While we are all discovering the formerly hidden joys of staying at home all day, we do have time to think about what seems to be working and what doesn’t. Of course, there are some of us who feel that in the midst of a health crisis it is not the time to point fingers. Those are mostly the people whose previous views now look myopic at the least.
While we are all discovering the formerly hidden joys of staying at home all day, we do have time to think about what seems to be working and what doesn’t. Of course, there are some of us who feel that in the midst of a health crisis it is not the time to point fingers. Those are mostly the people whose previous views now look myopic at the least.
To begin, where are our friends who spoke so rapturously about cutting back the federal government? Relying on the patchwork quilt of state and local governments turns out to be as effective in quelling a spreading virus as trying to hold back water with a sieve. By studiously cutting back the powers and costs of the federal government, they have left us exposed and unprotected. Concepts like just-in-time inventories and cutting back health care professionals who “aren’t needed just now and can be rehired when needed” have proved to be extraordinarily poor planning. Save a penny, lose a pound, or a life.
Further, what leadership have we seen from our White House? First, we were told that we had controlled the virus. Next, we heard there would be a vaccine soon. That, soon was redefined as 12 to 18 months. Our president apparently heard rumors that chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine might be effective against the virus so he announced it as a possible way to avoid the virus. Several people acting on his words died or almost died from the drug. Others have tried washing their mouths with Chlorox with predictable results. These people may be gullible, but they are citizens who have been misled by our political leader.
Our president has jumped at the opportunity to call himself a “wartime president.” He likes the title, but he shrinks from exercising wartime powers out of fear that if they go wrong, he will be exposed as inept and at fault. So, we apparently must fight this war with governors and mayors instead of with a wise and powerful national leader. In fact, he foresees that all our churches will be packed on Easter Sunday in spite of warnings by the sober health offcials at the CDC that discontinuing physical distancing by then will simply resume the exponential growth of COVID 19. Our unclothed emperor continues to admire his great genius and invisible garments.
I, like so many others, am sure that we will get through this plague and then begin rebuilding the economic wreckage it has caused. But I can’t help asking the question, “What if…?”
John Sucke is a resident of Waimea.
