Matt Gurney: Lessons unlearned, five years later
Did Trump pulling the U.S. out of the WHO trigger any memories for you? If so, I think I know why.
By: Matt Gurney
Do you remember what you were doing five years ago today? Because I do. I was at home, on my couch. The kids were in bed. Something was on TV — I don't remember if it was a show or a movie or maybe a hockey game, but I do remember it didn't have my full attention. I was scrolling Twitter and saw a news flash from China. Officials there had just ordered the city of Wuhan and its 11 million people quarantined — entirely. Trains and planes were stopped. Freeways were closed. In some areas, roads were physically blocked.
Well, shit, I thought. We're fucked.
Not my most eloquent reaction, I admit. But fundamentally, an accurate one. Sadly.
I confess to a slight amount of writerly indulgence on the "today" part of my opening question. China's on the other side of the International Date Line so the actual five-year anniversary of what happened in China on Jan. 23rd, 2020, actually passed us on Wednesday evening here in North America. There had been growing signs of something being wrong in China for weeks. The possibility of "a new SARS" was being discussed in some of my circles. Doctors and government officials I knew were flagging stories for my attention with increasing alarm. It was all starting to make the news, especially for those who read a lot of it, as I do.
But I think for a lot of people, the quarantine of Wuhan might have been the first moment they'd really begun to think that something big might be going on.
I know a lot of people peg the “start” of the pandemic closer to March, when everything began to close, but for me, it’s the Wuhan quarantine that marked the moment I realized something wicked this way came.
But there was another reason I was left pondering those early days of the pandemic, and that’s because it’s returned to the news. Amid his flurry of inaugural executive orders, Donald Trump announced he will pull the United States out of the World Health Organization.