Elected officials have mismanaged the coronavirus pandemic, and it feels like the worst type of déjà vu. Demonstrators gather on January 20, 2020 in San Juan, Puerto Rico after a warehouse full of relief supplies, reportedly dating back to Hurricane Maria in 2017, were found to have been left undistributed to those in need.
If you’ve ever wondered what it feels like to be abandoned by your government, let me explain: You spend months feeling as if you’re going mad because elected officials are downplaying the scope of a crisis, while your loved ones beg for help because the circumstances are life-threatening. The government response is infuriatingly slow and inadequate, so you try to find roundabout ways to do something. Your efforts, however, are a drop in the bucket. There is no way to shame lawmakers into doing better because it seems they just don’t care. You think a lot about how you are powerless to stop the wave of death.
The crisis America is undergoing today — as more and more people fall ill, struggle financially, and die due to the novel coronavirus — has brought back the grief and anger I felt in the year after Hurricane Maria devastated my homeland, the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. Puerto Ricans were left to fend for themselves by both the local island and federal U.S. government. We were horrified for months at how lawmakers’ ill-fated decisions were literally costing people their lives, and no amount of alarm-sounding by those on the island or in the diaspora were able to make them change course.
Officials from Washington to San Juan insisted for months that only 64 people had died as a consequence of Hurricane Maria and that they handled the storm’s aftermath adequately. But Boricuas knew otherwise. Leaders botched the emergency response after that fateful day in September 2017: The Trump administration responded more aggressively to hurricanes in Texas and Florida; Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló was not equipped at all to handle the disaster.
In the first days after the winds left, the morgues were overflowing. Hospitals and nursing homes then spent months without power, leading to a critical lack of essential health services such as ventilators, dialysis, and oxygen. Obtaining clean water was nearly an impossible feat. It seemed like everyone knew somebody who had lost a loved one. After nearly a year of gaslighting, data finally confirmed what people already knew to be true. A study published in 2018 in the New England Journal of Medicine estimated that 4,645 people had died after the storm — not 64. The Puerto Rican government would eventually amend the official death count to 2,975.
By the time this disaster happened, I had not lived in Puerto Rico for several years. That didn’t mean it hurt less. Watching the island descend into chaos and the government’s inaction meant we were anticipating these deaths. Seeing them come true was its own special kind of hell. I spent most days in the months after September 2017 exhausted and in a haze, frustrated I was so far away from home. I cried a lot, feeling whatever I could do to help was never enough. Many of the deaths were preventable and yet not prevented. These were our parents, grandparents, siblings, partners, and friends. And then President Trump insultingly called the news of the real death toll a sham.
The coronavirus pandemic feels like the worst type of déjà vu. More than 450,000 people across the United States have tested positive for the virus, and nearly 16,300 have died so far. About 17 million people have filed for unemployment in the past four weeks. While many of us are privileged enough to shelter at home, millions of essential workers — from supermarket cashiers to bus drivers and warehouse employees — are risking their lives to keep society going, often for low wages and without adequate protections. The knowledge that elected officials have mismanaged the pandemic hangs over my head. The subsequent grief feels omnipresent.
Disasters and pandemics begin as natural phenomenons, with the role of government being to contain the situation and minimize people’s suffering. But often the aftermath becomes a political one, with some leaders prioritizing their own electoral survival over the safety of their constituents.
While Puerto Rico’s status as a colony and the unequal treatment that it brings certainly played a role, the Trump administration’s pathetic response to Hurricane Maria also hinted at how unprepared the federal government would be for other disasters. It took President Trump 70 days from the moment he was warned of the dangers of the novel coronavirus to treat the pandemic as a serious crisis. He did little to fix a flawed coronavirus test, or handle the shortage of personal protective equipment for health care workers. Those lost months could have helped save millions of lives that have been disrupted either by illness, financial catastrophe, or both.
Local leaders have not fared much better. There are many state officials who’ve been slow to act. For example, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis allowed spring breakers to run amok in the state’s beaches, ignoring warnings from public health experts. Now, 15,600 people are sick and more than 300 have died in his state. Despite widespread praise for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a New York Times report found that officials’ initial efforts to curb the spread of the virus were “hampered by their own confused guidance, unheeded warnings, delayed decisions, and political infighting.” Thomas R. Frieden, the former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Times that the estimated death toll might have been cut by 50% to 80% if New York had shut down two weeks earlier than it did.
People, particularly those from communities of color and low-income communities, are suffering as a result of the inaction of elected officials at every level of government. Puerto Ricans have been there too: For so long it felt like there was little we could do individually while leaders in the island and Washington, D.C., failed my fellow Boricuas.
I can tell you today that there is in fact power in the individual. If there’s one thing government abandonment teaches people it’s that the only way to survive is to lean on each other. As the crisis passed, Puerto Ricans created spaces to help one another. We joined forces to oust the leaders that failed us. We grieved together for those we had lost. We pushed forward under the mantra of pa’lante, onward.
The pandemic is far from over. But one day soon I expect we’ll be able to step out of the fog of this all-consuming grief and work toward rebuilding by relying on each other, too.