The picture continues to worsen. The U.S. just broke the 150,000 mark on Covid-19 deaths. The highest in the world. The U.S. recorded roughly 4,500,000 confirmed Covid-19 cases in the last six months since the pandemic hit the U.S. in February. As the graphs clearly show, the states that took aggressive, defensive action in the beginning kept their numbers down. Those that opened early and disregarded defensive action sky-rocketed with new cases and deaths.
John Hopkins University Center for Health Security said: “Unlike many countries in the world, the United States is not currently on course to get control of this epidemic. It’s time to reset.” They recommend the following: federal, state and local mandated mask wearing in public; limit large, indoor gatherings; in areas where transmission is worsening, stay-at-home orders should be reinstated; and states should stop high risk activities and settings in areas that have rising test positivity. They also recommend that federal leadership should improve testing and emphasized that the U.S. response to the epidemic will be severely constrained without a reliable and efficient testing system.
As we all by now realize, this epidemic is the worst disaster the world has experienced since the Second World War. In a way, it is like a powerful weapon set off by an unknown, sinister enemy to conquer the world disguised as a virus. Something that you would only expect to see in a Steven Spielberg science fiction movie. Yet, it is real, and we are all experiencing it in living color. For all we know, it may be a weapon that the scientists have yet to discover. From the stats and our evolving knowledge of the virus, we do know that there is a lot we do not know, except that it is stealthy, extremely contagious, deadly, and operates often through the innocent including our family and friends in planting its deadly venom.
You would think that the most powerful nation in the world whose primary responsibility is to protect the safety of its citizens, would have used its might, with all of its resources, to be out in front leading the alliance in defense of this attack. That it would be first among the developed nations, and not the last. Was this failure our Maginot Line?
Leaders in fighting a war know that you fight like hell with the weapons you have and you work like hell to build the weapons you need. We knew from the outset that the only weapon we had to fight this enemy was to isolate it down to the last human being it could occupy. At that point, its flame would burn out.
We knew that the only way we could do that was to put barriers between every person so that the virus could not leap from one to another. That required wearing masks, six feet social distancing, washing hands and use of sanitizers and avoiding crowds and close contact with others. Unfortunately, some of those entrusted with our defense were slow on the uptake and never took the danger of this virus seriously, even to this day after over 150,000 Americans have lost their lives. That is about what a hydrogen bomb could do if it landed in the center of one of our large cities.
To make matters worse, instead of a “no holds barred” effort to build the weapons we needed such as mass testing capability, masks and protective gear, medical supplies and equipment, legitimate vaccines and treatment medication; their effort was lack luster, and in some ways, even worse, with a touch of the traveling medicine man peddling his magic potions and false hope.
Some will say, “this is all politics between the ‘masks’ and the ‘no masks’ tribes and we should stay out of it.” To those I say, “Get a fiddle, go watch Rome burn.” To the rest of us I say, “No, Mr. Chamberlain, this is no time to stand quietly by and appease those who try to lead this great nation and all of us down the primrose path.”