While the COVID-19 pandemic is not yet in our rear-view mirror, the worst seems to be behind us. It’s not too soon to examine the U.S. policy response to this unprecedented public health emergency — both its successes and failures — so that our country will be better prepared to face similar challenges in the future. The U.S. is closing in on one million COVID-19 deaths since February 2020. COVID-19 is now the third leading cause of death behind heart disease and cancer.
When looking at deaths per capita, the U.S. is on par with Poland and Armenia rather than its fellow economic powerhouses like Germany and the United Kingdom, and far behind countries like Australia that took aggressive COVID-19
mitigation measures. Compared to 29 other high-income countries, the U.S. experienced the largest decline in life expectancy. Here, it fell by two years — the largest decline since the data was first collected in 1933.
In response, federal lawmakers have proposed creating an independent task force to review the U.S. response to “fully recognize the lessons of this pandemic,” according to bill sponsor Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.). This paper seeks to contribute to this important inquiry by assessing how the United States responded to the pandemic, examining both our failures and our successes. One note of caution: As essential as this retrospective examination is, it is equally important to underscore that the next pandemic may take a very different form. Instead of planning to win the last war, our national authorities should invest in overall preparedness and resilience against crises we can’t predict.
