PANDEMICSAmerican Democracy and Pandemic Security

Published 13 February 2023

Covid-19 cost the nation and the world millions of lives and trillions of dollars in economic losses and caused major societal deficits in learning, health, and well-being. The United States faced specific challenges in how its national pandemic response, rooted in its culture and federated system of public health, was organized and executed. National crises have historically brought the country together. Yet, the United States was unable to organize cohesive leadership at the national, state, local, and tribal levels, and it failed to rapidly unify its citizens to act in solidarity to suppress the emerging pandemic.

Covid-19 cost the nation and the world millions of lives and trillions of dollars in economic losses and caused major societal deficits in learning, health, and well-being. The United States faced specific challenges in how its national pandemic response, rooted in its culture and federated system of public health, was organized and executed. National crises have historically brought the country together. Yet, the United States was unable to organize cohesive leadership at the national, state, local, and tribal levels, and it failed to rapidly unify its citizens to act in solidarity to suppress the emerging pandemic.

CSIS has just published a new report — American Democracy and Pandemic Security: Strengthening the U.S. Pandemic Response in a Free Society – which examines how the United States responded to the pandemic, why the response was less than optimal, and what lessons decision makers should draw from the experience.

Here are the report’s Executive Summary and Major Findings:

Executive Summary

The Covid-19 pandemic imposed unprecedented challenges upon U.S. federal, state, and local officials, and it inspired important and lifesaving successes. Most disturbingly, the pandemic response in the United States featured stark failures in early rapid response, preparedness, execution, and messaging. Leadership was missing in key moments. Those failures eroded confidence not only in public health but also in the ability of leaders and institutions to make decisions that affected every sector of society. The pandemic magnified persistent inequities and exacerbated—and was exacerbated by—polarization, what many now view as a comorbidity that prevented a more unified and effective response. A limited tool kit too often left decisionmakers with blunt, binary, and divisive choices involving stark societal trade-offs: health versus the economy, online versus in-person education, locking down versus lifting restrictions, and individual freedom versus collective responsibility. Compounding the challenge were mixed and confusing messages about what institutions and Americans should do.

And yet, despite enormous challenges, the pandemic yielded important successes. The United States was a global leader in research and development that created multiple safe and effective Covid-19 vaccines and medicines. Government, clinical, and community leaders launched the largest vaccination program in modern history; private sector partners launched the largest public service announcement campaign in U.S. history; and collective efforts from trusted messengers and multiple sectors were ultimately able to vaccinate much of the U.S. population in record time.