Some states never closed. Most
opened too early. We are experiencing the result of a fractured national
administration and a health pandemic turned into a political circus.
The President has lost
interest, the administration is afraid to let him lead the almost nonexistent press
updates because of previous gaffs, and precaution is based on party
affiliation. The governors are on their own, the mayors are digging in, the
cases of the virus are increasing by the tens of thousands every day, hospitals
in the heartland are at capacity, ICUs are jammed with the seriously ill and the
dying. What could go wrong?
Well, plenty it seems. Let’s be
clear about the lack of leadership from the people who should be leading the
charge to quell the growth of the virus. They have failed us but not having an
effective national plan for fighting the virus. They have failed us by squelching
the voices of the scientists, the experts who devote their lives preparing for
these kinds of events. They have failed us by mixing the messages, confusing
the people, and making healthcare a partisan issue. It is true; the members of
the two major political parties evaluate the seriousness of the pandemic in
exactly the opposite view.
The CDC and NIH gave specific
guidelines to the governors to help them phase in the reopening of the states.
Not one state met the requirements of phase one. Most states just opened with
little caution given to the people, other than stay six feet apart and wear a
mask around other people. Younger adults, who still think they are invincible,
ignored even those simple guidelines. The beaches were crowded, the bars jammed
shoulder to shoulder, and stores were filled with too many people. Most felt, I’m
guessing, that the virus only killed older people, those who had exceeded their
expected years anyway.
We all know the “rules.”
Stay at home, stay six feet away from other people, wear a mask if you go
outdoors around other people, and wash your hands a lot. When the pandemic is
understood, when there is a cure or a vaccine, then loosen up the isolation.
Some people, most really, try to follow the guidelines.
There is no doubt that
fighting the virus decimated the US economy. We went from one of the most robust
financial situations in history to near depression style collapse in a matter
of weeks. Nobody wanted to just stay in
the house all day. That isn’t normal for most people. They want to go to work,
kids want to go to school, families want to gather. But, because most people
followed the shelter-in-place guidelines, the experts tell us that we avoided
four hundred thousand cases of the virus. After a couple of months of isolation, people started stirring. They had had enough.
The governors,
especially those who had not really closed down bowed to the pressure. Others
followed suit. And then the perfect storm hit us. The death of George Floyd
brought hundreds of thousands of people into the streets with marches and
protests that lasted for weeks. The flood gates were opened and the virus spread everywhere. People
jammed the beaches and the caseloads went up. People marched in the streets and
the caseloads went up. Some governors who pooh-poohed the seriousness of the
virus are now telling people to stay at home. Arizona has lost control of the
virus. Florida’s governor finally took action to close the bars and the
beaches. Arkansas, whose governor decided to tough it out by not closing
businesses or mandating shelter in place, now has one of the biggest outbreaks
of COVID-19 cases. Texas didn’t want to be messed with and now it’s a mess.
Their hospitals are jammed, people are dying in big numbers and the governor
finally suggested that people should take precautions. California, one of the
first states to shut down, and though they had the virus somewhat under
control, is experiencing a huge surge in cases since it reopened a bit.
Last week, the President
held a rally in Tulsa Oklahoma, one of the states where the number of cases is rising
quickly. Tulsa is seeing record cases with hospital ICU beds full, and
hospitals strained. What better place to have a campaign rally? The BOK arena
holds about 19,000 people, but only 6,200 showed up. The President was furious
about the low attendance. In fact, he should have been exhilarated, knowing
that the majority of his supporters would not take a chance of coming into
contact with the virus, getting sick, and then not being able to vote for him
this fall.
The following
Tuesday, he held a rally at the very large Dream City Church in Phoenix. Nearly
3,000 people filled the space. Videos showed only one or two people wearing
masks, all sitting shoulder to shoulder. Politics outflanked healthcare for the
evening.
When the President
doesn’t follow the suggestions of his own healthcare experts, has no unified
approach to conquering the virus, and instead leaves it up to each state to do
what it wants to do, the least we can expect is confusion among the populous.
What we have is that confusion and the worse outbreak, and death rates of any
nation in the world. The President’s solution is to slow down testing people
for the virus because that will reduce the number of cases. Really?
This pandemic is not the
ordinary flu, nor is it to be trifled with. The virus doesn’t care about our
political views, which state we live in, or our personal preferences. When the
rest of the world is hunkering down to prevent the spread of the virus, the US
crisis is getting more serious every day. Yet, too many people don’t believe
the science, don’t care enough about their neighbors to put on a mask in
public, and they gather in large-close groups at bars. Some even protest that
the government can’t make them wear a mask in public because they are
freedom-loving Americans. Web sites are dedicated to fostering that kind of
gibberish. When did Americans stop caring about other Americans? What part of
the Freshman Civics class did they miss?
The President, and the
members of his administration, should be encouraging us to follow the
recommendations of the CDC and the NIH. Instead, their behavior tells too many people
not to worry, not to follow scientific guidance, not to listen to the experts.
The President should be setting the example, wearing a mask around other people,
staying at home as much as possible, and not launching large gatherings of
people that can infect others. He shouldn’t demand that Jacksonville allow his
convention to meet without proper distancing and masks. He shouldn’t have large
rallies where people can infect each other. If he won’t follow the science, then
the states and cities should. Dr. Fauci, the nation’s leading expert in the
field of virus management is predicting that if we don’t change our behavior
soon, we can expect to see virus cases increasing by as much as 100,000 per
day. At that point, the nation is out of control.
The health departments
of Phoenix, and Tulsa, and yet to come in Jacksonville, should just say no.
Large gatherings should be prohibited in every state of the union and in every
town and city in the states. Otherwise …
The US has over one-quarter of the covid19 cases in the world and the largest number of deaths from
the virus in the world. We have botched this big time and much of the blame can be placed at the feet of our civic leaders who abandoned us in a time of peril.
