COVID-19: Five Years Later, What Remains?
A significant anniversary has arrived. I was in a meeting in Ankara on the afternoon of March 11, 2020. A headline flashed on a muted TV screen in the office: “Turkey reports its first COVID-19 case.” We finished our meeting, my guests headed to the airport, and I went for dinner. We assumed life would continue as usual. A month later, restaurants and schools were closed, international travel was banned, and those who could find them wore masks. In Istanbul, the streets were nearly empty.
Then, on a Friday night, we heard that a weekend curfew would be imposed. No one fully understood what this meant. “Essential services will continue,” they said. But would food couriers still be allowed to work? On Saturday morning, the answer was “yes.” By the afternoon, Ankara issued a new directive: everyone should cook at home. Nighttime and weekend curfews were in effect. Weeks later, during Ramadan, food delivery was permitted again so people could have suhoor.
Every weekend, the main topic of discussion was which businesses would be allowed to open. Barbershops were declared high-risk, but florists were permitted to operate on Mother’s Day. A year later, in April 2021, a ‘final’ long-term curfew was announced. Supermarkets could sell food and cleaning supplies but were prohibited from selling books or lighters — book aisles were barricaded. Meanwhile, additional exceptions emerged. Walking outside to buy bread was permitted, leading to the sight of hundreds of people strolling along Istanbul’s Bağdat Avenue, each carrying a loaf of bread. Pet owners protested, leading to the allowance of dog-walking. Sales of pet dogs skyrocketed.
The U.S. Saw the Most Diverse Lockdown Policies
Similar situations unfolded around the world. In Panama, men were permitted outside on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, while women could go out on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. On Sundays, everyone was required to stay home. In India, when a lockdown was suddenly imposed on 1.3 billion people, millions of daily wage workers had to walk back to their villages. Many perished on the roads in April, one of the hottest months of the year.
China, where the virus first emerged, quickly locked down and controlled the outbreak. As the rest of the world struggled, videos of Chinese festivals circulated on social media, causing envy in the West. However, this success came at a cost — China’s population did not develop immunity. When new variants emerged at the end of 2021, China had to reimpose lockdowns while the rest of the world began to reopen. By late 2022, as protests erupted throughout China, all restrictions were suddenly lifted. Within weeks, tens of thousands died. Then, everything returned to normal.
The United States experienced the broadest range of restrictions. State governments held power over lockdown measures, which quickly became polarized along party lines. States led by Democrats imposed strict measures, while those led by Republicans had minimal restrictions. Unsurprisingly, the latter faced higher infection and death rates. Nevertheless, a 2024 academic study uncovered an unexpected result: regardless of strict or lenient restrictions, states with greater governmental capacity had lower death rates. In other words, the effectiveness of the restrictions relied on a government’s ability to enforce them effectively. State capacity was the most crucial factor in crisis management.
Everyone exploited COVID-19
When COVID-19 first struck the U.S., Donald Trump was president. He initially struggled with his response but made one crucial decision — allocating $2 billion to Moderna for the development of an mRNA vaccine. This approach had never been used before, leading to the rapid creation of the first viable COVID-19 vaccines. The vaccines from Moderna and BioNTech played a pivotal role in controlling the pandemic. Once again, governments with strong public capacity secured early access to vaccines and distributed them effectively. Undoubtedly, if any president other than Trump had been in office in 2020, he would likely have hesitated to allocate such a significant amount, opting instead to form a committee to study the issue, wasting valuable months. The pandemic might have remained uncontrolled worldwide.
COVID-19 was exploited to promote various agendas. In China, Xi Jinping utilized lockdowns to strengthen his grip on power. Meanwhile, in the European Union, Brussels bureaucrats established a €750 billion recovery fund under the guise of a collaborative economic response, leveraging the crisis to augment their influence. However, the biggest winner was social media. Isolated at home, people flocked to social media in unprecedented numbers. The digital equivalent of Leninism — social media outrage — became institutionalized. As we became more isolated, we grew accustomed to expressing opinions online that we wouldn’t dare voice in person, often leading to full-fledged online witch hunts.
According to official figures, COVID-19 claimed 7 million lives. Today, those deaths are merely statistics. Would it have been better if 17 million had died but children had been able to attend school? Sadly, no society seriously considered such questions at that time. Those who attempted to do so were silenced. Yet, these questions linger in the back of everyone’s minds. Around the world, politicians outsourced critical decisions to “experts” (medical professionals), eroding trust in both expertise and democracy. Instead of recognizing the importance of political leadership and state capacity, we ended up in fragmented societies of isolated individuals.
COVID-19 is remembered only through the occasional faded “Keep Social Distance” signs in offices and public buildings. But its profound political and social impacts still shape our world.
