Would you be OK with allowing your mother to die to help bring back the economy? How about your father or grandfather? Or sister or brother? Or you?
The lieutenant governor of Texas thinks you should.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a 69-year-old Republican, recently told Fox News host Tucker Carlson that he would rather die than see public health measures intended to combat the COVID-19 pandemic continue to damage the U.S. economy. He said he believed “lots of grandparents” across the country would agree with him.
“My message: Let’s get back to work, let’s get back to living, let’s be smart about it, and those of us who are 70-plus, we’ll take care of ourselves,” Patrick said. “Don’t sacrifice the country. Don’t do that.”
Most Americans, including those 70-plus, do not agree with Patrick’s message. Recent polling shows 63 percent oppose reopening the economy too quickly.
But a growing number do seem to agree – including President Donald Trump – despite warnings from scientists in his own administration that opening too soon would lead to needless deaths and suffering.
Trump has pushed states across the country to open immediately, even when they have not met the metrics for COVID testing and contact tracing recommended by his own CDC. And many governors have complied.
Trump cheered on protesters who harassed a News 12 Long Island reporter covering a rally Saturday held by a right-wing group, Setauket Patriots, demanding the reopening of Long Island’s economy.
They, like protesters in other states, have argued that a lockdown infringes on their personal liberties. In a sense they are correct. Lockdowns do infringe on people’s personal liberties – the same way that drunken driving laws infringe upon a person’s right to drink to excess and drive a car.
No person’s freedom is absolute. Other people’s rights and safety are a necessary part of the equation.
The president and others have argued that we cannot afford not to open the states.
There is some truth to this as well. The wide-scale shutdowns necessitated by the administration’s epic incompetence in response to COVID-19 have been catastrophic both economically and on a personal level.
More than 36 million Americans have lost their jobs and many business owners face financial ruin.
But opening too soon – without properly addressing the threat to our health – could force businesses to shut down a second time as the coronavirus flares up again, claiming still more lives and further undermining consumer confidence.
Fortunately, the decision on when to open Long Island and the rest of the state is up to Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Cuomo has wisely established a plan to reopen regions in the state based on a 14-day decline in hospitalizations, hospital deaths, new hospitalizations, share of total beds available, share of ICU beds available, number of residents tested monthly for COVID-19 and number of contact tracers per 100,000 residents.
Each region would then be opened in phases to catch any potential spikes in cases quickly.
Cuomo’s cautious approach may, in part, be the result of missteps he took at the outset of the pandemic.
The governor recently said he wished he had “blown the bugle” sooner and acknowledged that his confidence in New York’s world-class health care system perhaps led him to underestimate how hard it would hit the city and state.
“When we heard in December that China had a virus problem, and China said basically ‘it was under control, don’t worry,’ we should’ve worried,” Cuomo said. “January? February? Where was everyone?”
Actually, the alarm bells were going off as early as January in the Trump administration with stark warnings from the intelligence community and scientists working for him.
Unfortunately, those alarms and calls to action were ignored by Trump, reportedly over concerns of hurting the stock market.
On Feb. 26, Trump bragged that the United States only had 15 cases and we are “going down close to zero soon.”
As of Monday, we had 1.5 million cases and more than 90,000 deaths – with the CDC predicting that we will pass the 100,000 mark by June 1. Even with much of the country locked down for two months.
This is a failure that is hard to overstate. The United States has 4 percent of the world’s population and 29 percent of the world’s deaths. South Korea, which had its first reported case in January – the same as we did – now how 270 deaths.
Factoring in differences in population, the United States has 50 times more deaths than South Korea.
As one columnist recently noted, if Trump had been president during World War II, we’d all be speaking German today.
But that doesn’t mean Cuomo could not have acted sooner.
San Francisco shut down March 16 and the rest of California three days later. Three days after that New York closed down.
As of May 15, there were nearly 350,000 COVID-19 cases in New York and more than 27,500 deaths – a third of the nation’s total. California had just under 75,000 cases and slightly more than 3,000 deaths.
There are certainly many differences between New York and California that will be subject to extensive study in the future.
But one thing that we are sure to hear, again, is how easily and quickly the virus spread. And will continue to spread if public health officials cannot test enough people in sufficient numbers, trace those who are infected and quarantine them.
This means taking a cautious approach.
Some people have complained about “quarantine fatigue.” This is understandable, but staying home and watching movies is hardly the same as keeping the lights out during the bombing of London in the Second World War.
Port Washington parents recently signed a petition calling on the school district to hold an in-person graduation ceremony for high school seniors with safeguards to protect the health of attendees.
We understand their desire. Parents, friends and family want to honor this important milestone, but we think this needs to be addressed very carefully.
Young men not much older than high school graduates were among those who defended this country in times of war and there are still a number of people with memories of surviving death camps.
So there are worse things than not having in-person graduation ceremonies.
And as restrictions are lifted, we cannot let our guard down.
Basic steps such as maintaining social distancing and wearing a mask in public must be maintained.
Especially if you are not someone ready to jeopardize your mother’s life in a misguided pursuit of reopening the country too soon.
