It’s easy to look to the 2019 Johns Hopkins Global Health Security Index and cringe. The pandemic-torn 

 were ranked number one and number two for overall preparedness, yet both nations proved that no amount of planning, no amount of elite research institutions, and no amount of private industry excellence can compensate for volatile leadership.

The Index does have a "Political and Security Risk" indicator but clearly underestimated its impact. For instance, the U.S. ranked 59th out of 195 countries in that risk indicator, with a score of 75.0.  But because its overall scores in other categories were so high, even if its Political and Security Risk score  was adjusted to put the U.S. in last place, it would still be ranked first in overall preparedness.

Yet no pre-COVID-19 assessment of preparation could have anticipated U.S. leaders' willingness to ignore (or even flout) recommendations from scientists in a public health crisis and instead embrace the politics of perceived personal freedoms. And in the UK, science itself became the issue, as misconceptions of malpractice caused by a lack of transparency from policymakers led to a thirst for independent science. Unnecessary divisions were created in that nation’s public health community as well – to the detriment of public discourse.   

Best practices in public health – and overall science policy – argue for two key elements: sufficient funding and independence from partisan infighting. These things are essential because good science aids in policy formulation (Science for Policy), yet science itself is a sector within government that needs regulation and oversight as well as funding (Policy for Science). Public trust requires that science (and government-funded science, especially) be seen as free of corrupting influence.

In conflicts between science and commerce (such as climate change, or Big Tobacco), corporations often attempt to erode trust through marketing campaigns, or by finding a champion within government to take up their cause. 

But when a refutation of the science behind public health comes directly from those in power, the public is offered a nefarious binary:  Believe the politician or the scientist. This binary then can split along party lines. False and true are boiled down to red and blue, to the detriment of the public. 

So perhaps the Global Health Security Index is a site for questions, and not answers. The U.S. and the UK had the science, the policies, the plans, and the expertise to effectively respond, relatively speaking, to a pandemic. Why didn’t it matter? And, now, as both nations reap the bounty of scientific advances to leap ahead of the world in effective vaccinations, can we find our way again? 

 was much remarked upon during its four years in office. But when it came to grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic, its readiness to accept and publicize untruths (

such as the potential efficacy of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment

) was accompanied by a willingness to demean and sideline federal entities charged with the task of dispassionately laying out public health guidelines and advice.

Inflicting a binary on U.S. society from the top down created parallel realities that led not only to paralyzing inaction, but also to conflicting public guidance that let COVID-19 run rampant throughout the nation months after the nature of the virus and its spread was understood.    

Indeed, the White House Coronavirus Task Force went through several changes over its 11 months coordinating U.S. response.

Its first iteration was largely composed of political appointees

, save for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director, Dr. Anthony Fauci. Yet, in February, as cases started to rise, and the arguments that COVID-19 was a low risk to Americans disintegrated, former Vice President Mike Pence replaced Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar as the task force  chair and took on the role of "COVID-19 Czar" full time, with Ambassador Dr. Deborah Birx serving as White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator.  

The start of daily White House press briefings 

promised a shift from downplaying COVID-19’s threat to the nation. But these hopes were soon frustrated by President Trump’s domination of daily conversations. 

The U.S. and the UK had the science, the policies, the plans, and the expertise to effectively respond, relatively speaking, to a pandemic. Why didn’t it matter?

Yet the glare of the White House spotlight obscured what was perhaps the key development of the early days of U.S. response to COVID-19. The White House stifled the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – one of the most revered and trusted agencies in the federal government – from the lead role it was expected to play in a public health crisis. 

The administration had already contradicted CDC official Dr. Nancy Meissonier concerning her 

 that: "It's not so much of a question of if [an outbreak] will happen anymore, but rather more of a question of exactly when this will happen." 

 from the public eye followed – and at a moment when the agency arguably should have been front and center in response.  

This isn’t what the pandemic planning and playbooks envisioned. Lawrence Gostin, the Faculty Director of the O'Neill Institute for National & Global Health Law at Georgetown University Law School says the optimal relationship between scientists and political leaders in a crisis "means having highly respected scientists tell the public honestly what they know and don't know. And it requires political leaders to support public health professionals and allow them center stage in health education." 

Gostin’s view aligns with the CDC’s own vision of how it should work. In the 2014 edition of their Crisis and Emergency Risk Communications (CERC) manual, a 

 is seen as "the most important role in responding to a crisis…Spokespersons don't just read a statement; they are the statement. If spokespersons don't fully understand the purpose behind the messages or recommendation, they will have difficulty assuming a stance of confidence and conveying believability and trust."

In essence, the initial decision to sideline the CDC and the continuing efforts to downgrade its status were the roots of a derailed U.S. response to COVID-19. And this harm was perpetuated further as the crisis grew, as reports emerged of the administration’s attempts to 

reopen society by distorting the agency’s guidance

. Attempts to further undermine the CDC ranged from 

 by assistant secretary for public affairs at HHS, Michael R. Caputo, to 

 of usually sacrosanct and scientifically rigorous Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWRs).

The vacuum in federal response filled up with falsehoods, misinformation, and worse – all aimed at promoting politics and not public health. Administration officials and the president called the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the disease it causes, COVID-19, “Wuhan Flu,” “China Virus,” and even 

 claiming without any publicly available evidence, that the virus's origins were more nefarious than a spill-over event. This rhetoric not only hampered global efforts to halt the pandemic but also created an uptick in anti-Asian hate and violence at home and abroad.

The CDC suffered immense reputational damage as well. 

A poll conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation

 found a precipitous drop in public trust in the CDC between April 2020 and September 2020. Confidence in the agency plummeted from 83 percent to 67 percent – and much of the damage tracked along party lines. Trust in the CDC dropped 30 percentage points for Republicans and only 12 points for Democrats. Republicans’ trust in Dr. Fauci also plunged in the same poll, from 77 percent in April to 48 percent in September – even as Democrats' trust in Dr. Fauci increased from 80 percent to 86 percent. 

Especially among those who had long prepared a potential U.S. response to a global pandemic, the dismay at what happened to the CDC was palpable. "I was shocked that the White House so thoroughly undermined CDC.” Gostin observes, “and controlled virtually everything they did or said." 

White House rhetoric on so-called lockdowns – which also tracked with attitudes among many governors – also stoked partisan division over basic science. Early on, the available data and science on SARS-CoV-2 was sparse but growing.  What was clear was that the disease could be spread through human contact – a process that social distancing and “lockdowns” would halt or at least slow.

Because of this and observations from the lockdowns in the Hubei province of China, mitigation was implemented in the U.S., starting with a so-called 

As the 15 days was extended, the modeling science started to crystalize. Its conclusion? Strict mitigation measures would curb the rise in infections. 

The Imperial College London (ICL) analysis

 laid this out clearly in a foreboding and attention-grabbing report: Absence of any mitigation techniques would mean 2.2 million dead in the United States. 

In early April, patience and trust in the process of mitigation were vital. Both were in short supply. Lags in testing, case counts, and data on the spread of the virus made it hard to officially prove to the American public that the lockdowns were working. 

Later on, the expected data trickled in and supported what the public health leaders were reporting – the 

. But it was too late for a success that required both proactive measures to obtain future results and executive leadership to inspire state and local governments to act in a coordinated and unified manner. 

Indeed, events in the U.S. went in quite the opposite direction. The already-simmering politics of the issue boiled over 

, when President Trump sent out three separate tweets: "LIBERATE MINNESOTA!"; "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!"; and "LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!" 

, Dr. Fauci recalled the moment: "The thing that hit me like a punch to the chest was then, all of a sudden, he got up and says: 'Liberate Virginia, Liberate Michigan.' And I said to myself: 'Oh my goodness, what is going on here?…It shocked me because it was such a jolt to what we were trying to do."

Protests erupted at some statehouses. Even worse, from a public health perspective, was that one by one, states began to come out of their lockdowns faster than they should have in the phased process offered by the Coronavirus Task Force. 

In early May 2020, some governors reopened states even as they faced rising case counts confirmed by increases in positive test results. Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, announced his state’s reopening loosening restrictions on places like salons and gyms 

without the data or trends to support his actions

This error in judgment was borne out by data. In the states that reopened before they met scientifically-backed guidelines, 

Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist affiliated with Georgetown's Center for Global Health Science and Security, observes that: "This all started with the rapid reopening after that ‘15 Days to Beat the Virus’… I agree that we could have done a lot better if we had just come out of that more gradually and with the appropriate public health precautions in place."

The damage in politicizing effective non-pharmaceutical intervention was significant, Dr. Rasmussen adds. "One of the most harmful things hands down in this pandemic,” she says, “[was] the politicization of masks and taking precautions to avoid transmission... [M]asks were being adopted by a lot of Democrats. And, so, it became a very easy issue to politicize. And it's still a problem." 

The politics cut both ways, as the pandemic wore on, and wearing a mask or not wearing one became a signal of partisan allegiances. (There were even Dr. Fauci bobbleheads, and masks with messages like #Science.) Past any assessment of the public health consequences, the fact that the nation’s battle against COVID-19 split along a red/blue divide signals a failure in response. 

The UK's extremely popular NHS healthcare system and its institutionalized support of independent scientists meant that it should have been better prepared to handle a pandemic in a unified fashion. But Great Britain’s similarly bleak track record during this public health crisis also had roots in polarizing politics.

Boris Johnson’s ascent to power in the wake of a contentious battle over Brexit was propelled by his ability to latch onto and connect with populist ideologies – especially amongst English voters.   Johnson was known for making misleading claims about 

the UK's monetary contributions to the EU

 in the run-up to the Brexit referendum and beyond.  

The polarizing nature of post-Brexit British politics has undoubtedly spilled over to its pandemic response. There is perhaps no clearer signal of this fact than how the role of a key pillar in response –  a group of advisors dubbed SAGE (The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) – has become the site of contention.  

SAGE is a group activated by the UK in times of crisis.  There have been nine previous SAGE activations during catastrophes, including the Ebola outbreaks of 2014 and 2018, the Fukushima nuclear emergency in March 2011, the 2009 Swine flu, and other natural disasters. 

The continuity provided by SAGE should give the UK a leg up on the more-diffused elements of U.S. response to such crises. 

 are "leading lights in their representative fields from across the worlds of academia and practice. They do not operate under government instruction and expert participation changes for each meeting, based on the expertise needed to address the crisis the country is faced with." 

SAGE’s authority resides in its intellectual firepower, and it is a key example of what Science for Policy should look like. Yet its limits are also explicit: "The government is not beholden to what SAGE says, and the evidence SAGE puts forward forms just one part of what the government considers before adopting new policies and interventions during an emergency." Policy should be informed by science, but leaders make the decisions. 

In a confluence of ongoing political dissonance and a broadly-felt public health emergency, however, public trust was more greatly than ever rooted in a need for transparency.

Publicly, Boris Johnson was the face of the response.  Similarly to Trump, he allowed officials and ministers in front of the cameras, but major policy decisions were announced by him. Rather than offering unfounded evidence or alternative facts, Johnson made a point to assure the public his actions were 

This assertion quickly became contentious. Which scientists? As SAGE’s 

: "Names of [SAGE] participants were not previously published to date in line with advice from the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure and following standard procedure for [Civil Contingencies Committee] meetings, to which SAGE gives advice." Additionally, their "black box" nature of giving guidance through private means to government officials proved too overly secretive in a moment in which distrust reigned.

SAGE’s opacity put science itself at issue.  There was no way of knowing which scientists were guiding the government, and what influence they had on policy decisions. The issue of transparency

 when two extremely polarizing government officials, Dominic Cummings (Johnson’s chief political advisor) and Ben Warner, (a data scientist known for his work on the Conservative party’s general election campaign), were revealed to have sat in on the secretive SAGE meetings in late March. 

These two men’s ties to divisive issues like 

 – turned  the secrecy surrounding SAGE into a public relations football. At a moment when UK citizens craved transparency and science-based policy, the scandal dealt a noticeable blow to trust. 

The question of what science Johnson’s government was following undermined public trust in its response. It turned out to be one of the key elements in derailing the UK's response to the crisis. 

In the United States, public debate and sharp media focus on pandemic response brought many controversies into the open. Yet the dissonance between science and politics continued. 

Public health officials including Dr. Birx, HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Admiral Brett Giroir, and CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield were all on the stage. (Eventually, Dr. Anthony Fauci was prevented from appearing.) Yet they proved unable or unwilling to assert expertise over statements made by President Trump that were not rooted in scientific evidence. Unfounded claims of effective treatments like 

While President Trump was fond of Twitter, a range of independent scientists found their voice to  argue for science on that platform, and on a range of other media as well. Lack of pushback from agencies was what drove many of them into the fray. 

Many of them also have become noted public figures in the process. Dr. Rasmussen had about 250 Twitter followers in February 2020. In April 2021, she had 211,400 followers. "I think one of the moments that did it for me,” she recalls, “was when [Dr. Birx] didn't correct President Trump about whether we could inject bleach."

Gostin understood Birx’s plight in that moment, but believes she made the wrong decision: “I know Deborah well, and she is an admired professional. But I don't have sympathy with this position. She had a choice either to speak truth to power or to resign. Going along with it, even if it is uncomfortable, would not have been my choice."

Independent U.S. scientists did not organize themselves into a single alternative task force. But they became a powerful and vocal presence, correcting falsehoods being publicized in the White House Press Briefing Room, as well as offering alternative research and support for best practices.  

"One of the most harmful things hands down in this pandemic [was] the politicization of masks and taking precautions to avoid transmission..." 

Infighting among scientific experts happens all the time and in all disciplines. These battles are fought in publications, at conferences, and on Twitter.  But during a once-in-a-century pandemic, when scientific trust is so crucial, these independent scientists believed that the stakes were high enough that they had to speak. And they did so despite the dangers of the public seeing scientists contradict each other, or making seemingly-confusing assertions, or even creating questions about the supposed nonpartisan nature of science. 

"I had little reservation about criticizing Trump's policies and false claims,” observes Gostin. “But I agonized about criticizing CDC officials and Task Force officials. I knew virtually all of them personally and respected them. But I felt they were not being strong and honest with the public and did not put science first. I realized they were under political pressure, but felt they should have stood up to it or resigned honorably."

Dr. Rasmussen notes that: "It's impossible to just stick to the science on this because science is inherently political. But when the science was intentionally politicized, I think that it's irresponsible for me to just sit back and say, 'Well, I have no opinion that I feel like sharing with people about whether or not to ingest bleach, or whether or not you should all be taking hydroxychloroquine.’ That would be irresponsible as somebody who works on viruses for the sake of improving public health."

It was different in Great Britain. The anxiety felt by scientists in the UK about controversies over the government’s claims to be "guided by science" led not to a decentralized media campaign, but to organized independent action.

 (also known as Indie SAGE.). The new group worked to openly and transparently inform the public about their pandemic advice through the media and their personal platforms, independent of the government. Indie SAGE amassed a large following for delivering facts and administering guidance that the public could follow and the policymakers could potentially adopt.

Dr. Julian Huppert, Director of the Intellectual Forum at Jesus College at the University of Cambridge and a former Member of Parliament, noted that the transparency issues with SAGE opened the door for a new group. 

"I think there's a real problem there,” he observes, “and a disrespect for those who were involved with SAGE. The narrative was these people work for the Tories. Therefore, they are Tories, and shouldn't be trusted.” But Huppert believes such reasoning bends the truth about the relationship between science and policy out of shape: “I think that would be like saying that Fauci must've been an ardent Trump supporter because he worked for Trump."

The emergence of Indie SAGE was a natural reaction to elusive accountability in the UK’s science guidance structure. But as Huppert points out, its creation also unfortunately institutionalized a distrust of SAGE. The resulting conflict has pitted well-meaning scientists against well-meaning scientists. 

The dustup had other consequences as well. Eventually, SAGE members would speak out more publicly – and even release a membership list and meeting minutes. But the division between the two SAGEs remains, as does the British public’s uncertainty about who to trust as the nation tries to forge a path out of the pandemic.

In a perfect society, there would be no need for an Indie SAGE, or even a group of extremely active and media-savvy independent scientists, to step in and attempt to patch holes left by the government in the wake of a deadly pandemic. 

Public health leaders should be positioned at the top of government response efforts, delivering good and bad news with humility and respect for the public they are informing.  There should never be a fear of retribution on political lines, or a pressure to stay silent to stay in the room.

The embrace of anti-science sentiments and the politicization of public health has taken so much from us as societies – including our lives. Perhaps it is time to think seriously about what an independent group of scientists with diverse expertise could offer a country in times of crisis, as well as how they could be organized and regulated without sullying the objectivity that scientific guidance should seek.  

Especially as seen in the U.S. in the COVID-19 crisis, there must be safeguards and referees to protect against political operatives taking the science and making that the debate, rather than debating which policies are being implemented.  The UK example demonstrates that public health officials must be afforded transparency and given some agency over the policies enacted. 

The lasting effects of weaponizing science for political gain don’t fade away after election day. Creating a secretive culture of policymaking during a crisis won’t inspire public trust in the process.   A government-funded and scientific community-appointed reserve of experts is not out of the realm of possibility. But as pressing and potentially politicized issues such as vaccine passports and the spread of disinformation loom large, time lost waiting to address these issues is time wasted.  

is a Program Associate for the Science and Technology Innovation Program (STIP) at the Wilson Center, focusing on STIP’s Innovation Initiatives. Alex also is a Junior Policy Fellow with Cambridge University’s Centre for Science and Policy to research global health policy innovation. 

Cover photograph: President Donald J. Trump, joined by White House Coronavirus Task Force Response Coordinator Deborah Birx, meets with Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly on May 20, 2020, in the Cabinet Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead) 

14TrumpWQ.jpg

Politics and distrust undermined public health responses in the U.S. and the UK. Why was the response of each nation's scientists so different? 

The War Over Science

spoke with a number of those involved in battling COVID-19 or covering its impact through a dark and challenging winter. 

COVID-19 is a global crisis. But as the Washington Editor for the publication, 

, Jourdan Bennett-Begaye has felt responsible for tracking its devastating ripples in her own community. 

“We were just trying to keep an eye on all of Indian country,” Bennett-Begaye recalls, “to see where the first case would pop up. Our whole team is connected on social media, and all of us come from different communities. I'm Navajo, but we have a Pueblo on our team. Mark, our editor, is Shoshone-Bannock in Idaho. We have a couple of Ojibwes from different bands up North.” 

Data was essential to tell that story, even if it was hard to come by. She consulted Indian Health Service (IHS) updates but found the figures were inconsistent and not updated daily. Being in the dark about COVID-19’s impact bothered her and others. “People were wondering on my Facebook feed. I could see that they wanted to know how many cases their tribe had.”

Bennett-Begaye decided to compile this essential data herself. She began calling tribal clinics and health care centers one by one, asking for data on COVID-19 cases and deaths. The result was a website,

“I just had this like wild idea," she continues, "once more [cases] started coming: ‘Oh, it'd be pretty cool to see what would happen if we tracked it. Maybe this could be something we could use.’ I didn't think about sharing it publicly, until I had about maybe seven cases in there.” 

State and county data were difficult to obtain at first, but it improved steadily as months unfolded. In Native communities, however, mechanisms to obtain and process reliable data are underfunded by the federal government and other entities, leaving tribally-run health clinics and sites controlled by the IHS unable to easily share data. 

And to make the job even more difficult, trust proved to be in as short supply as funding. “We have a trust issue, right? Because the federal government betrayed us,” observes Bennett-Begaye.  “So there's definitely that trust that you have to get through. It's so difficult. Even as a Navajo woman, it's difficult… they kind of trust you, but they still don't trust you.” 

The database’s open format helped it gain currency, and allowed Bennett-Begaye to tell tribes and community leaders that “we are open to criticism and we are open to feedback as well.”

 People started to pay attention. According to a UCLA study based solely on 

’s database, the reporting tool captured data and regular reporting from 287 of the 574 federally recognized tribes. It was a huge feat, especially considering that no one else was doing this work. 

The data project offered Bennett-Begaye a window into the severe costs that COVID-19 was exacting from Native communities. “I just saw the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara tribes (also known as the three affiliated tribes) had a jump: from a 130ish cases [at the] end of August to [699 cases at the] end of November… That's a huge jump.”

Bennett-Begaye’s database project caught the eye of the COVID-19 mapping team in charge of the 

. After Hopkins began partnering with the publication, 30 volunteers were recruited to “go out to all these tribes, call them, email them, figure out if there is a place like a website or social media where they could get their link to put in this algorithm. And then it would update a spreadsheet every single day.” 

The data project offered Bennett-Begaye a window into the severe costs that COVID-19 was exacting from Native communities.

The database was featured on NPR’s science podcast 

. And it was part of successful work that has led already to her promotion to Deputy Managing Editor of 

“I'm now one of the decision-makers,” she says, “and I feel I have responsibility as a young person, to step up and, you know, figure out who I am as a leader, as an editor.”

News doesn’t stop because there is a pandemic. As the Deputy Managing Editor of the publication of record of Native lands, Bennett-Begaye must find a place for news other than the pandemic: 

“I think the first few months… all the newsrooms [were] asking [COVID-19] questions…. All of a sudden, other news [was] passing us by….There was the Mashpee Wampanoag land dispute that we caught on our radar. And we were like: ‘Oh, we need to do something.’”

For instance, the announcement of Rep. Deb Haaland’s nomination as President Joseph Biden’s Secretary of the Interior was big news for 

. Speculation that Haaland would be the first Indigenous woman tapped for a cabinet position was at fever pitch, and the publication readied its story days before the announcement broke via a tweet from 

 team was so prepared that they had their stories about Haaland up in four minutes. “I really wish we had it in two, but it's okay,” quips Bennett-Begaye. But she does wish that her publication - or any Native publication - had broken the story. 

“We try to keep in mind that Native people aren't used to having Indigenous media that represents them,” she says. “I think that's [something] that they have to get used to – and we've got to keep our head down and keep grinding. One day, it'll happen [and we’ll get the scoop].”

Not that Haaland’s achievement wasn’t a motivating moment for her as well. “I really like how Nick Tilson, the CEO of Indian Collective, put it: A Native woman representing and leading a department that was responsible for the exploitation of native people. I thought that was just very chilling and true.” 

A flood of other news that Native audiences need to know also makes it harder to keep a focus on the COVID-19 database – especially at a small organization like

“With the Deb Haaland news, and with so much happening this year, I haven’t been able to update our database with the death toll,” says Bennett-Begaye. “But it's climbing up there. I guarantee it. There's probably more than maybe close to like 2,000 deaths that we're not catching due to the lack of data. We’re trying our best. We have our small team. But we're trying to do our best to capture it and see the big picture of it all.” 

History records that the 1918 Flu Pandemic ravaged Native communities, yet there is relatively little documentation on the depth of loss in tribal nations. The duty to chronicle 2020’s crisis is at the top of Bennett-Begaye’s mind.  

“I think it's really important for us to document the stories that are happening – and to not have our people be another number, another statistic, or another asterisk in the data, right?... I think our job is to make people not feel invisible, to make them feel seen and heard…because you know, the people who are dying every day, in tribal nations are people who are loved. People who are aunts, uncles, moms, dads. They matter just as any other person, any other white person who's dying too.”  

Bennett-Begaye lost her cheii (“maternal grandfather” in Navajo) in the pandemic. “It's hitting my own tribe really hard,” she observes. “That's why I came home.”

She recalls how her cheii used to go get the mail, an activity that ceased when the pandemic took hold. “He would dress to his best every day, and at 9:45 [or] 9:50, he’d go drive to the mail in his boots, his nice jeans ironed, his button up shirt, ironed, his cowboy hat, and his nice watch. It was just so neat to see that every day.”  

Bennett-Begaye recalls her cheii as “a quiet guy. So, I don't know if he talked to people. But some social interaction was very helpful. To go out and about. When the pandemic hit, it cut off all social contact and movement. And I think that really took a toll on him. I know that's what a lot of people are saying across the country. The isolation has taken a huge hit on the elders.”

Bennett-Begaye was in line for a COVID-19 test when an insurrection aimed at stopping the count of the Electoral College swept through the U.S. Capitol. 

The assault on the Congress began as she and her sister were driving to a testing site. “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ I was using my hotspot on my laptop, trying to be on phone calls,” she recalls. “‘We're okay if we can do a phone call in five minutes. Hold on. Let me just get the swab of my nose.’”

The inauguration of President Joe Biden was a signal event for Bennett-Begaye, especially since she was preparing for yet another promotion, this time to Managing Editor.

“I've been obsessed with U.S. presidents since the fifth grade... So, to actually be there and witness it: The little girl inside me was so amazed,” Bennett-Begaye says. And while she did take precautions for an event with a heavy security presence and a threat of violence, the main struggle turned out to be “just trying to keep warm, and keep my hands warm so I could type.”

’s statistical database has also been on Bennett-Begaye’s mind, as its recent effectiveness  was slightly hampered by a lack of volunteers and cash. “This project is really not funded,” she admits. “So it falls to the bottom of everyone's list, even though it's a very important one.” 

Yet there are glimmers of progress as well. She observes that because Facebook is a key hub of communication for all things Indian Country, engineers were deploying data scraping algorithms to comb through social media posts and data for tribal updates on cases and deaths.

“From the dirty laundry to anything informational,” she says, “you're going to hear about anything and everything [on Facebook].”

Indigenize the Narratives (February 4, 2021)

Her new job as Managing Editor has provided Bennett-Begaye with a chance to reflect on her own trajectory. Managing a staff, battling burnout, and getting readers the news they need is essential. But fulfilling her own publication’s mandate to serve Indigenous peoples is also on her mind.  

“I feel like journalism was made for the dominant culture,” she says. “For white men. They created it. And it wasn't made for Indigenous people. We were already storytellers, but I think this industry really didn't have a place for us – so we had to go in there and create our own space.” 

Her goal isn’t merely to tell the stories of Native peoples, but tell them with nuance or,  as she puts it, to “indigenize” the narratives. “I think that's what makes our organization so key in telling stories about Native people and Native issues,” she continues. “Because it is so complex. I don't think a lot of non-Native or even like niche journalists understand that…they think it's easy, but, no, it's, it's really not.”

Vaccine distribution and adoption in Native populations is a good example. Historically justified distrust in the medical establishment in Indigenous communities (ranging from forced sterilization to a tragic underfunding of IHS) would be cause to anticipate vaccine hesitancy. 

But such fears were dispelled as more data came to light. 

A new study had revealed that vaccine hesitancy was shockingly low

 compared to the general public. Tribal nations were leading the charge in U.S. vaccination. 

This good news on vaccines was also personal for Bennett-Begaye. She was still waiting on her own vaccination, as an urban Native, in the Washington DC metro area. But by mid-February, she happily observes that “my whole family, my mom, my dad, [my older sister, my younger sister], my extended family [are] all vaccinated at least with their first dose.”

Reflecting on a year of pandemic, Bennett-Begaye recalls the first moment when the reality broke into her consciousness:  

“I think I recorded ten deaths in one sitting. And that's when I was like: ‘Wow, this is really happening.’ I just had to kind of process it. And my eyes started watering, and my partner at the time was here, and I was just starting to cry. I went to the bedroom and I was crying.  I remember calling my father and telling him, ‘Dad, take it seriously. I cannot lose another person I love. I cannot do it.’”

She adds that losses go way beyond a personal impact: “The people who are dying are elders, and for Native people, that is our culture dying with them, our language dying with them, our stories dying with them. It's not to demean other people are dying who are non-Native. It's just saying the quality of the people that are dying from this in Native communities is heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking, too, because you know, language is what makes us Indigenous communities, right?”

Bennett-Begaye says that the wisdom lost with the death of elders is a torch she wants to carry forward in her work. She observes that so much writing about Indigenous  peoples in mainstream media conveys a message of “poor, poor Native people. They can’t help themselves. But I'm, like: ‘Uh, we survived 500 years. We're doing pretty awesome.’ There's so much [of] what we call 'Indigenous excellence' [and] 'Indigenous brilliance' that they [non-Native people] don't know.”

The deep care that many Native communities took with the elderly is another vivid memory. She mentions that the Navajo nation not only had contactless food drops for older residents, but that some communities  “would also have a red or green card to stick in the window to make sure [they] were okay. If they needed anything, they put red on their window.”

Bennett-Begaye’s database also continued to rise to meet challenges. What started as a personal Excel sheet has become a full-fledged project taken on by Johns Hopkins University, where a research team now seeks to regularize the data collection she had once accomplished through phone calls and follow-ups.

“Right now, they have 76 tribes,” she says. “What we're trying to do is get permission and just build a relationship with tribes. Now [after the election season within Native communities] they're able to establish those relationships, and hopefully get more tribes involved or at least get a place where they can get their links and what not.” 

These links would connect to real-time reported data from the tribes to the database, rather than relying on Facebook posts and other social media platforms. And the rollout of vaccinations has added a new, and very positive, statistic to the database. 

Our Community Needs Us (March 19, 2021)  

Various bureaucratic barriers had kept Bennett-Begaye from receiving her own vaccination. But she finally traveled back home to New Mexico to get her dose. 

“I got in my cheii’s car and I started crying,” she says. “Because I knew I was going to the vaccination site, and I was like: “I’ve got to do this. I'm doing this for him.”  

Bennett-Begaye’s database has tracked the impact that COVID-19 has had on Native communities. But why they have been hit so hard is a difficult question to answer. The federal government’s history of forcing Native people into locations where their health and well-being can be compromised is one factor – and this environmental subjugation has heightened health disparities.

Yet Bennett-Begaye also observes that social distancing is also an issue, especially because Native populations with multi-generational households – and elders whose lives revolve around social interaction – find it challenging to practice. 

 “Native people are so community oriented,” she observes. “We love to meet up and visit and talk and socialize. I mean, we really take seriously that kinship we have with one another. I think when the virus spread like through Navajo… even for my parents it was really hard for a lot of people to process that we can't go up and hug the elder or shake their hands or, you know, see how they're doing. I mean, it was hard for my cheii to not go anywhere.”

’s Managing Editor observes that community has also had positive benefits in dealing with the pandemic. “They did a study with around 3000 Native people to see if they would take the vaccine and 75 percent of them said they would,” she says. “And the motivation, the driver behind that, was [that it was] for their community.”  

Bennett-Begaye feared losing her capacity as a reporter as she was promoted quickly into editing positions. But the pandemic year has been a year of growth for her, and for 

 as well. Indeed, the first interview that Secretary Haaland gave was to Native media. 

“We started a broadcast during the pandemic,” she observes. “Who does that? I just think that [the] pandemic was kind of was like a huge epiphany for [our publication]. Our community needs us. We need to cover this. People all the time are wondering: Who would we turn to? Who do we read? And I think we took that responsibility upon ourselves to be that source of information. We do see ourselves as a public service.” 

 is a Program Associate for the Science and Technology Innovation Program (STIP) at the Wilson Center, focusing on STIP’s Innovation Initiatives. Alex also is a Junior Policy Fellow with Cambridge University’s Centre for Science and Policy to research global health policy innovation. 

Cover Photograph: The American flag flies at half staff above the White House on February 22, 2021 to honor the 500,000 Americans who lost their lives in the COVID-19 pandemic. (Official White House Photo by Chandler West)

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Conversations with Jourdan Bennett-Begaye: Managing Editor, Indian Country Today


A COVID Winter: Washington, DC

Dr. Carmen Zorrilla – an OBGYN and full professor affiliated with the University of Puerto Rico (UPR)’s School of Medicine – has been training for the past 40 years for the moment that the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. 

Specifically, it was her deep involvement in care for those who have contracted HIV that helped prepare her for new challenges. “I started the first prenatal screening program for HIV back in 1986 while I was pregnant,” she recalls. “And I started taking care of pregnant women with HIV while I was pregnant. For me, that was very personal. I had a healthy baby while some of my patients had babies that died of AIDS.” 

Zorrilla’s work on HIV helped change the political landscape for patients, as she advocated for measures including universal testing, access to AZT, and closer monitoring of pregnancies. She says HIV has motivated and transformed many of those who worked on it: “If you've met people who work on HIV, you will know that they not only are scientists – they become activists and educators.”

Before the outbreak of COVID-19, Zika had become Zorrilla’s new focus, especially because of the stigmas associated with pregnancies that result in birth defects. She wrote about parallels between her work with HIV and Zika patients, and her harrowing account of surgical practices during Hurricane Maria was 

Zorrilla was eager to meet the challenge of this new pandemic. She set up a testing program on UPR’s medical campus, as well as a community advisory board. Yet the looming need that she foresaw was for vaccine trials. 

Her experience and expertise meant that she wanted to be in the thick of the battle. So she started reaching out to medical students and staff. “I decided that I wanted to be part of a COVID vaccine trial whenever that would come, because I've done HIV vaccine phase one and two clinical trials,” she recalls. “So I started working with my team on an implementation plan. In case there was a vaccine, we would be ready to implement.”

Zorrilla says that the toll of COVID-19 was made clear to her very quickly when a former patient died from the virus. This woman had attended a family gathering on Father’s Day. Ten days later, the virus had claimed not only her life but that of her aunt and her father as well. A conversation with the patient’s sister, in which she recounted her experience of her father’s final moments spent on a telephone, left her shaken. 

“We are dying alone,” she says. “They are dying alone. They are still dying alone… That's my motivation for wearing a mask and all of that. I don't want to be in a bed without anybody, any of my friends or my daughter….To me, that's the scariest part of having COVID.”  

Zorrilla’s work has begun to run on parallel tracks: vaccine distribution and vaccine trials.

Puerto Rico’s health department was central to the first track of her work. They wanted UPR not only to conduct clinical research on vaccine efficacy, but also to become a vaccination center. 

Zorrilla agreed but said she did not want to run the center. She also advocated strongly that the pool for the first wave of vaccination be broadened to residents and students at the university who would also be on the front lines of the battle. “We need to include the residents,” she says. “We need to include the students that are in clinical rotations.” 

Practical matters also became priorities. “I ended up finding the -80 ultra-low freezers for them to store the Pfizer vaccines. I identified three freezers at our campus. They needed to be empty and not used for anything else.”

Once UPR was ready to receive vaccines, Zorrilla prepared a script to share with recipients as they arrived on campus: “I'm getting this vaccine to protect me, to protect my friends, my coworkers, my family, and my country. And I also am grateful for the hundred thousand volunteers who participated in clinical trials, because of them I have this vaccine.”

“I decided that I wanted to be part of a COVID vaccine trial whenever that would come, because I've done HIV vaccine phase one and two clinical trials."

The vaccine trial track for which she had been preparing was also underway. Since it is still early in the process, Zorrilla is vigilant about not discussing too much about the program. Indeed, the company with whom she is working (later revealed to be Novavax) has forbidden public discussion of the trial until it issues a press release later in December.

Yet she is already pondering an unavoidable issue. How can one run a Phase III vaccine trial for one of the most terrifying diseases of the modern era while there are two highly effective vaccines hitting the market already – with more on the way?

“This is a COVID vaccine study that we're going to be starting in the middle of massive COVID vaccination,” she observes. “People need to understand that a study is a study – and vaccination is something else. But people who might be at the end of the [vaccination] list might benefit from participating in a study if they so decide.”

Though the company initially wanted to target healthcare providers and people at risk, Zorrilla believed that participants with comorbidities and those who had to wait to be eligible for a vaccine would be more ready to sign up. Their chances of receiving a vaccine will definitely go up as a result. 

“The [trial] design is 2:1,” she continues. “Two vaccines to one placebo. So [participants] have more chances of getting a vaccine. And part of the script will be, once you get into a study and people are vaccinated and we see efficacy, then people who have the placebo might be placed in a rollover study, so that those who got a placebo might get the vaccine.”  

As it turns out, Zorrilla will end up running both the Novavax trial and the UPR vaccination center. She feels duty-bound to do everything she can, and the ambition to make a difference, but those are not the only reasons.

“Not only do we have a sense of duty,” she says, “but we will do it graciously. I am not doing it all because I have to do it. Yeah, it's my duty. And I will love to do it.”

The side effects of the second dose of Pfizer have taken a toll on Zorrilla: “I already took the Christmas ornaments off and all of that. I was able to work. But it was this feeling of tiredness that I'm not used to. Because when you're healthy, you never get ill. You're not used to having something.”  

Zorrilla describes the caution she uses when talking through side effects and the many other issues surrounding vaccines. She wants to be clear, without scaring away those that needed to be vaccinated or misinforming them. Those who remain on the fence about being vaccinated “could be afraid and delay” and react poorly to messaging about passing side effects. 

Misinformation even extends to fellow healthcare workers, some of whom are using antibody tests that Zorrilla says are “unnecessary” to create a false sense of security in the absence of peer-reviewed data on transmissibility and infection. “People [are] saying, ‘Before the vaccine, I didn't have positive IgGs [antibodies],” she observes, “and now I have positive IgGs. That means I'm protected.’ And that's also a bad message.” 

Yet the growing conversations around vaccines demonstrate obvious momentum. UPR’s vaccination center is fully operational, and there is a clamor for vaccines. Sometimes, too much clamor. Those approved for a vaccine at this stage are health care workers with direct patient contacts, yet she fields emails from those with political connections, or premature requests for access. 

“It’s very difficult for me,” says Zorrilla. “It’s been so intense because I've been bombarded with people with a sense of entitlement, saying ‘I need to get my vaccine right now because I have such and such condition.’” She even got a message in December that admonished her: “If one of my technicians gets COVID, it's your responsibility because they didn't get the vaccine!”’ 

The seamless teamwork of UPR’s schools of nursing, medicine, and pharmacy (all working together for the first time) has been both a revelation and salvation, she enthuses. It stems in part from a sense of duty and public service, Zorrilla adds.

“We had this meeting.” she continues, “where the Dean of the School of Pharmacy said, ‘Well, first let me tell you that even though this has been difficult, I could not have imagined 

doing this. There was no way that we would not do this.’ And the other people in the committee said ‘Same! We needed to do this.’” 

Zorrilla found the exchange “so reassuring. Because I felt: ‘My goodness, I included all these people in this mega job. How would they respond?’ They are my support system now.”

UPR’s vaccination center is fully operational, and there is a clamor for vaccines. Sometimes, too much clamor. 

Alex Long