Three months ago, I wrote that this could be our “greatest generation” moment. I think we are failing. If you are following the science, you know three things. The virus isn’t going anywhere on its own until its ability to infect has been stopped by herd immunity, if indeed, herd immunity applies to this coronavirus. Second, the only chance to stop the virus is with a vaccine and it appears that a mammoth global effort is underway to create one, but it will take a while. Third, the only way to reduce the number of infected people and, ultimately, the number of deaths is to protect yourself from infection until either we get a vaccine, or the virus runs its course. To this you can add a caveat that therapeutic drugs seem to be emerging that can reduce fatalities and get infected people into recovery more quickly.
Now, how is this getting played? The big news right now is the huge growth in positive cases and hospitalizations in Texas, Florida, Arizona and California. These are facts. For the White House Task Force, this terrible trend is occurring in spite of the wonderful cooperation and sacrifice of the American people. Oh, is that right? It seems to me that the pictures I see on TV, for an assortment of reasons, are people standing, sitting, reclining inches from each other in violation of most of the dictates of social distancing. Why are they doing this? Their social demonstration is more important? They are ignorant and don’t know how to protect themselves, which means they are paying attention to about nothing? Or they don’t give a shit? It is all about them. They won’t be told what to do. They don’t believe in any of this. Selfishness. But did the White House Task force really call these people out? Did they show outrage? Did they assign blame? Of course not. Someone will not let them call it as it is. So, they sugar coat everything.
But, how does CNN report on this with their wide body of experts: we opened up the Country too quickly; CDC set out their long list of preconditions for re-opening and many didn’t follow. They don’t say, if everyone had followed the rules, we would have been able to create as safe an environment as possible. But we did not do that! Yes, only the very old and infirm can isolate, and only then with a lot of help from family and neighbors. Yes, infections would go up. Deaths would increase. But this is out time, and this is the price we must pay to keep our society intact. Indeed, this is a war. There will be causalities. This is not what I hear CNN saying.
The simple fact is that we have had only one way to hold off the virus until we got a vaccine and that was to stay clear of each other, wear a mask in public places, become obsessive about cleansing, when appropriate wear other protective garments, such as gloves, and redesign/configure both our work and play environment to live within these principles. WE HAVE KNOWN THIS SINCE MARCH.
Yes, in some cases, work productivity would decline. In some cases, the social contact you wanted to enjoy would need to be put off for a good while. But the alternative is now staring us in the face: starting all over without the $3T in funding, closing down, bull-dozing the economy and needing to deal with the same clowns – and I definitely mean you if you are not protecting yourself – who messed everything up. This is the greatest generation? Give me a break. I see too much weakness. And for those of you who don’t believe the science. Hey dummy, look at that computer you carry in your pocket and imagine, if you know how, the degree of science that made that happen. You believe that don’t you.
Why has this happened? One person, and only one person, could have struck the right balance between not getting sick and getting our economy back working. He had the tools. Use the bully pulpit. Tell everyone: be a patriot and protect yourself. Believe the science. We have told you how to do so. Yes, there is still a risk you might get sick. Think about the greatest generation. Do everything you control. Use your brain and reconfigure both your work and your play environment. We will help you.
Only the President could have cut through all of the factionalism, persuaded the science deniers, appealed to patriotism, pulled all the Governors into line behind the CDC guidelines and created huge social pressure. These practices needed to be sold. Every day. In TV adds. By influencers recruited by the President. And what has happened instead? The number one science denier, the one mistrusting the experts more than anyone is sitting in the White House. We absolutely could not afford to have this person pushing back on what we needed to do. And he did. And he does. And his behavior is just outrageous.
