The United States is in crisis, an all-encompassing situation resembling the Great Depression, or World War II. Over half a million Americans are known to have COVID-19, perhaps millions more were infected, and don\u2019t know it. Over 28,000 are known to have died from the disease. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, because we haven\u2019t developed the testing capacity to know, many more have died from COVID-19, but are listed as dying from heart attacks, or pneumonia, or simply \u201cold age\u201d. The disease is burning through nursing homes and assisted living centers. For many there, the only \u201cremedy\u201d given is to sign a \u201cDNR\u201d, a do-not-resuscitate order. Hospice care may be their only medical treatment. To quote an old Republican, \u201cWe don\u2019t know what we don\u2019t know\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The economy of the United States is literally closed. Twenty-two million Americans are seeking unemployment benefits. Economists estimate that the unemployment rate, at three percent as recently as February, will climb to twenty percent this month. Many are clamoring to \u201cre-open\u201d the economy, regardless of the health consequences. They say that the impact of keeping the economy closed weighs greater than the deaths that opening it may cause. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a cold-blooded logic, a willingness to sacrifice others to end personal economic suffering. Of course it\u2019s wrong, but more importantly, it\u2019s Un-American. We cannot, or at the least, we must not, build a new economy on the deaths of the old, and the sick, and the unlucky. What will our children say \u2013 thanks for starting the economy and sacrificing grandma and grandpa? We must not climb on the bodies of those dead to end our financial distress and our discomfort with social distancing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are solutions. Many of the state Governors are working on them, developing how to weather the pandemic, and then re-open their businesses. Those Governors unanimously are calling for a strategy of containment: testing for the disease, quarantining the infected, and allowing those that are immune or disease free to go forward. Testing and tracing is the answer for all, except the President of the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The President is bent on distracting the nation from that particular subject, testing.\u00a0\u00a0On Monday he spent hours attacking the media.\u00a0\u00a0 Tuesday in the Rose Garden, he tried to place blame for the pandemic on the World Health Organization.\u00a0\u00a0On Wednesday, shivering back outdoors, he blamed Senate Democrats for not approving his personnel requests, and threatened a Constitutional crisis with the Legislative branch.\u00a0\u00a0As if anyone believes having an\u00a0acting\u00a0director of the Voice of America is preventing him from dealing with the crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We know that Mr. Trump was let down by many of his \u201cfriends\u201d in the business community. The top executives the Administration who were included as part of the \u201cstart-up committee\u201d didn\u2019t know that they were invited, and many don\u2019t want to join in. And of the ones who are willing to participate, many are warning that a start-up followed by a shutdown because of a rise in infection is worse than no start-up at all. Most Governors are saying the same thing: too soon is worse than waiting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So Trump picks a fight with three \u201cpopular\u201d targets: the New York Times, the World Health Organization, and, of course, the Democrats in the Senate. All familiar targets, and all far off the point of what our nation needs to do now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We have the technology to make all of this work. Just as we built thousands of ventilators in weeks, we could do the same with blood testing machines. And while in the \u201cold days\u201d health \u201cdetectives\u201d had to do contact tracing, we can now do it through technology. Yes, the health department would have to access your cell phone, and THEY would know if you had COVID, or contacted someone who did. \u201cBIG BROTHER IS NOW\u201d the civil libertarians cry out, and I get their concern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But we allow Facebook, and Google, and hundreds of other private businesses access to all of our personal concerns.\u00a0\u00a0Kroger knows when I walk in the store, they tell me on my phone.\u00a0\u00a0Facebook sends me ads for men\u2019s clothing and used RV\u2019s.\u00a0\u00a0Google has my online sales records.\u00a0\u00a0If we are giving all that information to them for marketing purposes, why in the world wouldn\u2019t we give the Health Department access to our COVID-19 status?\u00a0\u00a0If that\u2019s what it takes to control this pandemic, it\u2019s worth the \u201crisk\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Should we as a nation fail to test and contain, then we face a stark choice.\u00a0\u00a0If we open, we make the immoral choice of sacrificing others for our financial wellbeing.\u00a0\u00a0Or we stay closed, socially distanced, until we have a vaccine.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then the \u201canti-vaxxers\u201d can have their crazy say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"