In a 2018 ABC News retrospective of the first three decades of the epidemic, one long-time activist recalled of the era, "Friend after friend after friend was dying." "The 900th Suicide: Not Just a Number," ran a New York Times headline from July 1991. In its own retrospective from the previous month, the paper bleakly explored,"10 Years of AIDS Battle: Hopes for Success Dim." Of the medical advances in HIV treatment, Dr. Anthony Fauci added a note of optimism in that article: "I don't like to call it a triumph when people are still suffering. But if you take it in a vacuum, it's quite impressive." However, the article still concluded, "As the AIDS epidemic begins its second decade, researchers and advocates for people with the ailment have each painfully abandoned their once keen hopes of bringing the scourge quickly under control."

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Activist and writer Larry Kramer offered scorching and desperate remarks in 1991 - with all the searing (if defensive) vitriol that made him enemies but would ultimately make him the standard-bearer for excoriating governmental and cultural responses to the epidemic. (The video contains language some may find offensive.)