WE ARE AT WAR: THE VIRUS CRISIS
For the moment the presidential election campaign seems to have faded into the background and the impeachment trial seems to be ancient history. Most people are now focused on the oncoming corona virus crisis. As a nation we have, in the recent past, been remarkably fortunate. Only the most chronologically mature remember World War II. Our police action (read war) in Korea and the long struggle in Vietnam, are now well in the past (a recruit 20 years old in Vietnam in 1968 would now be 72). Being at the moneyed end of the supply chain has meant for many of us that everything has seemed designed to make our world ever more safe and increasingly convenient.
And now, all that seems to be threatened because of a virus. In some ways it does feel like a war. Supplies on the home front are beginning to run out. There is scarcity. Try to buy toilet paper or hand sanitizer! That is clearly only the beginning. If the enemy, in the form of the virus, really does successfully invade then there is going to be scarcity of a lot more of the things that we have come take for granted.
That invasion means that some of us are going to be very ill and that some are going to be real casualties of the war. There will be casualties. We are used to people dying in war. We see it all the time in movies, on television, in video games. When it happens in the real world it is going to be a lot more stressful, particularly for the real victims.
The Trump administration has clearly had difficulty accepting that there is any threat from the virus at all. After he came into office, Trump, without much thought, dismantled the Global Health National Security Directorate of the National Security Council responsible for monitoring potential pandemics, and fired its chief. For three years he has managed to avoid any crisis he himself did not create. Now he seems to have difficulty accepting that his luck has run out.
Relying on the stock market (which has been experiencing a bit of a bubble), has meant that the president really didn’t have to involve himself very much with the actual government that he was elected to direct. He could instead concentrate on communing with his “working class base” and devote many of his weekends to golf at Mar-A-Lago.
Now he must make the painful transition to being a war leader without the ability to blame anyone else. The transition has been painful and has been painful to watch. For one of the first times he is involved in actually directing the actions of his government, of actually governing. It is hardly surprising that there have been missteps. His speech to the nation on Wednesday certainly will be counted as one. The president’s reading of something handed to him made the dangers in his lack of real involvement all too clear.
Still, these are opening battles of what promises to be a long war. Unaided until now by the lack of coordinated help from Washington, the state governments are taking over (a benefit made possible by our federated system). Several states, including Michigan, are temporarily closing all public schools (including Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Washington DC). Most sporting events from high school to the professionals have been cancelled to avoid the accompanying crowds.
And, after a noticeable delay the federal government has joined the fight. Last Friday (March13) Donald Trump, troubled by accusations that he has become a bystander, declared a National Emergency. That allows FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Administration to funnel money to the states to help combat the virus.
Very early yesterday morning (Saturday, March 14), the House, after extensive negotiations between Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin (Ma-noo-chin), passed a corona virus response bill. The bill is designed to provide free testing for the virus and includes those who are without insurance. It will provide a billion dollars in food aid. It will provide sick leave benefits for those who are suffering from the virus or who are a caregiver for someone who is (It is not, unfortunately, universal sick leave. That had to be eliminated as a price for Republican support.). President Trump in one of his famous tweets urged that it be passed. So, when the Senate returns next week (their week off has been cancelled), there is a good chance that it will pass and that the government, including the congress, will have joined the war.
So we are in a kind of war with a mindless enemy. All the thinking has to be done on our side. We are off to a slow start but we are better off than we were in 1918. In 1918, the Spanish Flu pandemic caused the death of more than 50 million world wide. It killed 675,000 here in a population that was less than one third of what it is now. This time our response has been slow and we clearly lack equipment that probably should have been ready (Japan has 14.3 hospital beds for every thousand people, we have 2.9 per thousand). But, we know the genetic code of the virus and eventually there will be a vaccine. In the meantime, this is a war that none of us can escape. The war is real!
H.J. Rishel
3/15/2020
