The Covid Big Picture So Far: Part 3, Lessons From Our Failure to Organize
The pandemic was a test of our ability to organize for public policy and social responsibility -- we failed. Where do we go from here on the pandemic and bigger emergencies like climate change?
This essay is Part 3 of a series on Covid and will look at lessons from this pandemic on organizing — both for the pandemic (which isn’t over) and accelerating emergencies like climate change. Part 1 focused on what we’ve learned about Covid from science — very important to share today as most media and organizations and political figures continue to downplay the severity of Covid and “Long Covid”, while Part 2 discussed the larger public health policy response and demands we need to organize around.
The End of Federal Emergency Means Abandoning Public Responsibility
A Department of Homeland Security report from January 2023 reviews and summarizes much research on COVID-19 that was discussed in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series. The report acknowledges that Covid is airborne, masking and ventilation/filtration are needed for protection, more research on treatments and vaccines is needed, and “long Covid” is still being researched and the long term effects are unknown. In essence — it admits to what scientists have said for years at this point.
And yet, the Biden administration couldn’t wait to end the emergency Covid declaration, announcing in January 2023 (same time as the DHS report asked some very important questions about long-term understanding and readiness against Covid) intentions to end the emergency by May. A Republican-led effort in Congress to speed up ending the emergency was backed by most Democrats and signed by Biden without much fight; while Biden feigned disagreement, he ultimately signed the bill to end the emergency in April 2023 rather than veto it, showing his agreement with the goals. The public health emergency expired on May 11, 2023, although most requirements like masking had already been lifted in many places in anticipation. The emergency policy was effectively over long before this date, but the pandemic still isn’t. This timeline of events shows the end to the emergency being pushed largely by political interests rather than public health, and the failure of the Biden administration to speak candidly about the long term risks and challenges of facing Covid.
As of Summer 2023, Covid has still not settled into a predictable pattern as colds and flus generally are. Covid is still seeing regular new “mini-waves” (not really that “mini” either, still resulting in higher hospitalization rates and at least 2-3x higher risk of death than the flu, and higher if not up to date on vaccines; Covid was still the 4th leading cause of death in the US in 2022), driven by mutating variants that are increasingly showing signs of immune escape — being able to get around immune defenses, whether from past infection or vaccine. As masks come off everywhere, statistics show low uptake of the bivalent booster by the US population — only about 27% of eligible adults and 18% of eligible adolescents got a bivalent booster, leaving most of the US with waning protections as new waves are predicted for this summer. Recent research even suggests that the current vaccines are more effective when boosters are received more often, but Biden’s CDC is clearly moving toward more of a yearly vaccination schedule, ignoring data that Covid comes in regular waves to pretend it is “seasonal”. In fact, a new EG.5 “Eris” subvariant is rapidly spreading as of mid-August 2023, with increases in hospitalization and ICU rates, while the next scheduled booster is not expected to be available until October.
We’re clearly entering a new phase — not the end of the pandemic truly, but certainly the end of public policy that provided important economic and healthcare support particularly to poorer families. The consequences mean government has been effectively absolved of responsibility to take the pandemic seriously from this point on, as there is little organized political resistance and most folks aren’t aware of the risks. Media is starting to pick up a little on the newest wave (for example, finally talking about long-term effects on heart health from Covid and higher rates of stillbirth and pregnancy complications due to Covid and vaccine misinformation), but media still isn’t emphasizing the urgency for folks to act for public health to stop a new wave. We treat it as an inevitability instead.
I think we have to admit our present situation is a catastrophic failure of the Left to mobilize & organize, a failure that many leftists themselves propagate as they “go back to normal” along with the rest of society. It will be important to examine these failures a little closer, and consider what we can do for short-term mobilizing for pandemic response as we face new waves, as well as lessons for longer-term organizing that is necessary for many crises we face beyond the pandemic, particularly climate change. [see also: The Urgency of Denormalization for more information on how and why neoliberalism pushed for “back to normal” and normalization of eugenics, pandemics, and austerity]
Let’s start with looking at where to go from here with the pandemic.
Ignoring Lessons From Past Pandemics
Despite claims that the pandemic is over, Covid is still circulating and mutating into new variants that are forming continuing waves. The variants are beginning to mutate so much from the original Omicron, Delta, and Alpha waves that one journal article observed in March 2023 that “the XBB omicron subvariant is now as distant from wild-type SARS-CoV-2 as SARS-CoV-2 is from SARS-CoV, such that XBB should probably be called SARS-CoV-3". In other words, the virus is mutating so much that it could be considered a new family — meaning possibly new unknown effects of infection and resistance to current treatments moving forward. The new EG.5 wave is a subvariant of XBB and is known to have a mutation making it more likely to evade previous immunities from vaccine or infection.
The 1918 flu pandemic (“Spanish Flu”) gave a number of lessons that unfortunately have gone largely unheeded with Covid; officials seem to be making a lot of the same mistakes. Most deaths from the flu pandemic came in the 1920s after public health measures were lifted, a tragic example of what happens when pandemic protections are dropped too quickly — more death and more suffering. And in particular, a large number of initial survivors of the flu pandemic faced what we might today call “long flu”, with long-term symptoms and disability similar to what we hear about Covid — profound fatigue, brain fog, depression, tremors, sleeplessness, and a litany of neurological disorders. Heart disease and neurological conditions like Parkinson’s are expected to become more common as Long Covid spreads.
And we’ve so far only covered Covid, and not the surges in other viruses like flu and RSV and even deadly fungal infections going on (with some experts hypothesizing that immune system damage from Covid may make folks more susceptible to these infections). Children are developing many different “abnormal” problems since the winter, including a “surge of brain abscesses” which the CDC identifies as coming from Covid and other infections. Other viruses like “bird flu” (H5N1) are spreading rapidly in the wild and risking mutation to spread to humans; Potential vaccines for H5N1 are already being researched, and Japan is beginning to stockpile flu vaccines, which I think must be taken as a sign that the global system is preparing for a new pandemic in the coming years. Covid is even affecting our pets — cats can show many of the same symptoms as humans such as respiratory and gastrointestinal distress.
All of this emphasizes the need for a universal healthcare system that can treat both acute and chronic/long-term Covid disease. Instead of creating a single payer healthcare system, the end of the federal emergency actually meant a “bipartisan” agreement for huge budget cuts to Medicaid and Medicare that will result in millions losing healthcare. The lack of support for health professionals has resulted in thousands quitting, with the US on track to lose 100,000 healthcare professionals by 2025.
Outside of medicine, the end to the emergency also means renters are losing important protections against eviction that were put in place during the pandemic. Student loans are restarting in October after the Supreme Court struck down one proposed student loan forgiveness plan (and while Biden has a proposed a new income-based repayment plan to lower payments, it doesn’t immediately go into effect and due to means testing, far fewer will qualify than Democrats want you to know). A big hint to Biden and Congress, but forgiving nursing or medical school loans would be a fantastic way of recruiting and training more nurses and doctors — who can afford to go to nursing or medical school and take on such huge loans in this economy?
Warning signs are pointing to serious economic troubles moving into 2024 as new waves of Covid variants begin spreading for the first time since the emergency protections have been lifted. The rest of 2023 and 2024 could see serious disruption affecting the economy and the election. It is imperative that Leftists plan and organize for action especially as Biden and Democrats seem to be hunkering down to defend their current inaction rather than planning for the systemic policy changes actually needed.
A New Covid Relief Plan
One of the few Covid Relief Plan proposals put forward was from the Hawkins/Walker 2020 presidential campaign Green Covid Recovery Plan, and it remains the best. The Green Party of the United States steering committee also issued a statement in support of a comprehensive public health response including vaccination and certain mandates (full disclosure: I was a member of the steering committee at the time & co-authored the statement). Three years into the pandemic, it needs to be updated based on what we know today. Some primary aspects we can mobilize for today include:
Implementing various CDC, OSHA, and other agency recommendations for protection, which will likely require municipal/state regulations and public funding to ensure all can receive:
CDC Building Ventilation standards (see also school-specific CDC ventilation standards and the ASHRAE standards supported by OSHA including the new ASHRAE 241)
CDC recommendations for masking to protect children from COVID-19, flu, and more (which recommends wearing masks to school especially if sick or at elevated risk)
Encouraging more hybrid and remote work when possible instead of “back to the office” (including electronic access to public services rather than requiring in-person visits whenever possible, and ensuring public high-speed internet infrastructure)
National Health Service with Medicare-for-All-style single payer
Including support for doctors, nurses, and all healthcare staff that are often dangerously understaffed and underfunded/underpaid
Publicly-funded vaccine & treatment research that is patent-free and made available for global manufacturing & distribution at low cost
Debt relief — medical debt, student debt, and expanding public housing to ensure housing for all
An Ecosocialist Green New Deal can manufacture & distribute free pandemic and public health supplies like N95 masks and at-home tests, in addition to the typical renewable energy / green jobs programs
I encourage local community organizations to consider how to advocate for all of these points, starting with short-term policies and working toward longer-term, larger systemic change. For example, school districts could be contacted and encouraged to adopt ASHRAE ventilation standards and masking protocols, if they haven’t already.
Of course, one aspect learned from the pandemic is how much disinformation, especially on social media and corporate media, contributed to misunderstandings of the pandemic and hostility toward public health actions that were seen as attacks on personal freedom rather than an opportunity for collective action for public health and safety that is necessary for all to exercise freedom. So while organizing for change, it is apparent we also need to examine social dynamics more closely to consider changes to messaging and strategy that may be more effective and resistant to disinformation.
Lockdown Revisionism and How The Left Stumbled To The Right
When “The Left” deprioritized COVID-19 response organizing, it opened the doors for a “Lockdown revisionism” that presented public health policy as authoritarian attacks on freedom. What was initially carefully framed as “only opposition to mandates” quickly became a wave of anti-vaccine disinformation, Covid denialism, and ultimately right-wing conspiracy thinly disguised behind anti-establishment rhetoric; many of these features are discussed in sources like the Anti-Vaxx Playbook which provides examples and advice on countering these narratives. Some “progressives” and “leftists” however adopted the conspiracy rhetoric, but perhaps worse, the many that didn’t necessarily accept the rhetoric also generally viewed it as a “distraction” from organizing on other issues and therefore chose to remain “neutral” or “take no position”, effectively ceding the argument to the right.
The lack of pushback from the Left was a strategic mistake that has emboldened extremists to push further. Anti-vax “activists” are building “legal networks” to oppose future public health responses. Idaho house bill 154 would ban mRNA vaccines in general, which could affect availability of other vaccines and treatments for conditions beyond Covid, such as promising new vaccines for cancer currently being researched. Florida is also pushing a vaccine ban resolution. This has devistated the long-standard school vaccination requirements that have nearly eliminated so many childhood diseases for decades; in some places, a third of parents or more are now looking to opt-out of vaccines even for measles and mumps and other diseases thanks to the wave of vaccine disinformation and fearmongering.
This is also reflected beyond health and medicine. For example, an AP article attempted to raise an alarm about “missing” students who did not return to school in-person once at-home orders were lifted. The article attempts to sensationalize this and advocate for “back to normal”, however some of the stories it cites actually tell a different story. For example, one student named Kailani that did not return was not getting proper support from the school for ADHD was found on follow-up to have actually benefited:
Ultimately, the pandemic and at-home education relieved the anxiety Kailani felt from being in the school building. Kailani preferred online school because she could turn off her camera and engage as she chose. Her grades improved.
Note: her grades improved because she benefited from online school rather than in-person. But this point was buried in the article and certainly not raised in the article’s main thesis or headline.
There’s no doubt that some students absolutely would do better with more direct, in-person interactions. But the lack of a Leftist vision for a world that is more accommodating for disabled and neurodivergent folks has resulted in a “back to normal” narrative that is not only turning off those accommodations and public services but is actively attacking them with ableist justifications, making it harder to re-establish, normalize, and ultimately make permanent those accommodations that were so helpful to disabled and neurodivergent communities. The whole point is that there shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all solutions, and as much as folks feel online doesn’t fit everyone, the typical in-person “back to normal” educational model has never fit everyone either. There is no reason we can’t do more telework or remote/online education, making it a permanent option for those that prefer it, but that discussion is being lost in Covid denialism and insistence on a uniform “return” to “normal”. Ironically, with many workers demanding remote work after proving it can be done during the pandemic and employers and real estate panicking about remote work to demand “back to the office”, this would seem to be an excellent opportunity for the Left to jump into helping organize unions around remote work, work hours, work/life balance, and higher wages, but the Left seems to be letting the opportunity and the moment pass by yet again in order to focus on historical tactics that frankly haven’t won much change in years.
Speaking of economically: the start of the pandemic was actually the first time in decades that poverty was addressed in any sort of meaningful way — evictions were stayed to keep people in their homes, student loans were put on hold, food stamps and healthcare programs were expanded, we even received a few “stimulus” checks. Not saying these programs were enough, of course, but what did exist and did some good is now disappearing as the cost of living and inflation has risen dramatically. The right-wing is ending the pandemic emergency to push more austerity, slashing public services and aid, while supporting more corporate handouts due to those same economic conditions. Unfortunately, the Left has largely stood silent as this happened; again, largely pushing a “back to normal” organizing approach rather than adapting tactics to acknowledge the pandemic and the good policies that were put in place during the pandemic. Curiously, even policies like Medicare for All that were once popular before the pandemic have even disappeared from organizing priorities; so clearly we’re not actually returning to pre-pandemic status as we’re not even organizing for the same things despite them being more urgent than ever.
So why did the Left stay so quiet about vaccines and Covid response? A number of factors seem to have compounded.
For one, conspiracy thinking seems to drive a lot of political activism today, and increasingly on the “left”. In the absence of clear political education and analysis, folks that are not used to systemic analysis of capitalism and social power along the lines of Marxist or social ecological analysis can mistakenly find “explanations” in conspiracy. Conspiracy can be defined by its focus on individuals, corrupt and secret cabals, which all too often tends toward racism and bigotry to look for individuals to blame, rather than a systemic analysis that proposes changes to create true democracy, freedom, and justice for all. To counter the growth of conspiracy thinking, the Left needs to put far more effort into public education — to learn to recognize conspiracy and ecofascist false “solutions”, to avoid pitfalls in thinking such as overemphasizing greed and corruption at the expense of systemic thinking, and to learn about and consider what an ecosocialist alternative system would look like instead. The Bernie Sanders campaign was highly successful at mobilizing folks around a social democratic platform, introducing a new generation to leftist ideas and policy, but then abandoned those folks adrift without a place to organize or a political educational program after Sanders dropped the campaign to support Biden. Many folks new to the movement are sincere and mean well, but are still accustomed to and boxed in by political thinking largely influenced by neoliberalism and duopoly politics and “libertarianism” that is far more right-wing than most are aware. We must be able to guide them into socialist and anarchist thought and historical analysis with reading groups and educational outreach and learning through organizing experiences directly. To be clear here, education is not about conformity; it is about building a shared language, history, and analysis on the Left so that we may discuss and debate what comes next with clarity, honesty, and minimal misunderstanding due to how differently liberals and right-wing “libertarians” use terminology compared to socialists.
Another clue might come from social science. The Asch conformity experiments were social psychology experiments first performed in the 1950s which explored how majority opinions and conformity affected people’s positions even when they knew the facts. In short, it found up to 75% of people exhibited some degree of conformity with the majority, even when the majority was factually incorrect and the participant knew it. Participants described feeling “doubt” and changing their opinion to conform by wondering if they must be missing something or misunderstanding the task. The social pressure from the perceived majority is very strong, even when folks know the facts and should “know better”, and helps shed some light on how so many, even Leftists, can become doubtful and give up on pandemic policy in the face of a barrage of misinformation from the media, politicians, and community organizations. While scientific studies could help reverse this pressure, medical science in the pandemic era has become more and more untrustworthy as we see how politics sways CDC decisions and conspiracy thinking about pharmaceuticals grows in influence. The Left needs to find a way to promote science for the people rather than retreating from anti-intellectual, anti-science, right-wing conspiracy; open, transparent, public-funded not corporate-sponsored, non-patented scientific research needs to be a key demand to help alleviate these issues. Hesitations about being seen as "pro-corporate”, easily turned into claims of “authoritarian”, if one supported the scientific policy around Covid greatly harmed the movement, so it must be made clear that science and medicine are not the problem, an undemocratic capitalist system is.
The Pandemic As A “Dry Run” For Climate Change
The Covid Pandemic was a test of our ability to organize for public policy and social responsibility rather than the individual responsibility that leaves the most vulnerable without protection or help. The media is already normalizing concepts such as “We as a society have to be prepared for as much as 100,000 to 250,000 people a year dying of those vulnerable groups” — making Covid 5-10x more deadly than the seasonal flu, which doesn’t even take into account the number of folks facing Long Covid symptoms and even disability. Death and disability is being normalized, those deemed “vulnerable” ignored and forgotten, without much public outcry.
We failed — and that means we’re not prepared for the fight on climate change which is even bigger and will require even more united action.
Collective responsibility to address crisis has largely been replaced by an expectation for individual action: “you do you”. Much of the Left has even accepted this as guidance, telling members to respect others’ choices if they decide to wear a mask or take precautions but stopping short of setting any collective action requirements or goals that might be seen as “inherently authoritarian”. Instead, we just kind of dance around the issue of Covid, let folks tackle that issue by themselves, with an implicit attitude that other issues are “more important”.
In other words, the message is sent loud and clear: in-person meetings about other issues, in which no one is required or expected to mask or take precautions or even talk about the pandemic, is more important than asking what we can collectively do to address the failures of the capitalist system to handle the pandemic in a multitude of dimensions. This is honestly a spectacular failure of the Left, completely missing the broad, visionary, utopian, intersectional thinking that is going to be required to address the multifaceted threats of ecological and social crisis. We’re effectively leaving some of our best allies behind to fight by themselves against an uncaring society that has adopted a eugenicist approach — “if I personally am not sick, then it’s not a problem”. To paraphrase and adapt a famous line: First they came for the immunosuppressed and vulnerable, but I did not speak out, because I wasn’t…
Climate change is even more complex and going to require significant international cooperation at scales unknown to human history. Given that we had such difficulty formulating a Leftist response to a pandemic, we must consider this a dire alarm, a canary in a coal mine, about our efforts for climate change too. To win, we need to drastically improve our organizing and turn the discussion away from reactionary thought toward a more positive vision of society — a specifically liberatory vision for a ecological future, otherwise “eco-fascism” will seize the narrative and demand sacrifices be made to preserve their preferred “way of life” in a burning world. This has now come to pass in the pandemic, where convenience, particularly for the wealthy, and a desire to see “back to normal” (as embodied by returning to a maskless society so that there are no reminders of the pandemic literally in your face everyday) was placed above the need to protect the elderly, disabled, and all vulnerable people (and frankly, everyone, since Long Covid can and does impact even young, otherwise healthy people). If we want a different path, we have to organize and be vocal about all humans and all human rights, bringing together communities to resist all forms of hierarchy and oppression and connecting all of our individual struggles into a collective struggle for a better world.
And we are running out of time to meet IPCC report requirements to keep climate change to a 1.5 C standard. Even this 1.5 C standard is a compromise, built on fairly conservative (meaning: a bit idealistic) calculations; we are seeing devistating effects of climate change already, and every tenth of a degree above 1.5 C increases the risk of civilization-ending catastrophe. One impact from the continued destruction of ecosystems and habitats is, ironically, pandemics — when species that were not previously in contact come into increasing contact and tension with each other and human society due to environmental pressures, novel viruses can quickly mutate and spread. Covid itself is theorized to come from animal-to-human transmission from bats, possibly from bat colonies in surrounding areas migrating due to habitat destruction. Therefore, addressing the climate crisis and quickly moving to an ecological society is also a necessary part of an effective long-term public health policy to prevent future pandemics, a point that should not be lost in our organizing vision and message.
We must immediately regroup and have the hard discussions on what Leftist policies and organizing looks like in the rest of the 2020s, as time runs out for humanity. There are many lessons to learn from the pandemic so far, and a new world to win, if we are bold enough to challenge ourselves and the capitalist system.
Updated September 14, 2023, to include link to the Urgency of Denormalization essay which covers similar topics but includes more analysis on why neoliberal capitalism was so quick to push “back to normal”.
End Note, November 7, 2023: New research showing the severity of Long Covid has been released, estimating 14% of adults infected with Covid experienced some form of Long Covid symptoms, and while some resolved after time, an estimated 11-18% of adults affected by Long Covid symptoms that are still present. Noted here for reference; the pandemic isn’t over, and we’ll be dealing with the health fallout for potentially years and decades.
End Note, December 8, 2023: More commentary on “The Year The Pandemic ‘Ended’”, which gives a timeline of pandemic policies and how the Biden administration quickly removed not only public health policies but even stopped providing information on the virus for private action; see Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
End Note, December 10, 2023: Add a link to article about the origin of COVID in animal-to-human transmission, likely from bats, based on genetic similarity of viruses in bat populations near Wuhan compared to the Covid virus. From the article: “Overall, SARSr-CoV animal-to-human transmission associated with infected live animals is the most likely cause of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
End Note, December 17, 2023: An excellent article exploring how the right-wing “herd immunity” concept took over US politics and policy.
End Note, February 24, 2024: Adding links to a summary of typical costs for implementing ASHRAE-241 standards to mitigate airbone disease, and a report by Rolling Stone on effectiveness of different types of masks (spoiler: wear an N95 in public!).
End Note, February 26, 2024: Adding link to a Science report on advances in understanding of all the different forms of Long Covid and a Men’s Health article on risks of multiple infections of Covid. Seems mainstream media is finally beginning to catch the story.
End Note, March 6, 2024: Adding link to Boston University article about COVID-19 still as a pandemic.
End Note, March 13, 2024: Adding link to article “I Want To Live” about Pittsburgh-region residents struggling with Long Covid, as a well as a Scientific American article on the effects of Covid on the brain.
End Note, March 31, 2024: People Magazine covered Long Covid including the Scientific American article above, showing that the topic is becoming more mainstream.
End Note, April 18, 2024: New research suggests it is possible to produce a “universal” mRNA vaccine that can address all the variants of Covid, influenza, and possibly others. This would be a huge breakthrough but will take more time for trials and such to get it to the public.
End Note, April 30, 2024: As of May 1, hospitals are no longer required to report respiratory illness statistics including Covid to the federal government as a Covid regulation expires. This comes as there are increasing reports of H5N1 “bird flu” spreading to mammals, and infecting cows and the US milk supply, and even concerns farm workers are beginning to catch it. If it makes the jump to human transmission, a new pandemic can be coming.
End Note, May 25, 2024: Added new research from May 2024 that confirms the effectiveness of high-quality masks at preventing the spread of respiratory illnesses including Covid.
End Note, June 7, 2024: Added new link to medical concerns that rise of new “unusual” cancers is tied to Covid, with doctors increasingly wondering what long-term consequences of multiple infections may be.
End Note, June 14, 2024: A new Reuters investigation found that the US military was purposely spreading anti-vax misinformation in order to undermine China’s influence.
End Note, June 18, 2024: TIME reports on the new summer wave of the FLiRT variants of Covid, but downplays public protections and threat. Meanwhile, a former program manager at DARPA has spoken out against the US’s lack of public health response to Long Covid and the threat it has to “debilitate” many Americans if current trends continue.
End Note, July 7, 2024: On July 3rd, the CDC updated its website to make clear that Covid is not seasonal and surge throughout the year. However the site still refers to masking and other precautions as “additional” precautions rather than “core”.
End Note, October 9, 2024: “COVID Hasn’t Disappeared — But Empathy, Care and Solidarity Have”, Truthout.
End Note, October 20, 2024: “Long Covid Is Harming Too Many Kids”, Scientific American.