This just isn’t true. In fact, there was a great deal of fear that protests would result in spikes of cases. Instead, they turned out to be perfect case studies on what works: wearing masks and ventilation (outdoors). Authorities then encouraged outdoor activity and wearing masks when getting close to other people. People started visiting parks more often as a result.
The US bungled almost every aspect of a pandemic response as you can bungle. Some of it was bureaucratic mismanagement, such as the early inability to get testing out to the populace. Some of it was intentional lies, such as Trump’s numerous falsehoods during 2020.
Masking & distancing worked well for areas that were serious about it. But in the US, it’s not possible to do a nationwide masking mandate. So, it was bound to be regional waves of infections, as different areas handled things differently.
The things we did well: We had a very good vaccine rollout. It got approved quick & distributed in early 2021. We also had a very good and strong economic stimulus response, so that people didn’t go broke when they had to stay home in 2020 and 2021. We also kept people enrolled in Medicaid & made ACA enrollment easier & with stronger subsidy, so that the pandemic wouldn’t make people lose their health insurance.
The disinformation after the vaccines were launched though probably killed an extra 200 to 300K. I’m not sure what could’ve been done by health professionals to counter the lies that were all over the place about the vaccines. Red State America ate the lies up, and many of them died for it.
And the obesity in America made the virus more deadly in our country than in places with less obesity.
If another pandemic like this comes again, I predict the US will have results just as bad or worse. Right now, we’re just too dysfunctional to have a united response to damn near anything.
Personal Anecdote: My family masked up and avoiding the other folks for the better part of 2 years, and we had no issues. After we started going out more in '22, and masking less, we all caught a mild case of Covid last summer (and we were all already vaxxed & boosted by then). We tried to go “by the book” as well as we could, and it worked out well.
Here’s a good article by David Wallace-Wells about what could have happened. He thinks (I know he’s no expert, but he has some good thoughts on this stuff) that maybe the best we could do was deaths in the 500K range…we ended up with over 1.1 million deaths.
Likewise. I have had every shot I am eligible for, masked indoors everywhere other than my own home except for a small handful of small family gatherings where everyone had tested immediately beforehand, didn’t eat indoors at restaurants, and managed to avoid COVID until December 2022. I was pretty damn sick for a month and don’t care to repeat that experience. I let up on masking for a little bit afterward, but given that my 20+ year younger sister-in-law, who got COVID a week or so before I did, just had it again, I am back to masking indoors again. I am glad to let people think I am neurotic if it keeps me healthy.
My office had sort of a hybrid thing - we have short-term disability leave for any medical issue that lasts more than 5 days. Of course I got COVID at the end of the year, and we were only allowed to carry over 10 days of PTO, so between that and needing to spend a LOT of time with my dad during what turned out to be his final illness, I had burned through almost all of my PTO by the end of December. I took my last bit of PTO with COVID, and then got another week-plus of 100% short-term disability pay because it took me 2+ weeks of COVID to be able to stay awake for more than a couple of hours at a time, let alone sit up and work - even at a desk. I wasn’t really myself again for a solid month. If I’d had a physical job, I imagine I would have had to take more time than that. And I had a Paxlovid rebound, so I was infectious for two separate 5-day periods.
I think employers should offer 100% disability pay for documented infectious diseases like COVID so people are not incentivized to go to work while they still feel crappy AND are able to infect others. Masks aren’t perfect.
It’s so strange how variable it is. My wife and I got it last year, and it just wasn’t that bad. The influenza-A we got in April was far worse as far as feeling like crap went. COVID just seemed to be a combination of a cough, fatigue that you could work past, and some random fevers. All for about a week- the cough took about another week to get rid of, but I wasn’t infectious by that point, according to the testing.
Others have reported dire symptoms despite being fully vaccinated and multiply boosted like we were.