Editor's note: Bradley Blankenship is a Prague-based American journalist, political analyst and freelance reporter. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

One year after the COVID-19 pandemic upended the lives of people across the world, the U.S.' top infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci and his boss, Dr Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health spoke to NPR about the last 12 months.

The short March 9 interview with the two medical experts revealed much about the country's battle with the deadly disease that has left over 500,000 Americans dead and the general state of American society.

As Dr Collins put it, "I think one of the diagnoses that comes out of this last very difficult 12 months is that we seem to be in a society that is so polarized that even objective truth doesn't necessarily have a chance."

"That is a very disturbing aspect of what we've learned over these 12 months. And if our nation has a path forward to get into a better place, it has to take that on, that we have to be a nation that actually values truth and not just opinions," he said. "We didn't do very well with that over this last year."

Polarization has indeed been the theme of the last year. The country's top medical experts worked tirelessly to ensure that proper guidelines were established to control the spread of the disease, and while it was effective for a time, it was immediately undercut by political actors, namely former President Donald Trump. This signaled to the public that medical experts could be ignored.

As Dr Collins said, new data was constantly flowing in, and medical experts had to adapt their calculations as such; that is, changes in what was coming from experts reflected changes in data. This is how science operates. But this process, notably when the official recommendation on mask wearing was changed, was mercilessly seized on to justify dismissal of what they were saying by some political actors.

I think this is one of the most important aspects of this public health emergency. The medical field is inherently conservative in the sense that it errs on the side of caution – and for good reason. With so much at risk, it is always best to be cautious to mitigate the possibility of a worst-case scenario.

This is why, for example, vaccine approval is such a complicated process and why the recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are rather modest, as we see now with the guidelines for fully vaccinated people. For example, it would be better to underestimate the effectiveness of vaccines before they are widely understood and tested in the real world than overestimate them.

Yet, in a society like America, this kind of thinking carries a certain opportunity for politicization.

For example, the CDC has recommended that fully vaccinated people should not travel as of right now. Suppose it's the case that data comes out later that suggests that vaccination is highly effective in mitigating the spread of the disease and then the CDC changes its recommendations. Some political actors might seize on this and claim that scientists should not be trusted since they change their minds all the time.

While most of the criticism against public health officials has been highly politicized, there have been systemic errors. To name just one, experts made undue concessions to some narratives, namely that COVID-19 is a disease that only affects the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions. This line of thinking motivated young adults to catapult the disease's spread, but it's not actually based on fact.

It's estimated that 20-30 percent of those who contract COVID-19 will develop so-called "long haul" syndrome, and many that get it and do not die end up with long-term disability. More importantly, the unmitigated spread of the disease leaves open the possibility for vaccine-proof variants to emerge.

In terms of communications strategy, this was a massive blunder because of how public policy works in the country. When a great number of resources – money, economic opportunity, etc. – would be required to solve an issue, then that issue must also affect an equally large share of the population in order to be resolved.

This is why the United States House of Representatives was just able to pass a relatively uncontroversial and much-needed stimulus package on March 10. The economic fallout and inconvenience from virus-related restrictions are both ubiquitous and publicly acknowledged as such. Not incidentally, the stimulus deal had overwhelming public support.

The conclusion here is that a significant segment of the population simply doesn't believe the facts; the American society systemically promotes narrow self-interest, and its political system operates roughly the same way. Addressing these issues will certainly take more than a shot in the arm.

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