PRESS EDITORIAL: History will not be kind to the trivializing of Covid-19

When the history of the Covid-19 pandemic in this country is written, it will be a record of a human health disaster that was trivialized relentlessly as it killed what is now projected to be half a million Americans by March.

Even before that oracle of medical expertise, Russ Limbaugh, counseled his listeners not to worry because “it’s just the flu, folks,” President Trump set the tone telling the American people the coronavirus would quickly “disappear like a miracle.” As the pandemic accelerated, his repeated characterizations of the disease made it sound more like a short-lived annoyance than a mass killer of the people of the country he led, typified by his recorded comment that Covid-19 “affects virtually nobody.”

Months later, many still take cues from the president in promoting Covid doubt or denial. U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin staged a hearing last week aimed at discrediting the pandemic-fighting measures recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention week. It featured testimony touting “wonder drugs” rejected by medical consensus as useless or dangerous and cast doubt on the safety and effectiveness of vaccines.

Closer to home, state Sen. Duey Stroebel of Cedarburg, a member of a Legislature that has done zero to help state residents get through the physical and economic pain of the pandemic, felt the need to weigh in on the federal response to the pandemic by criticizing the CDC’s quarantine recommendations with a statement Politifact gave a “false” rating.

And then there was Rudy Giuliani who, in bragging that he was able to be admitted to a hospital with minor Covid symptoms because he was a “celebrity,” said, “If you get early treatment, nothing is going to happen to you. You totally eliminate the chance of dying.”             

The comment was both ridiculous and false, but could still mislead the gullible. The “early treatment” Giuliani got was the same monoclonal antibody therapy President Trump received and is available to almost no one who is not the personal attorney and buddy of the president.

The unabated flow of misinformation playing down the coronavirus threat has come with forseeable consequences.

A significant segment of the population does not believe Covid-19 is a serious danger or doubts it even exists. Nurses and doctors encounter such ignorance routinely in hospitals, even among Covid patients on their death beds.

It is understandable that people who minimize the Covid threat are likely to resist measures to control the spread of infection, including masks, social distancing and limits on gatherings. In Wisconsin and elsewhere, health officials who have stressed the deadly threat of the virus have been threatened by people angry over recommended restrictions.

That attitude undermines the only available means to end the pandemic—vaccination of at least two-thirds of the population. People who don’t believe Covid is dangerous are not likely to get shots of the new 95%-effective vaccine to prevent it.

Meanwhile, in nine months more Americans have died from Covid-19 than in four years of combat in World War II. Seven American states are among the 14 places in the world with the highest per-capita Covid death rates. The country of Slovenia is at the top of that deadly ranking, closely followed by the states of South Dakota and North Dakota.  

Among states in the U.S., Wisconsin has the fourth highest Covid infection rate.

Nothing will change the history of Covid-19 in America as it will be written to this point, but there is still hope for a final chapter that will be kinder to these times and the people who have lived through them.

The vaccine is coming. The end might not be in sight, but it is now imaginable. We can give the historians an uplifting story for that chapter by setting misconception, doubt, political pressure and resentment over perceived injury to our liberty aside and follow medical and scientific guidelines to help our communities weather the Covid storm until the vaccine is here.

And then get vaccinated.