By Donald A. Loucks, TEM
Submitted 5 April, 2020
After having our lives severely restricted for the last month, some of us are beginning to wonder if this extreme curtailment of normal American life is still necessary to address the coronavirus pandemic. Some public health professionals are using new data to recommend a different course to protect both health and the global economic future.
But first, it is appalling that so many ninny-nannies are chiming in to criticize President Donald Trump’s leadership amid the pandemic. To compare Trump’s actions to President Barack Obama’s is specious at best. While Obama may have held a meeting to discuss possible responses to public health risks, it should be remembered that it was under the Obama administration that funding for emergency health supplies was cut, thus leaving our nation vulnerable to what we are facing today.
So, why are we taking the extreme path we are currently on? When dealing with an emergency situation, good emergency managers must constantly evaluate the situation, note changes and adapt as quickly as possible. The original method was defined as the “OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act, then repeat) Loop” by U.S. Air Force Col. John Boyd, known as the fighter pilot who redefined modern warfare. This is now a standard business philosophy.
The point is Trump and his expert advisers can only make decisions by analyzing the data presented to them. In the early stages of a pandemic the data will not be 100% accurate or useful, but it is all we had. As more information is reported and analyzed, corrections to course should be made quickly.
Epidemiologist Dr. John Ioannidis from Stanford University and others are now saying that the drastic action we are now taking may not be needed in the light of new, more complete data.
Not all countries compile disease information in the same way. For example, one European country assigns cause of death of a patient with COVID-19 — the disease caused by the coronavirus — if the patient was infected even though the patient had other life-ending illnesses. In other words, the patient was at death’s door to start with.
It now appears that a reevaluation of America’s drastic shutdown is warranted.
We must consider what the long-term benefit to shutting down our economy as opposed to the long-term cost thereof? Sweden did not shut down but cautioned it citizens to take extra steps to prevent the spread of the virus. There has been no catastrophe there.
Many states such as Iowa have few cases and do not need to take the same measures as New York City. The point is, the shutdown is also killing us economically.
The unemployment rate today is likely higher than any point since the Great Depression, according to the New York Times, with the Labor Department reporting last week that almost 10 million Americans applied for unemployment insurance in the previous two weeks. The long-term effects may include the loss of thousands of businesses, compounded poverty, severe mental health issues dealing with loss of income and homes and shortened life expectancy.
The economic consequences of long-term and repeated shutdowns are very dire indeed. Congress approved and Trump signed a massive $2 trillion emergency pandemic package that included Democrat-added funding for frivolous areas such as fine arts and pet projects plus attempts to revise the voter law.
We are at a cross-road. All this massive spending must be paid for at some time. So, remember how much of our debt communist China holds.