We teach our kids that
calling someone stupid is impolite, that it demeans, that it doesn’t shine a
bright light on the name-caller, but sometimes ….
The other day I was
reminded of a line George Carlin used in his standup comedy routine: “Think of
how stupid the average person is and then realize that half of them are
stupider than that!”[i] He
also suggested that we should not underestimate the power of stupid people in
large groups. He was talking about Congress. Maybe things haven’t changed that
much in twenty years. Is our life a comedy sketch or is there proof that half
of us are below the mean? The evening news on the Fourth of July was evidence enough;
the beaches were jammed, restaurants crowded, and the bars jumping. Not a mask
in sight. Not terribly smart things to do.
The country is in the middle of a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic and it seems that nobody cares except the sick and the dying. The world is in the middle of a major pandemic and our government thinks this is a good time to exit the World Health Organization. States opened up too quickly and the contagion rate skyrocketed. Churches are demanding to be reopened, to gather people shoulder to shoulder, I suspect because weekly offerings are down.
The streets filled with
protestors for weeks on end, many of whom will be sick in a couple of weeks and
a percentage dead within weeks of that. They seem willing to take the risk for
the cause. The President holds the only large gatherings in the nation,
election rallies, and two weeks later the number of covid19 cases soar and
people start to die. Governors refuse to implement the recommendations from the
CDC to help stem the virus, and now seem surprised that the cases are mounting.
The governors of Texas, Florida, Arkansas, Mississippi, and more are personally
responsible for a large part of the virus outbreak in their states.
Hong Kong, a city of 7.5
million people just had a new flare-up, with 58 new cases. They shut down
Disney Land. Florida, a state with 21.5 million people just had over 13,000
cases in one day and they opened Disney World. The Governor of Florida and the other
states that opened too quickly will have to explain their actions to the
families who take their loved ones to the hospital, never to see them again,
left to die with a nurse holding their hand as they pass. I’m having a hard
time finding the smarts.
Had these governors had
even a scintilla of brass, they would have closed their states, insisted that
people wear masks in public, limited store openings, and outlawed large
gatherings. They would have fought a public health issue instead of taking a
knee for their political leader. If Florida were an independent country, it
would have the fourth largest outbreak in the world. I’m not seeing a lot of smarts!
The President doesn’t
like the fact that the number of cases is rising, so he suggests that we stop
testing people so that there will be fewer cases. His recent re-tweet said
this: “The most outrageous lies are the ones about
COVID-19. Everyone is lying. The CDC, Media, Democrats, our Doctors, not all
but most that we are told to trust. I think it’s all about the election and
keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. I’m sick of
it.” The fact that the
President wore a mask to visit a
hospital, five months into the pandemic, made headlines in newspapers, on TV and
radio shows. It should have been the least we would expect of a national
leader. It should have been happening for months. I don’t see a lot of smarts.
The President, the
Secretary of Education, and a lot of governors are insisting that schools open
this fall, even as the virus is spreading like wildfire. Secretary DeVos on one
of the “Sunday Shows” essentially said that schools must open full time and
that hybrid programs were not acceptable, even in areas where the virus is
growing. Parents want to get back to work, most are tired of home-schooling.
They are even willing to admit that all of the problems their kids had in
school were not the fault of the teachers. Parents also know that they are
gambling the lives of their children if they let them go back into a full
classroom of germ carriers, or send them to live in a fraternity house at
college or in dorms. There are about 57 million kids in K-12 schools in the US.
We know that the mortality rate for young children who contract the virus is
low; about 0.002 percent. That is 114,000 kids, statistically, who might die if
they are sent back to school before the pandemic is under control. Is it worth
it? It’s only about statistics until it is your own child. Let’s use some smarts.
Other advanced and
not so developed nations brought the pandemic to its knees by following good
public health measures. They can now open their schools because they have
“flattened the curve.” We haven’t. Most European countries will not allow
travelers from the US. They are trying to save their people from further
infection by us. We, the US, are the laughingstock of the world when it comes
to fighting the pandemic. We are exceptional for all the wrong reasons.
One thing that is
absent from a lot of the efforts to minimize the virus’s spread is people
taking personal responsibility for their actions. Covid19 parties are held to
see who can become sick first, and win a prize. Some of the attendees are
dying. People are attending family birthday parties because they don’t think
they can get the virus, for any number of reasons. People are refusing to wear
a mask in public because “this is America and I can do what I want.” Where are
the smarts? How about a different line: “This America and I wear a mask to help
stop spread the covid19 virus so that businesses and schools can reopen, and
people can get back to work. It’s the American thing to do.” Were all in this
together, let’s play smart.
Well, I want the country
to open up too, I want to go to a good restaurant, I want people to get back to
work, I want kids to go back to school, safely. The public health folks have
told us how to get it done quickly, and it is a simple set of guidelines. If
95% of Americans will wear a mask when they go outside they will save over
30,000 lives between now and October. If we all wear a mask outside, stay six
feet apart and wash our hands often, the virus will be stunned into some form
of submission. Why won’t people do that? They tell us to avoid bars, restaurants, and crowded beaches. Why won’t people do that? They tell us that the virus is
not a hoax. Why don’t we believe that? Sometimes it is as simple as the fact
that our leaders don’t model good behavior, criticize the healthcare experts,
or just don’t have a real plan.
None of these ideas is
new. They asked us to follow the simple guidance back in March but the
President, a bunch of governors and the public refused to listen. Now we are at
it again, essentially starting over.
They say you can’t fix
stupid!
I think we ought to try to fix it!
[i] George Carlin – American Comedian – 1937 - 2008
