Slowly, unevenly and with fits and starts this country seems to be approaching Italy’s response to the coronavirus – a virtual lockdown of the country.
The unevenness of this shutdown – and perhaps the need – can be traced to a void in leadership by President Donald Trump.
Instead of a strong centralized response, we have some direction from the federal government, some from state governments, some from county governments and some from even villages and school districts.
Several local school districts decided to close last week before Nassau County Executive Laura Curran announced on Sunday that beginning Monday public and private Kindergarten-12th grade schools in the county will be closed for the next two weeks.
This was followed by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announcing that New York City’s 1.1 million K-12 students would be out a minimum of six weeks.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been among a number of governors who have stepped into the leadership void, leading a campaign to increase the scandalously low level of testing kits in New York and nationwide.
On Monday, Cuomo joined with New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont to announce a regional approach to combating the coronavirus throughout the tristate area.
They announced closures of restaurant dining rooms, bars, gyms, movie theaters and gatherings over 50 people, as well as public schools.
Cuomo also made the case that the federal government needed to establish national standards for things like closing schools, businesses and events.
Some federal officials who are members of the White House task force headed by Vice President Mike Pence such as Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, have offered sobering, fact-based opinions on the threat of the coronavirus.
Scientists now expect somewhere between tens of millions to 215 million Americans will ultimately be infected and the death toll could range from tens of thousands to more than 2 million – depending upon how well we respond.
But until Monday, real-world responses of federal officials had been undermined by Trump, who repeatedly downplayed the coronavirus.
As late as Sunday, Trump said the coronavirus is “something that we have total control over.”
This denial of reality began even before the coronavirus was first identified in China in December.
In 2018, Trump fired Thomas Bossert, a Homeland Security adviser whose portfolio included global pandemics. The next month he disbanded the council’s global health unit created under the Obama administration to prevent future pandemics. That meant Trump had no top advisers in the White House with expertise in global pandemics.
When the virus was first identified, Trump rejected an offer from the World Health Organization for test kits. Instead, he turned to the CDC to develop one of its own, a time-consuming process met with problems.
Only now is the CDC along with private labs rolling out the tests. But still too few are being produced.
The FDA gave its approval to testing at Northwell Health Laboratories in Lake Success hours after Cuomo took the federal government to task last week for failing to authorize private laboratories to test for the novel coronavirus and for failing to authorize automated testing,
This has left localities flying blind in identifying the sick and inevitably allowed the virus to spread.
Trump finally appeared to acknowledge the dangers posed by the coronavirus Monday afternoon as the stock market had its largest loss in history.
Trump recommended Americans stop unnecessary travel and avoid bars, restaurants and groups of more than 10 people. He also warned that the outbreak could extend well into the summer.
But the guidelines are not mandatory and fall short of a national quarantine and internal restrictions, which many health officials had urged.
Both in tone and in substance, Trump did appear at least for one day to finally acknowledge the crisis this country now faces.
But, in a conversation with governors, Trump told them to try to get ventilators and other equipment on their own.
There is now widespread agreement that the goal is to contain the speed of the spread of the virus so that hospitals are not overrun.
In an op-ed article in The New York Times on Monday, Cuomo called for the federal government to order the Army Corps of Engineers to begin finding buildings and constructing facilities to deal with the coming increase in coronavirus cases that could overwhelm the current medical infrastructure.
Cuomo said New York State has just 53,470 hospital beds, only 3,186 of which are intensive-care beds. Our country as a whole has fewer than one million staffed hospital beds, fewer proportionately than China, South Korea or Italy.
Cuomo called for Trump to stop the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “from overregulating the testing process, and authorize states to certify a wider array of testing labs and methods.”
And he called on the federal government to establish uniform federal standards for when cities and states should shut down businesses and schools, or cancel events.
Consumers have dramatically begun cutting back on spending and businesses on staff. The financial impact on the workforce will be enormous – especially if the pandemic lasts for months, as expected.
The House of Representatives, working with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, developed legislation last week, providing paid sick leave to Americans affected by the pandemic.
But the bill, passed by the House, covers only 20 percent of the private-sector workers. And the Senate took a three-day weekend and has yet to take up the legislation.
Only the federal government has the ability to address the financial costs to businesses – especially small businesses and employees who lose their jobs.
The pandemic cannot be stopped. But its impact can be minimized.
We just need all levels of government to do their jobs for that to happen.
