Pandemic

This Was the Moment the COVID-19 Experts Betrayed Us

A special six-year anniversary.

Robby Soave | 6.4.2026 12:30 PM

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Some tweets live in infamy. Six years ago this week, NPR shared a link on X (Twitter at the time) to an article by correspondent Bill Chappell: "Protesting Racism Versus Risking COVID-19."

This was June 2, 2020, in the grips of the pandemic. By that time, Americans had been forced to confront the reality that "two weeks to slow the spread" was a lie. The two weeks had come and gone at the end of March, yet government health advisors had continued to pressure authorities at the federal, state, and local levels to maintain lockdowns, mask mandates, and prohibitions on social gatherings.

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These policies were initially sold to the public as temporary measures that were necessary to give hospitals time to receive an influx of COVID-19 patients. By the start of the summer, it had become clear that public health experts would continue to insist on heavy-handed mitigation measures until either case counts crashed on their own or a vaccine became widely available. This meant that in Democratic-controlled municipalities, where it was fashionable to "trust the science," relevant policymakers would keep lockdowns in place, require masks in all public spaces, and discourage large gatherings—even outdoors.

Washington, D.C., was once such location. The........

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