OP-ED: Picking the disease or the cure
At what point is the cure worse that the disease? That’s a tough question regarding the coronavirus, but I suspect we are approaching the point of finding out.
In an astoundingly ham-handed action, Gov. Wolf recently shut down a very large percentage of the businesses in Pennsylvania. He declared all businesses either “life preserving” or “non-life preserving” and shut down those he defined as non-life preserving. It is prima facie unreasonable to imagine that even if there are businesses that are purely life preserving, they are not supported by businesses that, by themselves, may not be life preserving. For example, a hospital that is life preserving depends on suppliers of materials such as food, office supplies, cleaning supplies, uniform cleaning and maintenance products. Those probably come from non-life-preserving retail stores. It is very difficult to divide the impact of life-preserving and non-life-preserving jobs on each other. In the end, every job is “life preserving” to someone.
Consider the impact on other services from what the governor has done. Among the services shut down are social services such as some drug and alcohol counseling, behavioral counseling and self-help groups. In stressful times, these groups are probably needed more, not less. They are probably in the life-preserving category in more instances than we know.
Additionally, there were actions that just made no sense from a practical standpoint. The governor took care to shut down all construction activity, including roads, earthwork, bridges, civil and foundation work. With most business shut down and virtually no cars on the road, wouldn’t it be a great time to do road work when it interfered with no one?
In the past three weeks, 1.1 million Pennsylvanians have filed initial unemployment claims. Not only are they sheltering in place but they are doing so without a job and without a paycheck. Many are unsure when or if they will see a paycheck again. Rents and house payments are still due. Business expenses must still be paid. Taxes remain due. In a tragically large number of cases, people will be unable to pay these and they will lose their homes and businesses. Children will not be returning to college. Major plans will be disrupted. Lives will be altered.
We are told by sociologists that it will not be unexpected to see an increase in spousal abuse, alcoholism and drug abuse. The longer the shutdown goes on, the more pronounced the problems will become.
So what are we curing, and when does the cure become worse than the problem?
I know there are many who do not like comparisons of the coronavirus to other diseases but at some point those comparisons have to be made. Let’s stipulate: yes, COVID-19 is virulent, there is, at the moment no viable vaccine or cure, and it can be deadly. That being said, we also know it is not always deadly and that very probably 50% of the people who get it don’t even know they have it so infection numbers are very suspect. We know that with the possible exception of New York City, the virus has not taxed medical capability. We know that regular flu has sent more people to the hospital and caused more deaths than coronavirus. As of April 15, there have been 26,000 deaths from COVID-19 and 60,000 from flu. We know that COVID-19 is significantly more likely to cause serious problems or death in older populations with existing co-morbidities.
All of this suggests that we do not have to lock down the entire population and destroy the entire economy to mitigate the spread of the virus.
It seems to suggest that the majority of the population can exist in a reasonable mitigation mode, which might entail working but with attention to social distancing and good sanitation practices, possibly including masks. Why couldn’t restaurants operate at reduced capacity and increased table spacing? Why couldn’t low-population offices operate with sanitizing practices and masks? Let people make their own decisions about whether to work from home or office. Why is it not possible to buy a car or a house?
The older, vulnerable population will have to isolate in some manner. The odds are against them and those around them.
The choice is not dollars and cents, as some would have it. It is how many may be at risk from the virus versus how many are at risk from destroyed lives, depression, alcoholism, drugs and the virus. The cure looks worse and worse.
Dave Ball is vice chairman of the Republican Party of Washington County and a Peters Township councilman.