I recently finished a book by Adam Higginbotham titled “Midnight in Chernobyl” which chronicles the Soviet state failures before, during, and after the Chernobyl nuclear accident and the ramifications still felt throughout the world today. Towards the end of the book, Adam dove into the worldwide geopolitical and technological issues stemming from the accident in very stark detail, especially when explaining the state trial of the operators and engineers the USSR tried to hold responsible for the world’s worst nuclear disaster. As I always do reading books, I try to find the nugget of truth that could be applied to our society today. The events surrounding Chernobyl are eerily predictive of what we seem to be dealing with, on a worldwide scale, as it relates to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the government and international responses to it. A hubris in the arenas of science and politics has surpassed all logic and decency and defined a scientific failure unseen since the night of April 26, 1986.
After the disaster, the Soviet Union launched an extensive investigation of the events that led to, and the ultimate causes of, the explosion in reactor Number Four of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Complex. During the investigation, it was found that not only were the operators and engineers who were on duty that fateful evening responsible for the accident and ensuing response, or lack there-of, but that the Soviet state itself was responsible through its decades of scientific hubris and negligence in the area of nuclear safety and reactor design. Throughout the short history of the USSR, the scientific and engineering brains of the Soviet Empire had enjoyed a high level of achievement and innovation across many arenas, oftentimes ahead of or beyond their geopolitical counterparts around the world. The US fell behind the USSR in many areas, including nuclear technology, space exploration and military technology. This led members of the Communist Party, many of whom were well respected within Soviet scientific and academic circles, to believe they were superior. The Soviet people, driven by communist party propaganda about its scientific accomplishments, were even sucked into this mindset.
That all came to a screeching halt after Chernobyl. Mikhail Gorbachev blames the fall of the Soviet Union and its brand of communism on this one event, though history tells us communism was doomed to fail from the outset. But there are lessons the scientific community, the world over, have not learned from the failures of Chernobyl. Here is a brief excerpt from Higginbotham’s book that I invite you to consider in the mindset of Soviet citizens learning the truth and depth of the party failures with Chernobyl:
“But the citizens of the Soviet Union [United States] no longer trusted their scientists. In Kiev [the US], even two years after the accident [pandemic], young couples were not having children, and people ascribed every kind of minor illness to the effects of radiation [the virus]…But the mandarins of the atomic [medical] industry still failed to appreciate the degree to which they had lost the public’s confidence. Accustomed to their place as revered icons of Socialist utopia [American governance], they found themselves regarded with suspicion and enmity yet clung to their convictions with righteous disdain.”
Go back and read that again, but instead, insert what I have added in parentheses. What has changed in 35 years between the hubris of the Soviet atomic science community and that of the American bureaucratic medical community? Now, I am not saying the entire American medical community displays this vanity and righteousness, as there are wonderful people serving in all aspects of it. But, I am referring to many, if not all of the agencies in the government and the reliance we have placed on their expertise. Take for example Dr. Anthony Fauci. Now, Dr. Fauci was a trusted appointee of President Ronald Reagan, a conservative icon in many political circles. But after an over 35-year career in the public health sector, maybe it is time to move on. We have witnessed wild inconsistencies coming from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. From the mask mandate to vaccines to lockdowns, we have received conflicting guidance from the start. And this wildly inconsistent, and oftentimes contradictory stream of information has done nothing but make the American people frustrated at rules and vulnerable to misinformation.
I can admit that with any novel virus or disease, there is going to be a steep, and often bumpy learning curve as our experts navigate the intricacies and discoveries associated with these new threats. When the mask mandates first dropped across the country, I was one of the first ones to listen and heed the guidance as to the efficacy and reasons for masking up to protect the vulnerable. We listened as they told us at first that we didn’t need masks and to live our lives like normal. In the end, Dr Fauci admitted that he only did this to save valuable, and often hard to come by personal protective equipment (PPE), for the frontline healthcare workers. While this was admirable and possibly necessary, in the end it may have done more damage to the collective cause of curbing the pandemic and returning quicker to some semblance of a normal life.
What about vaccines? What about lockdowns? What about economic problems and the associated health issues with stress and isolation, depression and substance abuse? All these issues seemed to be sidelined for reasons we are still trying to figure out. The messaging on vaccines has been so random and incoherent at times, that many states have simply moved on from what the federal government has requested and pushed ahead with their own programs; some successful, others not so much. The messaging on vaccine administration has been chaotic and sometimes even disparaging towards those who don’t want to take them, and confusing on why we still have to wear a mask, even after the CDC has issued guidance stating we don’t need to wear them after vaccination, except for very limited circumstances. I know that some of this is on the politicians and the media for the absolute travesty of a show they feel they have to put on. But in the end, the medical community needs to also hold them accountable and help to push the correct information, at the right time. Instead of worrying about what people may or may not do, the beauty of America is that most people will do a pretty damn good job at self-risk mitigation and we could have been well beyond our current state of affairs by now if we had simply treated our fellow citizens as adults with agency.
What does all of this have to do with Chernobyl? The Soviet nuclear scientists played the same merciless and inept games after the accident in 1986. They were not consistent on their information. Their response was fumbled and incoherent and put many more lives than needed to be, in danger. The hubris of the engineers made them believe they were impervious to an accident, while our governmental medical institutions believed they were impervious to error and not prone to misinformation, nor giving misinformation. The design of processes and procedures, like the design of the Soviet nuclear reactors, had inherent and downright precarious operational flaws in them that put lives in danger in the end for causes or concerns that may have had nothing to do with science and medicine. The very structural integrity of science based fact finding may have been pushed to the back burner to assuage the guilt or vanity of certain politicians, bureaucrats or governmental scientists.
In the end, I believe more Americans died than needed to and the congruencies between Chernobyl and COVID-19 are apparent.
Reality Politics 