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 How Millions of Lives Might Have Been Saved From Covid-19

March 11, 2022  Top of Form

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By Zeynep Tufekci, Opinion Columnist

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/11/opinion/covid-health-pandemic.html

This article is part of Times Opinion’s reflection on the two-year mark of the Covid pandemic. Read more in a note from Alexandra Sifferlin, Opinion’s health and science editor, in our Opinion Today newsletter.

We cannot step into the same river twice, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus is said to have observed. We’ve changed, the river has changed.

That’s very true, but it doesn’t mean we can’t learn from seeing what other course the river could have flowed. As the pandemic enters its third year, we must consider those moments when the river branched, and nations made choices that affected thousands, millions, of lives.

What if China had been open and honest in December 2019? What if the world had reacted as quickly and aggressively in January 2020 as Taiwan did? What if the United States had put appropriate protective measures in place in February 2020, as South Korea did?

To examine these questions is to uncover a brutal truth: Much suffering was avoidable, again and again, if different choices that were available and plausible had been made at crucial turning points. By looking at them, and understanding what went wrong, we can hope to avoid similar mistakes in the future.

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