (Doshi et al., 2020). Again, the underlying conditions of poverty, neglect, and lack of access to health benefits account for much of these disparities. Unemployment among the Navajo is stagnant at close to 40%, accounting for a similar number that falls below the poverty line living on less than $12,760 per year. When this is coupled with years of radiation exposure from hundreds of abandoned uranium mines, it underscores the already existing health problems plaguing the Navajo nation, including diabetes, heart conditions, and lung disease (Cheetham, 2020).

While a tremendous amount of press has documented the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans, those of Asian ethnicities often are hidden in the numbers. Internationally we have noted that South Asian health care workers in Britain were significantly more likely to be at risk of contracting and dying from COVID-19 than their White counterparts. With the United States, community organizers in New York reported that Bangladeshi Americans, who were often employed as drivers and in corner stores, where social distancing was more difficult to maintain, were being infected and dying in much higher numbers. In San Francisco, while only accounting for 30% of the population, they accounted for over 50% of the deaths. Similar patterns have also been identified in Philadelphia. Most health officials, recognizing that these communities may also have many undocumented individuals afraid of coming forward to be tested and gain care, believe that these numbers are very conservative (Kandula and Shan, 2020). Considering the trail of missteps, the belligerence, and the trauma being experienced across our land, but particularly within our racialized communities, the only question remaining is how do we go forward. We can continue as we have and expect a different result. Or we can begin to articulate some bold new steps that will not only take us past this current moment but help position us for the next pandemic.

A Bold New Future or the Same Old Stuff—Which Way Will the Winds Blow?

Looking at the spread of COVID-19 demonstrates some clear patterns and suggests how we might position ourselves to better cope with the next pandemic. Any effective strategy must be both global and national. Looking at the origins of COVID-19 allows us to begin to see how both a global as well as a national response to future pandemics might be accomplished. Our future direction in dealing with pandemics requires that we understand this trajectory.

It has been a century since the last global pandemic, the Spanish Flu, threatened the world’s health care system. Between the winter and spring of 2020, COVID-19 changed the world as we know it. All continents, except for Antarctica, have been challenged.

Wuhan, on the surface, is an unlikely candidate for the spread of the deadliest pandemic in a century. Wuhan, a college town, is home to one of China’s most influential engineering schools, Huazhong University of Science and Technology. In 2018, the city, larger than New York, had more than 11 million residents, 9% of them university students. Increasingly over the past decade, Wuhan has been the center for national festivals—and with that tourism, as over 21 million travelers came through its airport in 2016. Millions migrated to this new Phoenix to take advantage of the expanding labor market. But while the city poured money into technology research, accommodations for students, and tourism, expenditures on public health remained flat. And the poor were the most affected by this absence. As COVID surfaced, they were essentially on the front line (Ren, 2020).

The origins of COVID-19 demonstrate the link between poverty and the likelihood of infection and death. The earliest infections of the virus have been traced to a seafood market within Wuhan, China, where a high volume of wild animals were marketed with limited regulations. According to the World Health Organization, “the virus is of animal origin” (Hjelmgaard, 2020). Ironically, a program aimed at alleviating poverty might have facilitated the mutation between human beings and the animals that carried the original virus. The Chinese government encouraged local governments to breed and domesticate wildlife in an effort to meet the growing needs of poor people. The wildlife breeding and domestication industry that came into being made snakes, bamboo rats, pangolin, and civets readily available for food. The breeding program produced 521 billion yuan (or US$73 billion) and employed some 14 million people all working under unsafe sanitary conditions. All this provided the perfect setting for the transmission of the fatal coronavirus stain from wildlife animals to human beings (Chen, 2020).

Almost from the beginning of April, distinct patterns emerged as different socioeconomic and ethnic groups started having varying experiences with the pandemic. During the first few weeks, the initial cases worldwide were among the more affluent countries. But as time passed, these trends shifted where more confirmed cases and deaths were associated with poorer and more urban communities, particularly in the United States. COVID-19 has had radically different impacts upon different countries. For example, both Italy and Spain are witnessing the near collapse of their health care system that has led to significant increases in deaths. In other countries like Korea, Singapore, and Germany, remarkably small per capita deaths have been observed. The widespread availability of testing and the implementation of contact tracing account for the low death rates and the markedly slower spread of the virus (National Public Radio, 2020). Even considering the disparities, the United States almost immediately stood out as an outlier with no clear national policies and a lack of testing resources (ProPublica. 2020).

Research that examines poverty globally, defined as those living in households with less than $1.90 per person per day in actual or imputed spending, documents the correlation of poverty with the spread of the pandemic. The reality is that a disproportionate number of those impacted live in poor and marginalized communities. As the pandemic continues to spread globally, hundreds of millions have been pushed even further into poverty as unemployment, hunger, and homelessness follow in its path (Alston, 2020). This pattern is prevalent across the globe, from Wuhan to Italy, Spain, Africa, India, and even within the United States.

Within the United States, persistent reports document that communities of color have more cases and more deaths than White communities. People of color, typically with less access to quality health care, also suffer from a whole range of illnesses—such as heart disease, respiratory illnesses, diabetes, and so on—that account for already existing high mortality rates (Most recently for example see: Oates et al., 2017; Williams et al., 2010.). Further compounding these problems is evidence that all poor communities have significantly less access to vaccinations in the United States (Lee et al., 2011). The social determinants of COVID’s unequal impact on poor people and people of color also include labor markets where the poor are less likely to be able to work from home, therefore more likely to come into contact with those with the virus than others with the luxury of telecommuting. All of these factors help explain why disadvantaged countries had the highest number of infections and deaths during the earliest phase of the pandemic (Finch and Finch, 2020). And if this were not enough, it is estimated that some 70 million people will join those in extreme poverty. Sixty countries are projected to see extreme poverty increase. Although India leads, five of the top 12 countries projected to see increases by over 1 million to fall into extreme poverty (see Figure 5) are within Africa (Kharas, 2020). COVID-19 has already begun to erase the progress many countries had accomplished in combating poverty.

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Figure 5.

Countries where poverty headcounts are likely to rise the most due to COVID-19.

COVID-19 has effectively halted the 15-year global effort to decrease extreme poverty. Now, the world’s poorest and most vulnerable find their lives in turmoil. Added to the millions that will be pushed into poverty, 1.6 billion (half of the global labor force) will be added to the unemployed. The virus is expected to ravage the 1 billion living in slums worldwide. Women and children will bear the heaviest burden of the pandemic’s effects as health and vaccination services are disrupted, while limited access to diet and nutrition services will lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths for those under 5 years of age and tens of thousands of additional maternal deaths in this year alone (UN, 2020). While some of the same conditions were present within the United States, our own ineptitude aggravated our responses and placed even more of our citizens into harm’s way.

As we have seen, poverty consistently has been linked to the spread and the deadliness of COVID-19. Perhaps now would be the time to investigate new forms of food, moving away from the traditional forms of protein that are no longer sustainable or viable as our increasingly mobile populations create new possibilities for the spread of disease.

Plant-based foods, such as tofu, beans, peas, and nuts, with markedly lower carbon footprints might offer an alternative to animal-based protein such as meat and dairy. Alternatively, eating less meat, switching to things such as chicken, eggs, or port, can substantially reduce not only greenhouse emissions (Ritchie, 2020), but also help minimize the likelihood of zoonotic diseases (i.e. animal to human transmission). Alternatively, improving how food is cultivated would have a significant impact as well. Some novel research is also demonstrating that biology-based proteins, utilizing fermentation, can substantially increase the amount of proteins available. Programmable biological methods utilizing fermentation have resulted in products that taste and have the same texture of meat, at significantly less costs. Producing sustainable agriculture is not only economically and environmentally smart, it also healthier. (Cumbers, 2020).

And within the United States, among our racial and ethnically most vulnerable populations, poverty again lies at the heart of systemic health and social inequities that put them at greater risk of being infected and ultimately die from COVID-19. But nothing is new here, or around the globe. For centuries, we have known that the rich get richer while the poor get sicker.

The link between morbidity from COVID-19 and social determinants of health is well documented. But we have known for centuries that pandemics are more likely to be associated with poverty and disadvantages (Ahmed et al., 2020). We also know that improved access to health care, housing, reduction in overcrowding, and improvements in nutrition dramatically decrease the likelihood of infections, even before vaccinations and other effective medications are available (Butler-Jones and Wong, 2016). Clearly, if we are going to be successful, we need to invest in long-term income support programs, skills and jobs training, education, improving testing, and quality of life. And these efforts cannot be seen as purely national.

COVID-19 has revealed the fragility of our increasingly globally interdependent world. Rising global poverty and rising food shortages have led to rising consumption and domestication of ever larger animal species. As the most vulnerable of people have been hit the hardest, we must begin to understand and mitigate the relationship between environment, animal health, and the spread of pathogens to humans. Globally as the demand for protein increases, we will see increased production of food. Consider the global South, where the demand has tripled for animal protein over the past 50 years, while milk production has doubled and egg output more than tripled. As more land is cultivated, livestock and people will be living in closer proximity, thus increasing the likelihood that pathogens will be spread to humans. Stronger and more extensive utilization of biosecurity measures must be established globally if we are going to prevent future outbreaks of pandemics (Arkin, 2020).

Pandemics are not restricted by national, political, racial, or economic boundaries. Our efforts to contain them must also know no bounds. Most pandemics, historically, have come about as germs have spread from animals to humans. As the case with COVID-19, the wildlife domestication program was an attempt to provide animal protein to a large segment of its population that were locked in poverty. Improving access to food must occur by improving policy, regulation, and effective control over food markets. Global investments in poverty reduction and improved access to our best practices for all can lead to significant changes. Immediately, someone may ask: but what about the costs? My response—consider the costs of the current pandemic. Rough estimates of the impact of COVID-19 on the US GDP is that we have seen a 5% decline for every month of partial shutdown. This means that for the 4 months that we have been under partial shutdown, at the time of this writing, we have lost an estimated 8.28 trillion (20%) of our GDP (Makridis and Hartley, 2020). Worldwide, it is estimated the coronavirus pandemic could cost the global economy over 82 trillion. According to the IMF, the global economy would experience the worst “recession since the Great Depression” as global economies could decline as much as 4.9%; global trade, 11.9%, and oil prices, 41% (Congressional Research Service, 2020). But who can put a price on the over 5 million confirmed infected and 169 thousand deaths? These costs are inestimable, and these only factor in the United States. Now add to this the over 21 million infected and over 770,000 deaths worldwide. This is the cost—and the reason why we must do more.

As I conclude, I am reminded that as a sociologist there is an attempt to be objective. I find it difficult to be objective given the realities of the tragedies associated with this and previous pandemics. So, let me state my biases here. I value life over politics, hope over despair, and science over ideology. It is difficult not to be critical of many of our current leaders that have either naively or ineptly put their constituents within danger. This has clearly been the pattern within the United States from the President to many of his most vocal supporters. The great thing about our country is that it is a democracy. The bad thing about our country is that such a democracy demands that its citizens hold the elective officials accountable. What this means is that knowing how to effectively prepare for the next pandemic is no indication that we will effectively be prepared. The reality is that we must insist that our elected officials do their part and lead during times of crises. If such leadership is missing, then the missteps, belligerence, and racial legacies will ensure that when the next pandemic arrives at our doorsteps, we will again witness the “perfect storm.”