For Subscribers: Our Health and Science Writers Reflect on This Pandemic Year

This is The Atlantic’s weekly email to subscribers—a close look at the issues our newsroom is watching, just for you.

The timeline of how COVID-19 took hold in America can feel disorienting. From March, when the coronavirus began to spread across certain communities in the United States, to December, now the worst moment in the pandemic since the spring, our understanding of the behavior of the virus, its long-term health effects, and how to curb its spread have evolved and advanced tremendously.

This week, I invited our science and health writers to reflect on some key stories from the past year, as we all consider the grim reality of the virus in the U.S. today and a perhaps brighter—vaccinated—future ahead.

— Mara Wilson

When I wrote this there were only a handful of cases in the U.S. At the time, epidemiologists were telling me they expected that the virus was already much more widely spread than the public knew, based on its apparent ability to cause asymptomatic infections. That bit of evidence was the real turning point for me. A virus that can be asymptomatic is more dangerous than one that always makes you sick, because people will spread it unknowingly. Plus, we weren’t testing for it. And according to my reporting, it would take at least a year to have a widely available vaccine. So it quickly became clear to me that the hypothetical reality in which hundreds of thousands died wasn’t just possible: It was likely. But because it was so at odds with the narrative at the time, I think a lot of people thought the article was sensationalism. I wish it had turned out to be. – James Hamblin

You’re Likely to Get the Coronavirus (February 24)

Most cases are not life-threatening, which is also what makes the virus a historic challenge to contain.

Testing is the original sin of the pandemic: Had America tested more people for the virus, much earlier in the year, we might have been able to isolate all cases and prevent a mass outbreak. The first hard evidence that the country was failing at testing came on March 6, 2020, when my colleague Alexis C. Madrigal and I contacted all 50 states and only found 1,895 people who had been tested for COVID-19. At the time, Vice President Pence was promising that 1.5 million tests would be available within the week. The U.S. would not test more than 1.5 million people per week until late April. – Robinson Meyer

Exclusive: The Strongest Evidence Yet That America Is Botching Coronavirus Testing (March 6)

“I don’t know what went wrong,” a former CDC chief told The Atlantic.