Sunday, April 26, 2020
Can Open & Democratic Societies Effectively Confront Epidemics?
Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth. Franklin Roosevelt
It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who
gets the credit. Harry S. Truman
Don't follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you. Margaret Thatcher
I'm a believer in the polls, by the way. Donald Trump
I’ve challenged the existence of
compassionate capitalism when every recent catastrophe and governmental
response has further polarized American income inequality, creating more wealth
at the top and decimating those in the middle and particularly at the bottom of
the economic ladder. See my March 31st Is
Compassionate Capitalism Dead? blog. With the greatest level of income
inequality in the developed world, the COVID-19 pandemic has only made that
schism worse:
“Though the coronavirus itself may not
discriminate in terms of who can be infected, the COVID-19 pandemic is far from
a great equalizer. In the same month that 22 million Americans lost their jobs,
the American billionaire class’s total wealth increased about 10%—or $282
billion more than it was at the beginning of March. They now have a combined
net worth of $3.229 trillion.
“The initial stock market crash may
have dented some net worths at first—for instance, that of Jeff Bezos, which
dropped down to a mere $105 billion on March 12. But his riches have rebounded:
As of April 15, his net worth has increased by $25 billion. Eric Yuan, founder
and CEO of Zoom, was one of the few to see an increase in net worth even as the
markets crashed, and he’s now up $2.58 billion.
“These ‘pandemic profiteers,’ as a
new report from the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank,
calls them, is just one piece of the wealth inequality puzzle in America. In
the background is the fact that since 1980, the taxes paid by billionaires,
measured as a percentage of their wealth, dropped 79%.” FastCompany.com, April
23rd. Since there is no economic growth at all during this pandemic,
where did that 10% wealth increase to the rich come from? Answer: the rest of
us! Ah!
Clear and decisive leadership has
shut down the impact of COVID-19 in some autocratic regimes, well-informed with
laser focus on containing the virus, who have the means of imposing near total
control over their populations. As of this writing, for example, the communist
nation of Vietnam, with a population of 95 million and that sits on the Chinese
border, has not had one single fatality from COVID-19. Not one. Vietnam was and
is also very suspicious of any claims made by its neighbor to the north, taking
every precaution on its own.
“The communist-ruled country [of
Vietnam] has sealed its borders, quarantined masses of people, used soldiers
and police to track down potential infections and fined social media users for
spreading misinformation… But despite their effectiveness, Vietnam’s measures are
not easily replicable. Its intolerance of dissent and ability to mobilize an
entire security and political apparatus — steps more common in China — meant
its campaign met little of the pushback seen in Western liberal democracies…
“Since the government imposed a
partial nationwide lockdown April 1, Vietnam saw only a modest increase in
coronavirus cases to 270, with all but 45 recovered and no fatalities… The
numbers are stunningly low considering that Vietnam — which shares a border
with China — was among the first countries where the virus spread and lacks the
resources of governments more celebrated for their containment strategies, such
as South Korea’s widespread testing and Taiwan’s aggressive digital
surveillance.
“Its results stand out even more as
other Southeast Asian countries struggle. Wealthy Singapore, once regarded as a
model, has seen infections skyrocket among migrant workers living in
overcrowded dormitories. Indonesia, the largest country in the region,
initially ignored the threat and now has the most COVID-19 deaths in Asia after
China.” Los Angeles Times, April 26th. Vietnam is just beginning to
reopen and relax its strict policies.
Clearly, China’s brutal if delayed
response to the pandemic rapidly reduced the impact of the virus. The number of
those infected (including related fatalities) in the United States, even with
significant allowance for under-reporting in the PRC, truly outpaces the same
statistic in China. The United States has the greatest number of CV-19 deaths
in the world, and we are hardly the most populous nation on earth.
But the mere existence of an
autocracy that controls it people with brutal efficiency does not insure that
such forms of government are able to deal effectively with the problem. See my March 16th A
Different Virus, Conspiracy Theories & Autocracy blog for such
failed leadership. Where a fearless leader’s looking good trumps an effective
response to a viral containment policy. The old “garbage in - garbage out”
saying applies to the quality of the autocrat in charge.
It’s not as if democracies are incapable of
relatively prompt and effective efforts to slow the impact of highly contagious
pandemics. However, it is interesting to note that the democracies that have
been most effective in containing this virus are small, exceptionally
homogenous counties (as in Scandinavia) and those with a cultural history of
national discipline and self-sacrifice like South Korea, Taiwan and
Germany.
Democracies with histories of rebellious
independence – France, Italy, the UK and the United States – have failed the
worst, but even without that cohort’s historical predispositions and factions
being considered, those with radical nationalist/populist leaders have fared
the worst. The United States is a classic example, with a science-skeptic
President, shoving operational responsibility to the states, failing to
coordinate a uniform system to provide needed supplies and equipment that only
a central authority can do, underplaying the severity of the outbreak, making
misstatements with regularity, prioritizing money over health and suggesting
medical solutions that actually can kill those who follow his dictates. Our
horrible numbers say it all.
The only leader of a major populated democracy
who is on par with the President of United States is Brazil’s President, Jair
Bolsonaro, who heads a nation with over 200 million people. A climate change
denier and science skeptic, Bolsonaro “has accused his political foes and the press of purposefully
‘tricking’ citizens about the dangers of coronavirus, as Latin America braced
for a spike in the number of deaths.” The Guardian UK, March 23rd.
Bolsonaro,
mimicking Trump’s firing of health officials who disagreed with his dictates
(most recently HHS vaccine expert, Dr. Richard Bright), fired his Health
Minister who refused to minimize statements to the public on the dangers of the
virus. Result? “Brazil
is quickly becoming one of the world’s worst coronavirus hot spots… Amid
unprecedented political turmoil, overcrowded hospitals, insufficient testing —
and a president who refuses to acknowledge the seriousness of the pandemic —
Latin America’s largest economy is being senselessly ravaged by the COVID-19
pandemic.” Daily News, April 25th.
The biggest difference between the impact of
Bolsonaro and Trump is that, except for a dwindling number of populist
diehards, Bolsonaro has steadily lost credibility with mayors and governors
even within his own party, who increasingly ignore him entirely.
In the end, effective containment of
a pandemic, that obviously is oblivious to the wants and desires of its
potential infectees, is a combination of firm, clear, knowledgeable, effective
and early initiative in the nation’s central leadership, absolute adherence to
the truth, preparedness and the willingness to take firm, consistent and often
unpopular actions. The United States has “none of the above.”
I’m
Peter Dekom, and the “everyone for him or herself” fractionalization of America
and the level of support for a totally inadequate and truly dangerous President
do not suggest that the strong and effective country we once were will continue
for much longer.
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