Politics, public health and a pandemic. What we didn’t learn from HIV.

Get our weekly newsletter
In partnership with The New York Times

What the Bungled Response to HIV Can Teach Us About Dealing With Covid-19

The AIDS pandemic was marked by a slow response and a lack of clear public health messages and testing. Despite those lessons, we were still unprepared for Covid-19.

During the first half of the 20th century, the U.S. built impressive infrastructure to contain the spread of infectious diseases. However, the availability of vaccines encouraged a belief that infectious diseases were a thing of the past and during the second half of the 20th century, much of the U.S.’s disease prevention infrastructure crumbled. This left the country unprepared to contain HIV/AIDS, and today, coronavirus.

Related:
How the Fight Against AIDS Can Inform the Fight Against Covid-19 by Clyde Haberman

Transcript