They’ve All Failed

I agree with the caption on the editors’ of the Washington Post’s latest editorial: “Americans sacrificed to flatten the curve. Their leaders have let them down.” I have reservations about just about everything else in the editorial. I’m afraid that Captain Bezos’s obsession with killing the Great Orange Whale is clouding the editors’ critical faculties. I’m going to try my best not to fisk the editorial and instead just concentrate on a few highlights.

First, the elephant in the room. There is one action that could have saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and that action could only have been taken by one person: Chinese President Xi. If China had suspended travel in or out of the country early enough in their COVID-19 outbreak, it might have saved the lives of the Italians, Spaniards, Americans, Brazilians, and others who’ve died of the disease. If he hadn’t suppressed the information that the disease was being contracted via “community spread” as soon as they knew it, at the very least it would have given other countries more time to prepare for what was to come. Those lives are on his head and let’s not lose track of that in political infighting.

Now onwards to our domestic problems. There are things that President Trump was negligent in not doing:

1. He should have suspended all international travel when he suspended travel by Chinese travelers to the U. S.
2. He should have been much tougher with the FDA and CDC. After they’d had two weeks to futz around, producing a test should have been opened to the private sector.
3. He should have used his authority under the Defense Production Act for masks, ventilators, and tests.
4. He should have directed the CDC to come up with a nationwide epidemiological testing plan and put it into action. That should have happened a month ago.

All of those could have been done without a declaration of martial law under legal authority the president already has. Whether presidents should have that authority is a question for another post.

Back to the editorial. I think this is mistaken:

Experts have identified the best strategy: test, to find out who is sick; trace, to find out who may be sick; and isolate those who are suffering. Personal habits must accompany this: wearing face masks, hand washing, physical distancing and avoiding crowds in enclosed spaces.

The strategy worked in nations that pursued it with conviction, such as South Korea and Germany.

What the actual experts on the front lines have been doing is testing to confirm those who are sick and treating them. That’s no national epidemiological plan. Some states have began their own epidemiological testing plans but that’s inadequate.

Additionally, a better diction would be “The strategy worked in strongly cohesive countries with high levels of compliance but, unfortunately, the U. S. is not such a country.” Furthermore, are we actually sure that South Korea has faced the same strain of the virus we have? I do not trust anything coming out of China these days but the Chinese have claimed that the strain they’re seeing now is not the same one they were facing back in January.

The “Test—Trace—Isolate” strategy is not the only one. I’m skeptical that contact tracing would be practicable under our circumstances. How about Portugal’s strategy of isolating the most vulnerable from the very outset? It appears to have been quite successful: their mortality rate is lower than any of their neighbors.

Finally, nowhere do the editors mention the gross negligence on the part of state and local officials that have led to the loss of so many jobs and the deaths of so many of those in “nursing homes”. There is plenty of blame to spread around.

It also should be mentioned that regardless of all of the breastbeating the mortality rates per million population in California, Texas, and Florida remain tiny fractions of those in the Washington-Boston corridor.