Advice & Recommendations from Those Living in a Protective Bubble

THE CURE CANNOT BE WORSE (far worse) THAN THE PROBLEM 

Donald Trump tweet 3/24

If you are a high-ranking government official, state or federal (and some of the big city mayors), you have cadres of officials and actual guards to separate yourself from the population at large. Prescreened and tested staff can get you food and other necessities on an extremely prioritized basis, even though those tests and screening capabilities just might not be available to your constituents. PPE at the highest level. And if you have any symptoms of any ailment, medical staffs and the best doctors available are appointed, with exceptionally high priority, to see to it that you get absolutely everything you need for treatment and care, including the most private hospital care with dedicated and exclusive staff with nothing more than an order to get you into recovery mode fast.

Many of these benefits are also available for the super-rich, everything from concierge medicine priorities (can be really pricey, $10K/month is not out of the question) to the benefits of hospital care at the highest level when you have made multimillion-dollar donations. So, when these privileged individuals speak and make policy pronouncements, regardless of age or preexisting conditions, they know they are both protected and prioritized vis-à-vis the ravages of COVID-19. Without serious personal medical risk to themselves, particularly if they are consumed with money over life and health, they can make recommendations that benefit their economic well-being without much concern over loss of life or other massive traumatic health concerns that could impact everybody else, especially the healthcare workers and the medically vulnerable.

At the federal level, now that the President has shifted the medical response and responsibility to the states, officials know that a second wave – now an almost certainty – can thus be blamed on governors. Given Trump’s rural constituency and his stated belief that the harm to the economy might well be, in his mind, worse to the potential death toll (per the above tweet), it is absolutely clear that without that necessary empathetic tone that has never been present in any administration policies, “it’s the economy, stupid” and only the economy. No body in Trump’s administration who matters remotely faces the health risk that confronts millions living in the Washington, D.C. area. They’re safe.

So, you get policy statements where the President openly supports protest groups, ignoring the same guidelines Trump personally supported on April 16^th. He continues to insist that there are substantial pockets within the country today that can open, and indeed several Republican governors have acted to open public lands immediately. Nuts to anyone who has ever studied how pandemics work. They subside when distancing and other comparable policies are enforced, fading away in time and by newly discovered treatments/prevention, and explode when those policies are relaxed prematurely. The second and third waves of the 1918-20 Spanish Flu killed more people than did the first highly destructive first wave.

Trump advisors are hearing the boss loud and clear, and except for those medical professionals with the relevant epidemiological experience, they are towing the party line accordingly. “Stephen Moore, an economic adviser to President Donald Trump, thinks the U.S. economy needs to be opened back up immediately, despite the very real ongoing health threat from the coronavirus… If the administration waits any longer, it could get even uglier for the economy, Moore said.

“‘Summer is going to be a disaster under any scenario. This disaster will be really brutal. But I think you could start to see by late August, early September, the signs of a recovery where people feel better about things,’ Moore said on Yahoo Finance’s The First Trade, on how the economy would react to a May 1 reopening.

“Moore added, ‘If we wait until June or July, you can write off not just 2020, but the first half of 2021. You’re talking about real devastation. So that’s why I have been such a bull on getting the economy open quickly. Really it’s just heartbreaking, and you see what’s happening with the food lines, with people at the Salvation Army where trucks in some cities are a mile long. We are facing real devastation here, and the human toll is growing with each passing day.’” Yahoo News, April 20^th. Moore really does not have worry about access to the highest levels of prevention and cure. Easy for him to recommend. The toll of reopening too soon is even worse. Just remember, the virus does not care one whit about economics; it has been designed just to replicate!

There are alternatives, Stephen: Money for food, government policies that toll payments without massive repayment obligations, lots of testing so we stop flying blind, and all Americans working together towards  getting us through to a safer time until one of three possible steps kick in: the disease weakens and dies on its own (probably not a viable solution; takes too long if history is an indicated), we have a cure or powerful symptom-reducing treatments or there is a widely deployed and effective vaccine that prevents the infection. Anything else reignites the virus and kills lots more of us. In effect, the nation will have to be willing to write off older and medically vulnerable people, perhaps even denying them needed ventilators if there is a shortage (it appears that the survival rate for those over 65 on ventilators is only 20% anyway). Sorry, Donald, we need to unite, not find more reasons to polarize.

There is an increasingly acceptable willingness among right wing economists to let people die as a priority over keeping a lid on social interaction to contain the virus. It’s more openly discussed ever since Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, on Fox News on March 24^th, stated that grandparents would be willing to accept sacrificing their own lives to preserve a better economic world for their grandchildren and “get back to work.” He noted that, “Those of us who are 70 plus, we’ll take care of ourselves. But don’t sacrifice the country.” Why do I think that the Lt. Governor of Texas just might not be at risk for failing to get his basic needs supplied and receiving the finest medical care provided by his state… at state expense?

So, here’s my suggestion for those officials, state and federal, who force early re-openings. When venues are reopened, social distancing reduced and gatherings permitted, let those officials mingle, mix and participate fully. Substantially. Personally. And don’t forget to touch your face!

            I’m Peter Dekom, and the levels of misdirect and denial have themselves reached pandemic proportions, and there will be tens of thousands of Americans who will lose their lives accordingly.