In March of 2020, the idea of Covid-19 became a concrete one for people in the US, particularly in the New York area, when an area in the town of New Rochelle was locked down by then-Governor Andrew Cuomo.
There had already been news of lockdowns in China. There had been a cruise ship that was anchored off the coast of California, after a person who had traveled onboard died and then many others tested positive for the virus. But the quarantine conditions imposed on a US town right outside New York City suggested that this disease could no longer be contained somewhere else.
We’ve been through a lot since then.
Covid is a deadly disease that killed millions of people around the world, including more than one million Americans, and which continues to kill people. But it was also a political issue and a matter of public debate. Something that conceivably could have been just a scientific discussion became a subject where one’s opinion on it depended on whether they were a Democrat or Republican or whatever other flavors and divisions of politics they were, in whatever country they were in. (The US, it must be said, had particularly hyperbolic political discourse around Covid.)
That extended to one’s views on the origin of the virus, on how best to treat it, on whether to wear masks to protect others from the virus, and on whether to, eventually, take a vaccine for it.
The problem with turning issues about a virus into a political mud-slinging process is that decisions are likely not being made solely on the basis of logic, reason and what the latest research actually says. Instead, gut reactions and hatred of the other side of the political aisle color what one believes about various things.
There has been recent news about a few of the contentious issues that were debated during the height of the pandemic, and it’s worthwhile to take a look at what we’ve learned (if anything) about those subjects in the past three years. What do we know now?
Where did the virus originate?
To read more, subscribe to Ami
