I look at
the numbers every day, sometimes every hour, sometimes before dawn. China is
not to be trusted. Nor is Russia. I’m always curious about the latest death
toll out of Sweden, a country with a riskier, more self-regulated approach to
keeping people apart. And cheers for long-suffering bell’Italia, finally seeing a
drop in active Covid-19 cases.
All
of us want the same thing — a road map to the way out. The scientific consensus
is clear and not that complicated: We need a significant upgrade of testing,
contact tracing to track the infected, nuanced and dutiful social isolation,
all to buy time until a vaccine is developed.
But
the political way out reveals a stark divide, and some true madness. For
Republicans, that pro-life slogan of theirs is just another term for nothing
left to lose. They are now the party of death.
When
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick of Texas doubled down this week on prior remarks elevating
commerce above life — There are “more
important things than living,” he said on Fox News — he was speaking
for a significant slice of his party. People are disposable. So is income. But
one is more important.
I’m
not talking about the trade-offs that governors are making daily, trying to
save businesses and countless jobs, while nursing homes and meatpacking plants
remain killing fields.
But
the lies spread by the crackpot media wing of the G.O.P., led by President
Trump’s favorite radio host, Rush Limbaugh, can be lethal. Covid-19 has killed
more Americans in a month
than the flu kills in a year. Yet Limbaugh has compared
it to a common cold or seasonal flu. Those who believe him are
likely to sneeze freely or crowd together in a grocery store.
There’s
a direct line of responsibility from the Republicans in Wisconsin who forced
voters to risk their lives in order to participate in an election to those
citizens of the Badger State who have since tested positive after
voting — and may die.
For
the majority of state leaders, who favor listening to medical authorities
rather than political hacks, Attorney General William Barr has threatened
legal action if they err too cautiously on the side of public
health. His Justice Department may have to intervene, he said, to help
businesses that “need more freedom.”
All
of this follows Trump’s obsession with money over human life, with markets over
medicine. On Wednesday, just as the United States reported its largest daily death toll yet,
Trump tweeted: “States are safely coming back. Our Country is starting to OPEN
FOR BUSINESS again.” So much for the departed.
He
said this after the number of coronavirus deaths in the nation doubled in
little more than a week, giving the United States the horrid distinction of
posting the highest
body count of any nation on earth by far. We will soon lose more people to
the novel coronavirus than all the Americans killed in the Vietnam War.
Trump’s
open-for-business cheerleading will cause many more deaths. Even Robert
Redfield, Trump’s whipsawed director of the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, warned that Trump’s tweets about “liberating” states now on medical
lockdown were “not helpful.” These
are code words for crazy.
Given
that Trump is an Alpha male simpleton with no filter, it’s never difficult to
find the true motive behind his tactics. As he has said, he wants all the
authority and none of the responsibility. If we lose a quarter-million
Americans, it’s the fault of governors running their respective shows. If the
number is far less, it’s because he took charge.
He’s
against vote-by mail, the least life-threatening way to allow Americans to
exercise their most basic constitutional right, because “you’d
never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
He’s
encouraged life-threatening demonstrations. What’s particularly galling is
using children as props in those protests, endangering their health.
Who
wouldn’t love to bring back the buzz and vigor of normal life? I miss
everything, from the Neapolitan pizza joint to my perpetually losing baseball
team, to hugs and high-fives, even security lines at the airport. I wish we
were getting close to herd immunity, when a large enough percentage of the
population has contracted the disease that it nearly stops the spread.
I
was initially encouraged by the studies out of California which,
though flawed, showed through antibody tests that the number of people who may
have contracted the coronavirus was far greater than the official tally of
confirmed cases. This would indicate that the actual mortality rate is much
lower than the body count.
The
problem is that even if the higher number were true, more than 95 percent of
the population is still vulnerable. The number of people who would die in order
to get to herd immunity would be unfathomable.
When
I think about how many doctors and nurses, how many cops, firefighters and
other first responders, how many grocery store clerks and delivery people, how
many parents and grandparents would lose their lives to get to that immunity
threshold, I realize there’s only one choice.
That
is: to err on the side of life. Lucky for us, most Americans already feel that
way.
Most Americans expect no quick fix. Most Americans are willing
to be patient. And if this holds, most Americans will reject the party of death
in November.
