California Goes It Alone in the War on Covid
These are the stories you, dear reader, found the most compelling in an extraordinary year.
The battle rages on.
Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images
Today, we’re highlighting 10 of the most popular stories we published in 2020. The biggest: Francis Wilkinson’s take on the early days of the battle against Covid-19, which was viewed more than 2 million times. In April, California Governor Gavin Newsom took certain matters — the federal government’s listless response, acquiring PPE for hospitals — into his own hands, rekindling the debate over states’ rights in the depths of a national crisis.
California this week declared its independence from the federal government’s feeble efforts to fight Covid-19 — and perhaps from a bit more. The consequences for the fight against the pandemic are almost certainly positive. The implications for the brewing civil war between Trumpism and America’s budding 21st-century majority, embodied by California’s multiracial liberal electorate, are less clear.