"Poof into Thin Air"

Five Things You Need to Read Today

1. "Poof into Thin Air"

Whatever else we may get distracted by, there is one vast overhanging fact that affects everything about politics, the economy, education, and just about everything else this year: the coronavirus pandemic. And the biggest fact about this big fact is the monumental failure of our government's response.

We've been left with the worst of both worlds: all the economic damage from never-ending lockdowns, but without any significant containment or abatement of the spread of the virus. We're currently at the crest of a second wave, which is really just the first wave that has spread outward from the Northeast down into the South, with hospitals in places like Florida and Texas hitting their ICU capacities.

How was this allowed to happen? You may remember in the Spring that I advocated loudly for a system of massive testing and contact tracing, which was and still is being used with success elsewhere in the world. I hoped that there was work going on at the federal level to implement this basic, tried-and-true response to a pandemic. It turns out that there was such an effort—until it went "poof into thin air."

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