The effect of Covid-19 on Vermont politics is way down the list of pandemic-related concerns — somewhere below massive unemployment, food insecurity, a likely housing crisis, crippling blows to agriculture, tourism, small business, independent retail, public and private education and state and local tax revenues. (And a bunch more.)

But this is a #vtpoli blog, so the topic du jour is Our Lost Political Year.

The above chart, published by the New York Times, shows that our country is still in the throes of Covid-19’s first wave. The soul- and economy-crushing “stay home” regimen was supposed to buy us enough time to prepare a thorough defense program of testing and contact tracing. Which our federal government has completely failed to deliver. Hence, we’re stuck on the first-wave plateau while harder-hit but better-governed nations like Italy and Spain have seen vast reductions in new cases.

And no, I never thought I’d write the phrase “better-governed nations like Italy.”

Back when I was semi-gainfully employed, I wrote a pair of speculative columns about how the pandemic was affecting the process of politics — as candidates tried to figure out how to campaign without any person-to-person contact. No door knocking, no public forums or debates, no fundraisers.

And we’re still stuck right there, with less than two months to go until the primary election.

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