"The language of an NTSB report is famously dry and clinical—just the facts. In the case of the pandemic, it would be like this: “There was a flight plan & accurate information about what lay ahead. The controllers were ready. The checklists were complete. The aircraft was sound. But the person at the controls was tweeting. Even if the person at the controls had been able to give effective orders, he had laid off people who would carry them out. This was a preventable catastrophe. The summation by a former senior official was less dry & less clinical. He said to me, “Here we stand, on a mountain of dead.” Coping with a pandemic is one of the most complex challenges a society can face; It is a challenge that the United States did not meet” One truth through the decades, under presidents Republican & Democratic alike, is that what the president cares about, everyone else cares about too."
At www.theatlantic.com
