Common sense and science aren’t in conflict. Here’s Washington Governor Jay Inslee:
“The most dangerous element in my state today is the virus of complacency,” Gov. Jay Inslee told FRONTLINE in an interview on April 10. “We have to be just as diligent for the next several weeks as we were in the last several.”
Inslee’s comments, part of the upcoming FRONTLINE special Coronavirus Pandemic, come amid an ongoing power struggle between governors around the country and President Donald Trump over when states should start easing regulations shutting down businesses and public gatherings.[…]
“Today, all leaders have the biggest challenge to make sure people understand that as the sun comes up and the daffodils come out, we’ve got to double our efforts,” Inslee told FRONTLINE. “Because you have — you can have as many fatalities as the curve comes down as when the curve was going up. And if you relax too soon, the curve just can rebound and start right back up again.”
Inslee, a former Democratic presidential candidate, has publicly feuded with Trump since a tweet in which Inslee told his followers that the fight against the novel coronavirus would be more successful if “the Trump administration stuck to the science and told the truth.” In response, Trump referred to Inslee as a “snake.”
In his interview, Inslee steered clear of the spat, but said the initial federal response to the crisis had been “extremely disappointing and disheartening,” he said, “downplaying what was an emerging problem, that could only be explained by someone who had their eye on the Dow Jones, rather than an eye on the epidemiological curve.”
The governor also said more federal assistance was needed to produce the necessary kits and equipment needed to conduct widespread testing for COVID-19.
“We need the president to help ignite a national mobilization of the manufacturing base of the United States,” he said. “We got to develop our own in the months to come, so that we can reopen our economy and we can test people as we need to,” he said. “We need that national response.
“Can you imagine if on December 8, 1941, Franklin Delano Roosevelt had given a speech saying, ‘Good luck, Connecticut, building those battleships. We’ll be right behind you?’ No,” said Inslee. “[We] really need more leadership out of the White House,” he said. State leaders, he said, are doing things together “as much as we can,” he added. “But we could use some presidential help.”
Today, Inslee said his state – like many others — has struggled to find personal protective equipment, even bidding against other states to secure what’s needed. “I’m sure that the suppliers are having a field day,” he said. “It would be much more efficient economically and otherwise if the federal government was playing a more vigorous role.” […]
“We have to be very convincing,” he added, “because the truth is that we will save many, many, more people.”
Good luck with that. Just read the post below to see what an uphill climb we are going to have. Millions of Trump Death Cultists are determined to kill themselves and take a whole bunch of the rest of us with them and Trump is encouraging them.
The test results came back on Easter Sunday. Tammy had been feeling “kind of crappy” when she went to her doctor in rural southeastern Oklahoma last week. A sign of possible pneumonia prompted her to get a coronavirus test later that day at the McCurtain County Health Department in Idabel.
When it came back positive, Tammy, who spoke on the condition that CNN not use her last name to protect her privacy, had already quarantined herself. Isolated, she decided to write her governor, Kevin Stitt, the first-term Republican and one of just 8 governors in the US to resist issuing a statewide stay-at-home-order. Tammy had voted for Stitt but she didn’t agree with his decision.Her message to him was simple: “Shut this mess down.”
Just as cases are starting to plateau in some big cities and along the coasts, the coronavirus is catching fire in rural states across the American heartland, where there has been a small but significant spike this week in cases. Playing out amid these outbreaks is a clash between a frontier culture that values individual freedom and personal responsibility, and the onerous but necessary restrictions to contain a novel biological threat.
The bump in coronavirus cases is most pronounced in states without stay at home orders. Oklahoma saw a 53% increase in cases over the past week, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Over same time, cases jumped 60% in Arkansas, 74% in Nebraska, and 82% in Iowa. South Dakota saw a whopping 205% spike.
The remaining states, North Dakota, Utah and Wyoming each saw an increase in cases, but more in line with other places that have stay-at-home orders. And all of those numbers may very well undercount the total cases, given a persistent lack of testing across the US.
Fact check: Trump wrongly declares some states don’t have ‘any problem’ with coronavirusThis trend undermines the notion perpetuated by President Donald Trump and some of his Republican allies that the restrictive social-distancing measures aren’t necessary in rural America — and that these states even offer a model for reopening the country.
“If you look at Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota — that’s a lot different than New York, it’s a lot different than New Jersey,” Trump said at Thursday’s coronavirus task force briefing, adding that 29 states are “in that ballgame” of being ready to be reopened first.”We have large sections of the country right now that can start thinking about opening,” Trump added.
Here’s how they think about this:
A married couple from New Berlin who wished to not disclose their names attended with masks and joined the group on the sidewalk.
“It is happening – COVID-19 is out there and we have to be cautious – but I think as far as businesses are concerned I think that should be a personal decision,” said the woman. “I think it’s just a decision people should be able to make on their own. And if you come down with it and you die, well then that’s on you. It’s a decision that you have to make. If I die because I came here today, well, I guess…”
She shrugged.
“I guess I said my piece. We’re retired. Social security and fortunately have a pension as well. But there’s a lot of people who are really struggling out there. The disease is real and so is what’s happening to people that don’t have COVID-19 and to their livelihood.”
People are struggling, for sure. The government should do more to help them get through this so they don’t have to feel so desperate. But rushing out into the streets or lifting the social distancing guidelines is a ridiculous way to deal with this. Life isn’t going to go back to normal for them as long as sane people don’t want to take their lives in their hands to go out and get an ice cream cone. And, needless to say, it will force workers to make the choice of whether to die or keep their paycheck as they find in states like this that they can no longer get unemployment if their employers says they can go back to work.
I guess the part about it being contagious and killing people who didn’t make the decision to die is just too abstract for people like this. Basically they are saying we all must play Russian Roulette with our lives so they can have their freedom and liberty to kill themselves. It’s insanity.
The notion of sacrifice for the greater good only applies to their “freedom.” So much so that the rest of us must sacrifice our lives to preserve it for them. They have no obligation to reciprocate.