When COVID-19 hit in 2020, I wrote a makeshift “will” for my four children under the age of 12. It wasn’t official, just a set of instructions for my children and other immediate family members in case something happened to me. Bank accounts, passwords and access to other valuable information the family might need were included.
It was the beginning of the pandemic and we had no idea how serious things would get.
As a single mother, I feared that if I suddenly caught the disease and died, my children would waste away. The virus was rampant and the risk of death seemed high and very real. Fear and anxiety took over.
Deaths from COVID-19 weren’t exactly uncommon. The pandemic has killed more than a million Americans and there have been about 104 million confirmed cases in the United States alone. Many decisions were rooted in fear and brought with them life-changing consequences. State lockdowns, shuttered businesses, school closures: All were initially based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s social distancing rule.
We are now getting answers to the questions raised by these decisions.
In his testimony to the House Oversight and Accountability Committee on Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and former chief medical adviser to President Donald Trump, said the rule of 6-foot social distancing, which the CDC originally recommended but was not supported by a clinical trial. This is despite constant claims that COVID-19 protocols were based on science.
These revelations are damning and maddening for all of us who have structured our lives around these rules for years. As a result, millions of people suffered needlessly.
In testimony, Fauci admits COVID rules were not based on science
On Monday, Fauci was also asked to clarify his comments during the two-day congressional testimony he gave in January. The transcript of this testimony was recently released.
He responded specifically on Monday to questions about the 6-foot rule: “It had little to do with me as I didn’t make the recommendation and the fact that I said ‘there was no science behind it’ meant there was no clinical trial behind it. “
In January, Fauci told staff and members of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic that there was “no science behind” the 6-foot social distancing rule that state and local governments have repeated for months, if not years.
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“You know, I don’t remember. It kind of just appeared. I don’t remember an argument about whether it should be 5 or 6 or whatever,” Fauci said in January testimony.
He also admitted in the January interview that there was little science to support requiring children to wear masks in public and in schools for nearly two years.
“Do you recall reviewing any studies or data that supported the use of masks in children?” one staffer asked Fauci.
“You know, maybe I did,” he replied, “but I don’t remember it specifically. Maybe I have.”
These revelations are infuriating. Fauci repeated CDC-based COVID-19 protocols as a spokesman for President Trump’s administration. Desperate for guidance, states, local governments, businesses, churches and schools have instituted them.
Closing schools because of COVID guidelines harms children
The real effect of social distancing — which Fauci essentially admitted on Monday and in January testimony was just a hunch about how to deter COVID-19 — has devastated America’s economy, small businesses and families. It disrupted the fabric of American life. For what?
The CDC’s now-infamous three weeks to “flatten the curve” turned into months for students and families living with the consequences. Here are some.
School closures were devastating for children, especially poor or disadvantaged children. Remote learning was not as effective as in-person learning, especially in the first year, as teachers did not have time to prepare. Children fell behind their grade levels. Pandemic closures have resulted in two decades of learning loss.
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Anxiety and depression have soared, especially among teens and tweens. Children with learning difficulties were completely left behind.
Non-urgent but still important medical diagnoses and examinations have been completely halted. (This also applied to adults.) When schools reconvened, masks were treated as sacrosanct and children were forced to eat lunch several feet apart.
Children who were learning to read and write at the beginning of the pandemic are still behind. Never mind that children rarely experienced any adverse effects from COVID-19, much less died from it.
Nor is it a matter of hindsight being 20/20. People, myself included, called for schools to open in the fall months after the pandemic began, predicting it would continue to be harmful.
The entire medical profession, far beyond Fauci’s reach, seemed to have difficulty understanding how to mitigate the virus while continuing to provide medical care to those in need. While most providers have pushed for everyone to get vaccinated, routine screenings and care have been postponed out of fear of COVID-19, even though they themselves have been vaccinated.
At one point during the first year of COVID-19, one of my daughters became extremely ill. I called our pediatrician. Although the team was vaccinated, they only cared for newborns. Her pediatrician refused to examine my daughter in person, and we tested negative for COVID-19 three times. She lost weight and refused to eat, sleeping all day.
After about 10 days, she finally recovered. We still have no idea what illness she had, but the pediatrician’s treatment, based on COVID-19 guidelines, didn’t make sense.
Hundreds of providers put patients in danger based on ideas that had no basis in research. We are only now learning how much it will cost people to delay cancer treatments for fear of spreading COVID-19.
We cannot forget what we learned during the pandemic
Schools were just one example. The economic data, which represents millions of families, is no longer comforting.
In the second quarter of 2020, 1.2 million jobs were destroyed. In June 2021, 6.2 million people did not work or worked fewer hours because their employers closed or lost business. Family businesses were lost, savings were destroyed, all because of rules that had no real scientific basis.
Elderly loved ones, those most susceptible to COVID-19, died alone in hospital beds, with no one holding their hands and whispering last prayers. If funerals were held, expressions of affection would be prohibited.
On Monday, Fauci admitted that some COVID-19 preventive measures may have gone too far and led to harmful results. He said it is “very, very clear” that public health officials in the future should consider “the potential negative side effects” of controversial ideas like mask requirements and ask “how we can do better next time.”
Still, even that seems a little too late.
Although measures against COVID-19 were implemented immediately as hundreds, if not thousands, were at risk of dying from the disease, it became clear within months that the disease was disproportionately targeting the elderly and nearly did not affect children.
An adaptive administration led by Fauci, the CDC, and the National Institutes of Health would have noted such changes and lifted the strict lockdowns of schools and businesses. A healthy society quarantines the sick, not the young. A robust economy never shuts down its economy and expects it to prosper.
Since we live in Texas, which has remained largely open except for a few months, my children and I have watched as friends and family battled the pandemic with businesses and schools closed. The contrast between living in a state where responsible freedom was encouraged, compared to places where local governments kept businesses and schools closed, was obvious and remains cemented in my mind.
COVID-19 has been around for four years, but as time passes, we must never forget its valuable lessons so as not to repeat these mistakes again.
Nicole Russell is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY. She lives in Texas with her four children.
