I have vivid memories of the night in March when I finally realized the severity of the problem; it was the day the sports world started shutting down, and it was announced that Tom Hanks and his wife had the virus. Prior to that, I was perfectly aware of the virus, but it wasn’t impacting my life, and it seemed too remote to matter that much. I thought it was a blip, not a chasm.
I wasn’t the only one. Donald Trump, with much better information, initially did the same thing. I could forgive him for that. The issue with him was that he refused to learn anything afterwards. He was entrenched in his view that he was going to win the election by looking strong and boosting the economy, so he consistently downplayed the virus, insisted that it would disappear, demanded that states be opened up regardless of the evidence, and made refusing to wear a mask a culture war issue. He made things much worse than they needed to be.
His complete insensitivity to the chaos and misery caused by the virus, even more than the incompetence of his response, cost him the election. If there was a silver lining to the pandemic, that was it.
Things will improve in 2021; the question is, how fast? Once the vaccine has been widely distributed, there will be a mountain of private savings to be spent by wealthy people on travel, entertainment, and other consumer experiences. Confidence will return, and life for everyone will get better. That is, if you’re still alive to enjoy it.