February 6 marks the anniversary of the first American death from the coronavirus.

Since then, well over 400,000 Americans have died from complications related to Covid-19. It’s likely many more will die before we’re finally over the hump. It goes without saying that no matter who was in charge last year, this pandemic would have killed lots of people. But it’s also true that bad leadership costs many lives, and we’ll never know for sure how many could have been spared.

The story of America’s failure is long and complicated. When the full history is finally written, the depth of those failures will likely shock even those of us who have followed it closely in real time.