When Governments Bungle A Crisis

Having grown up in Soviet Ukraine, I have lived through various tumultuous times and disasters—including Chernobyl and the disintegration of the USSR. Now, living in the US and watching how the government failed to address the COVID-19 crisis in a timely manner, I feel I’m experiencing deja vu. 

This March marks an important personal anniversary for me: twenty years since I moved to the United States from Ukraine. I never would have imagined that I would be spending it in lockdown in a cramped New York apartment with my family while the entire world endures COVID-19—a deadly virus that doesn’t recognize geographical boundaries or political affiliations. 

I was born and raised in Ukraine – then part of a crumbling Soviet Union – when the government still controlled everything but was losing its grip. When the Chernobyl disaster happened in the spring of 1986, I was eight. It is difficult to estimate the number of deaths from the explosion due to government secrecy, a lack of data, and the fact that radiation fallout has caused the deaths of many in the years following the event. Less than 100 people died immediately following the disaster but nearly 8.4 million people in three soviet republics, Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, were exposed to radiation. 

The explosion took place on April 26 and by the first of May, residents of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv – 110 miles away and within its radiation fallout path – were out for a mandatory May Day parade as radiation levels were at their highest. 

Media, which was controlled by the government, spread lies and deflections to every corner of the USSR via radio, television and propaganda newspapers, reaching roughly 300 million people. Those living outside of the Iron Curtain knew more about the disaster than those of us behind it. 

My hometown, Kharkiv, was ostensibly unaffected by airborne radioactive material. But Belarus, where my grandparents lived, was. While other families, alarmed by inside sources they knew, fled Ukraine for safer corners of the USSR, my family, unaware, embarked on our annual trip to visit my grandparents in Minsk. In contaminated woods, we peacefully picked mushrooms for pickling and berries for jam.

In the early weeks of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, New Yorkers were faced with panic-shopping and the resulting empty shelves in grocery stores. Take it from me, this wasn’t even close to the lack of food and consumer goods we experienced during the final years of the Soviet regime, when the economy came to an astonishing collapse. 

Following an economic crisis, the Soviet world crumbled in 1991—a jarring event for those raised to have faith in the communist party. In the end the government couldn’t protect us from anything; it let us down at every step. Companies ground to a halt, salaries went unpaid for months (if at all), and hospitals had no supplies. 

Meanwhile, information from the government and the newly birthed private media industry was confusing and unreliable. No aspect of life or future was certain or stable. 

And it got worse. In 1992, during Ukraine’s first year of independence, candy-wrapper-coupons replaced Soviet rubles, followed by hyperinflation. Electricity, hot and even cold water were frequently disabled. In winter, when temperatures would often fall far below freezing, it wasn’t unusual to go for a couple of days without heat or power. Crime rates began to rise, and, in several parts of the former Soviet Union, armed conflicts raged. Most people just lived day by day, in chaos and anxiety. 

The uncertainty and instability lasted for years—crisis became the new normal. And some former Soviet countries are still in a perpetual state of tension in which many citizens feel they can only rely on their wits and connections. 

As for me, once in the U.S., I did feel that my new country offered a level of stability that allowed me to focus on different, more personal things, while learning to plan a few steps into the future. 

I wouldn’t say that my life as an immigrant was a breeze. I certainly wouldn’t say that American capitalism cradled me or offered protection when it was most needed. 

I graduated from the Columbia School of Journalism in the spring of 2008 at the beginning of the Great Recession; a single mother with about $50,000 in student loan debt, without health insurance, who needed childcare in the summer and after-school care when the academic year resumed. There were few job prospects in journalism, as many positions had been eliminated due to a down economy and the internet’s disruption of traditional media. 

The federal and state government didn’t provide housing or healthcare assistance for people like me. I used my eastern European survival skills and miraculously found freelance work until the economy picked up. But nevertheless, even at my most difficult moments, this country offered the rule of law, working institutions, security, and enough stability to plan the next move. And there was a notion that the government’s actions would be lawful and appropriate, despite not being agreeable to everyone. The focus of government, however partisan or bureaucratic, is to serve the people. 

Has this latest crisis weakened that truth?

U.S. president Donald Trump didn’t have to shut down the White House pandemic office in 2018, but he did. Early in the virus’s spread throughout the world, he could have pushed for the production of more COVID-19 tests, but he didn’t. 

In January, Trump said he didn’t worry about the COVID-19 virus and a possible pandemic: “We have it totally under control,” he said. “It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control.” 

He disregarded the World Health Organization’s declaration that COVID-19 was a “public-health emergency of international concern.” In February the president declared the danger would disappear in the spring heat, saying “when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.”  

Trump mocked politicians who pushed for a more aggressive strategy to deal with the virus, and he falsely blamed the Barack Obama administration for his own administration’s inability to produce enough test kits. Along the way Trump has issued confusing or untrue statements and missed many opportunities to show decisive leadership, meanwhile declaring his performance exemplary and disavowing blame. All while the nation’s healthcare workers are locked in a desperate battle with the effects of a deadly virus while short on critical equipment, protective gear and beds. I myself have spoken to several healthcare professionals in New York who confirm that local hospitals are intubating patients all day long and hospital staff have resorted to reusing masks and other protective equipment. As of March 28th, the death toll in New York City alone surpassed 780 and rising.

The Soviet government resorted to denials, deflection, and spin in the face of mistakes or catastrophe in the aftermath of Chernobyl. I have also seen these tactics before in Ukraine, when politicians would deny the obvious and reinterpret disaster to benefit their political campaigns. It’s also been a strategy of Russian president Vladimir Putin, who has used the pandemic to drive home his own agenda. 

On March 27th, congress passed a $2 trillion stimulus package, and leading up to its passage, politicians fought over its power to assist companies over people and families. For many, the payout they will receive may do little to help them offset weeks or months of joblessness. We can only wait and see whether the finished product will help middle-class families and those who face losing homes and possible bankruptcy. 

The delayed response to the pandemic, and the lack of preparedness in the face of the obvious and imminent spread of the virus has cost people their lives. It’s hard to explain how it happened in a country that is supposed to champion its people and defend them as its greatest treasure; not put them in harm’s way and then avoid responsibility. That’s what autocratic regimes do.