Introduction
During the Reagan administration, there was an unpublished press conference that was filmed in 1982 with Larry Speakes, White House Press Secretary discussing the mounting cases of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) worldwide. During the press conference, there was little acknowledgment from the press secretary that the AIDS epidemic had become a serious issue. The first time it was mentioned Speakes responded by saying “A-I-D-S? I haven’t got anything on it.” (Gibson). The reporter Kinsolving responds saying “It’s known as ‘gay plague” (Gibson). Which at this point the entire press pool dissolves into laughter and it is made clear that the administration does not take the epidemic as a serious matter. As the press pool is having a good time it is shown that Kinsolving is still composed trying to convey the urgency of the matter to the White House press secretary. In response, Speakes deflects the point of conversation with a joke “I don’t have it… do you?” (Gibson). This interaction, which shows a nonserious joking tone when the epidemic is being discussed expresses the Reagan administration’s attitude towards the AIDS epidemic perfectly. Through research the world has discovered that AIDS is not the initial disease. A person initially contracts Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) which if not effectively treated will progress into AIDS. The Reagan administration in part could have pushed for a clearer understanding of the disease if it was handled seriously at the time of the outbreak. The question remains how did other governmental institutions over the decades treat other pandemics and is there a terrible pattern that we have fallen into?
The responses for the other pandemics
A similar attitude has been expressed over various pandemics that the world has faced. In 1902 during the Bubonic plague, the mayor of San Francisco denied all rumors of the plague. He feared that the plague would lead to San Francisco losing access to trade through the closing of the ports and possible travel restrictions to and from nearby states (Chase 12). It was the fear that San Francisco, which was already facing financial troubles would also lose trade revenue. During the Spanish flu of 1912, a similar situation was faced in America. The national government during the initial outbreak was somewhat absent. They did not call for any major uniform policies that every state was commanded to execute. Instead, the Federal government chose to allow each state to choose what course of action they saw fit. This choice resulted in a vast amount of inconsistency within America when it came to handling the pandemic. For example, Philadelphia had one major outbreak of cases since the city contained many citizens living in a crowded area. San Francisco on the other hand was faced with two waves of disease because the governor originally posed a quarantine and a face mask ordinance for the people in the city. These restrictions were met by backlash from the citizens of San Francisco, and tensions rose when the number of cases started to go down. The public argued for the restrictions to be lifted since the number of cases was going down rapidly. In their eyes, there was no reason for the restrictions to stay in place; so, the governor of San Francisco lifted the restrictions, which led to a second spike in the winter of 1918 (Crosby 107).
During the time when America was struggling with the Spanish flu, President Wilson was preoccupied with the war efforts and failed to take any measures to help guide the American populace. It was known that “he never once spoke publicly about the flu as it decimated the United States. He was so narrow-mindedly focused on the American war mobilization that he generated “a kind of furious intolerance” for any other subject of governance” (Coll). This negligence on his part created a culture that made a portion of the country not care about the disease. Feigning ignorance on the issue does not make them go away, especially when you are faced with a disease that kills everyone equally. When looking at these past pandemics and how the governments handled them it becomes easy to draw parallels to the world that we live in now. For starters, it is important to note that the government has taken measures to avoid a passive attitude during epidemics and pandemics. This measure of defense is called the Towards Epidemic Prediction: Federal Efforts and Opportunities in Outbreak Modeling a guiding model that should be taken if America is ever presented with a pandemic again. This Federal Effort Model was established by the Obama administration, and when America faced a pandemic at the beginning of 2020 what happened to the Federal Effort Model?
In May of 2018, the Trump administration dissolved the pandemic response team, and when met with questions regarding the Coronavirus pandemic. The administration never held any serious meetings about the disease. They deflected a question regarding the possibility of the disease spreading from China to America until February 2020. An example of this deflection is when Trump said, “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA… the Stock Market starting to look very good to me” (Doggett); the next mentioning of the Coronavirus was in response to a reporter asking about the first 15 recorded cases on American soil. Trump responded with “I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away… They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine.” (Doggett). This was followed by the spread of misinformation with the administration saying that this is the flu and that it will go away one day just like a miracle. It was also said that it will go away during the summer because of the heat. All of the information being spread was backed by little to no science and was essentially baseless rumors.
Due to the nature of how the government handled the pandemic by not issuing any hard restrictions and leaving the damage control to the states. Many state legislatures followed the same complacent mindset of ignoring the problem. Even when March came and the cases from spring break exploded the White House would release falsified information making it seem as if the government had it under control. On March 9th during a news conference, White House officials said “the U.S. will have tested one million people that week and thereafter would complete 4 million tests per week. By the end of the week, the CDC had only completed a paltry 4,000 tests.” (Doggett). At this point, the damage had been done and the worst was still to come. The death rates would continue to rise throughout summer, and President Trump paraded throughout the White House continuing to release false information and victim blame the American people for their lack of supplies. The primary objective of Trump during the summer was his planned reopening of all the states; meanwhile, there were constant reports from the CDC heavily advising against it. By the time January of 2021 came around, there were over 25 million confirmed cases and over 400,000 which resulted in deaths. Similarly in Brazil at the moment the president was recorded telling the people of Brazil to “stop whining about the pandemic” (BBC News). The president decided to go against all advice and reopen the country because of the fear that the economy will collapse.
Conclusion
The events that have transpired during the Coronavirus pandemic are not new. The only thing that has changed is the time during which it happened. When the AIDS pandemic was initially measured in the United States it was ignored and the people who had the disease were seen as sinners and outcasts of society. This thought process combined with the misinformation being spread greatly inhibited the response time in which the government should have responded to the disease. A similar response timeline has been seen with the Bubonic plague of 1902 in San Francisco, and the Spanish Flu of 1918. The United States of America has never truly had a great history of Federal Government intervention in times of pandemics. It could be possible that the stress and fear that comes with these diseases inhibit the government’s ability to provide infrastructure, or it could be possible that even if there is a laid-out plan by one administration, once that administration leaves office the next administration refuses to use anything from their predecessor because politics can devolve into a competition between administrations.
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