Were you really better off four years ago than you are today?
Supporters of Donald Trump have this saying that they like to spout to make it seem like the country was better when he was President of the United States. It goes like this, “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”
If you think life was better then, let’s look back at March in 2020.
March 1: Even though Covid hadn’t reached America, it was already hospitalizing and killing people overseas. People were starting to freak out here. On this day, I went to a local grocery store. As I walked in, I started to cough. The man standing directly behind me, moved back about ten feet.
Were you really better off four years ago than you are today?
March 4: I was flying from Chicago to Las Vegas. When I reached O’Hare Airport, I needed to use the bathroom. I noticed it was packed but no one was at the urinals. There was a line to wash their hands. Scary. When I reached Las Vegas, it was the same scene in their bathroom. And this was before the pandemic had reached our mainland.
Were you really better off four years ago than you are today?
March 11: The Utah Jazz are in Oklahoma City to play the Thunder. Jazz center Rudy Gobert has flu-like symptoms. He tests positive for Covid. The game was postponed. Ninety minutes later, the NBA season was postponed. The National Hockey League and Major League Baseball soon followed. The NCAA basketball championships were canceled, as were all championships for college winter sports. Spring sports never got started.
Were you really better off four years ago than you are today?
March 12: Fearing the worst, people were starting to hoard essentials. The shelves inside grocery stores were empty. Good luck finding milk, bread and of all things, toilet paper.
Were you really better off four years ago than you are today?
March 15: Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker ordered all bars and restaurants closed to dine-in customers. At this point, there were one-hundred sixty confirmed cases of Covid in the state, with one death. There was plenty more to come.
Were you really better off four years ago than you are today?
March 16: On a trip to Woodman’s Grocery store, in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, we found toilet paper. You were limited to one package per person. The cashier had to have the sale approved by a supervisor. It was harder to buy toilet paper than alcohol.
Were you really better off four years ago than you are today?
March 20: We needed food so we tried to order groceries online. After finally finding a store that could handle our order, we went to pick it up. The person delivering it to our car brought the wrong bags. I had to go back into the store to return these groceries and get our correct order. I waited with store employees, who were not wearing masks, as it took over half an hour to refill our order. When we returned home, I immediately took off all my clothes, threw them in the washing machine, and jumped into the shower trying to scrub off any possible germs I may have picked up.
Were you really better off four years ago than you are today?
March 23: President Donald Trump addressed the health crisis and the fears of the nation like this, “The cure can not be worse than the problem.” We didn’t know it then, but he was going to make it worse—much worse. Can you say ‘bleach?’
Were you really better off four years ago than you are today?
March 31: According to John Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center, in March 2020 there were 192,301 documented cases of Covid with 5,334 deaths from the virus—and far worse was yet to come.
Here are the final statistics from the year 2020:
In the United States, there were more than twenty million cases of Covid diagnosed., with almost three hundred-fifty thousand deaths from the disease. Globally, those numbers reached almost eighty-four million cases diagnosed with more than one point eight million reported deaths.
So for the last time I ask, Were you really better off four years ago than you are today?