Memo - How we got here: COVID-19 in the U.S.

It’s difficult to describe how events have turned in the past several months in the United States. The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a major toll in the U.S., and life as we know it has been upended.

The U.S. remains the global leader in COVID-19 cases. The economy took a nosedive and as cases continued to spread, the recovery slowed. Much of the country is under various guidelines to enforce social distancing, the return of students to schools has been hampered by outbreaks with countless learning online, tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs. Tragically, 223,000 Americans have lost their lives.

But things perhaps could look different if not for key missteps and weeks of downplaying the risk of the pandemic by the Trump administration, and months of missed opportunities to get the virus under control. In the memo below, our team is keeping an updated timeline of events that led to this outbreak that continues to plague our country.