These blog posts are a compilation of Irwin’s op-eds, publications, media interviews, and a variety of other features.
Thanksgiving 2020 will surely be like no other in U.S. history. We are drifting increasingly into unprecedented territory as Covid-19 is raging out of control. The U.S. will certainly soon see a new, frightening milestone of 200,000 cases every day. Hospitalizations are increasing at a rapid pace, with many states experiencing severe, acute shortages of medical personnel.
America needs every child — regardless of socioeconomic status —to be a success story. Period.
The Future of Us addresses the very serious, grown-up business of fulfilling the promises and potential of all children, and how this could impact America’s future in a #postpandemic world. Plus, see my own wild journey!
As Donald Trump keeps calling for the nation’s 124,000 public and private schools to reopen, even as he’s failed to contain COVID-19, we are about to embark on a massive, poorly controlled national experiment with the subjects being most of the nation’s 55 million school-age children, their families and their teachers.
Unfortunately, this may not go well—which helps explain why New York City is one of the few major school districts planning to open school buildings to students in September, and only on a staggered basis—and we could be facing a significant upsurge in COVID-19 cases, including in states where the outbreak seems, at the moment, relatively under control.
If someone had suggested five months ago that we would be seeing more than 3 million cases and 135,000 COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. by mid-July, I wouldn’t have believed it.
But now it’s distinctly possible that, five months from now, half of all Americans could have been infected with SARS-CoV-2, and more than 800,000 Americans may die in this extraordinary outbreak. That is what many of our most prominent public-health experts now expect.
Donald Trump and his administration did not create the worst biological threat that the world has experienced in more than 100 years, but the American president’s incompetence, ignorance, and dishonesty in handling this crisis has been stunning. One hundred and twenty-seven thousand Americans are dead already, and that number will continue to rise.
Vice President Mike Pence’s status report Friday was so disconnected from reality that it can only be characterized as pandemic gaslighting. “All 50 states and territories across this country are opening up safely and responsibly” as “we flattened the curve,” he said, while insisting that “it’s almost inarguable that more testing is generating more cases.” That would be false, false, and false.
